Sunday Morning Coming Down

For many years I managed an office that worked with the unemployed, the folks that needed retraining, and folks that received public assistance. It wasn't an easy job when the economy was in recession.  It wasn't an easy job when Miami was being flooded with refugees from Central America, South America, and the Islands.  It was only marginally easier when the unemployment rate was lower, employers were hiring, and the government was functioning. Assistance from the government like unemployment insurance, food assistance, and job retraining in Florida requires that people be eligible for assistance and the assistance is limited in scope and duration. Today, it was reported that there will be a cut in the amount of food assistance provided to those previously receiving assistance.  Some will be cut off entirely, others will have their benefits reduced and greater efforts will be made to get them back into the workforce. There will always be disag...

In my early 40's an admissions counselor from the University of Miami came to my office to talk about what it would take to get one of my kids to enroll.  I was puzzled by this visit because I was single and had no children but the conversation was interesting anyway. I told the fellow that on my salary which was comfortable but not great, I would advise my children if and when, that they should go to FIU or FSU or another state school because it would be more affordable.  I told him that on my salary or the salary of a teacher, a private school tuition was beyond my pay grade.  Back then tuition was about $10,000 per semester, now it is about $20,000 per semester. He confidently said that they could put together a package for qualified students that would make attending the University of Miami similar in cost to attending one of the state universities Today I got an email from UM announcing a legacy admission forum. "As admission to the University is becoming ...

Will Flash Me was entered in the Texas Classic Futurity at Lone Star Park.  This is a big big race that will have a purse of $1,000,000, two weeks from now.  Horses are nominated for the race almost before they are born and their owners must make periodic payments to continue their eligibility for the big race.  Two year olds running four hundred yard tonight for as much as $2,600 and a chance for a big payoff on November 9, 2013. Many are entered but only the ten fastest times will qualify for the finals. A lot of owners entering their best horses for the chance to win some serious cash.  The trials are weird races with maybe a couple of really good horses running and then other horses that are looking for lightning in a bottle. Saturday night ninety eight horses in ten races.  Houdini, Coronado Cartel, Big Biz Perry, Hes Relentless all qualified for the finals along with six other horses.  These are some of the best horses in the game these days....

 I think Ben Carson has been a great surgeon and his story is certainly inspirational.  Tax reform is a good idea.  Personal responsibility is a good idea. Health savings accounts, adequately funded from birth is an interesting concept.  A better educational system that does a better job of rewarding achievement is a good as well. We should all aspire to do the best we can. Doctor Carson has been paid handsomely for his medical talents and in spite of his protestations to the contrary he is doing is own redistribution by helping with scholarships for worthy students. I'm of the opinion that the heroism he has shown in his life is a good thing, but it is ultimately heroic in nature and that it is difficult to reproduce on a mass basis.  Heroism involves something voluntary, service oriented, involves risk, done without the need for compensation. His Mom obviously kicked him in the ass enough mentally if not physically to make sure he got the mes...

Just finished visiting the health care exchange website.  I set up my access to the website and did all the stuff necessary to sign up for insurance. I currently have insurance but it is something I pay for myself and if you can save some money these days on stuff I'm not above doing some research and seeing what the options are. The website is more complicated to navigate than others.  I appreciate the need for security and the complexity of determining eligibility and using data from other sources to help determine eligibility is bound to have some bugs that need to be worked out. The biggest issue that is going to be fought out as this goes forward is that there are going to be fifty plus versions of the Affordable Care Act because it is state based. Some states are going to support the efforts to provide good quality health care at an affordable price and others are going to start, stumble, fart, and fall and hopefully get up along the way. States that decide ...

Now I watch football on Saturdays and Sundays.  The bullfights were literally gory, the football games of today show player getting their brains rattled in slow motion.  Less blood but still dangerous.  After watching a recent Frontline Program on high school football, I have my doubts about the national pastime.  Head injuries from repeated trauma that doesn't even reach the level of concussion can begin in high school.  Orthopedic injuries that leave players crippled are not uncommon and that doesn't include players left paralyzed from broken necks and backs.  In Florida hardly a season goes by without some teenager dying from heatstroke in practice before the season even starts. Today's players are much bigger, a lot faster, and the injuries are more numerous and severe.  My cousin Phil Johnson was a gifted athlete in baseball, basketball and football.  His parents never let him play tackle football because they thought the sport was t...

I live in one of the nicest neighborhoods around Miami in an "old" condo conversion apartment complex that was built in 1950 as military housing I think.  The neighborhood is changing.  A couple of similar groups of buildings were knocked down and were replaced by $700,000 town homes.  Just about all the "older" houses are being knocked down and replaced by larger houses with price tags north of $1,000,000.  If you are in your 60's I guess this is what you have in your future.  Getting knocked down and being replaced by something new.  And so it goes. In the interim neighbors come and go, some renters and owners and the expenses for maintaining property continue.  The housing bubble did significant damage to the association finances.  When 10% of the units go through foreclosure and the process takes a long time it can be difficult for those remaining.  In Florida the situation the earlier investors bailed and now the new investor...

The political battles of late in this country have been bad for this country over all.  The partisanship has spilled over into just about everything.  You don't need an advanced degree in anything to realize that the extremeism that has been exhibited is a crappy strategy and as a tactic doesn't get the job done either. If you believe the healthcare system in this country has been working you are living in a different world than I am.  Being excluded from getting affordable insurance because you have a pre-existing condition or are so poor that you can't afford anything other than a trip to the emergency room.  Yet I think that there is a point to be made that just having sick folks sign up for previously unobtainable coverage won't solve the healthcare problems that exist in this country.  If younger healthier folks don't sign up and we don't figure out a way to lower the cost of health care for everyone, reform as we envision may be a fools errand. ...

Senator Coburn of Oklahoma is concerned about the growth in Social Security Disability payments.  He has a valid point when he says he thinks the program is being gamed.  There has been a change in the way the program is being administered for sure.  Folks are getting approved for the program that would never have been deemed so disabled that they were unable to work in the past. Previously, it was almost impossible to qualify for the program and folks scuffled along and some employers hired folks and received tax credits for their efforts and jobs were restructured to keep others working.  This required an economy that was growing and a much lower rate of unemployment.  When the unemployment rate is below 4.5%  and there is a good chance for a job for all that are looking for work this is not a major problem for the economy. If you watch daytime TV, you a the target market for lawyers looking for work/clients and are willing to take your case to t...

I just finished reading a Face Book posting about I guy that had to stand in line and wait while the cashier and the customer worked out a difficult order that included cash, an electronic benefits transfer card and coupons clipped from advertisements.  He didn't go crazy and there was no rant about food stamps, a refreshing change from what might have been ugly. Bravo I say, no drama, no rage, the groceries go in the bag, out the door and are part of the family's meal for the week or days.  Not that long ago, Mom might have been fumbling around for coupons to pay for the items that were purchased.  In Florida the card gets swiped just like the guy in front of me this evening who swiped his AMEX and was buying a lot of wine and getting an 10% discount for buying it by the case. The usual practice when you've spent too much at Winn Dixie is sort of like a reverse checkout and you get a second chance to decide if you really wanted what you put in the bask...

If you can get Congress to the dirty work I guess you can be anything you want to be.  The NCAA is a tax exempt organization because it claims to be organized for educational purposes and the NFL is a trade organization. Both of these organizations benefit a great deal from the way the tax law treats them.  Some coaches of big time college basketball don't want to pay their schools to be required to pay players and are perfectly happy to collect outsize salaries and money from shoe and equipment companies for using their products.  The scholarships the players receive can be significant benefits to the average players and their families but in more than a few ways the NCAA uses an antiquated idea of amateurism to exercise a control over participants that strikes me as a kind of plantation mentality. The revenue sports pay for the other sports or so the story goes.  If you are good enough to get on TV and fill the stadiums and sky boxes and play in ...

Reykjavik Geothermal is going to build a geothermal plant in Ethiopia in the Great Rift Valley and it will provide enough energy to provide electricity for about one million homes.  Iceland will build the plant and sell the power to the Ethiopian Power Company.  Clean energy in a part of the world that can benefit from some development.  The cost is estimated to be four billion dollars.  Icelandic Review says Icelandic Geothermal Companies have built 30 similar projects in various parts of the world. 

In a few weeks the quarter horses will return to Hialeah Park for weekend racing from November 29, 2013 to February 23, 2014.  The late night weekend concerts may take some time off because the horses need their rest before the afternoon races. The State of Florida gave me an owner's license which will let me visit the backstretch to bring donuts and coffee to friends in the morning.  $120.00 also gets you some interesting e-mails from the state and regular information about how much the state makes from its various gambling enterprises. I've also become careful reader of the condition book which lists the kind of races the track will be having to see which races the Thunderstruck Stable might enter.  The trainer is shooting to enter an opening day stakes race.  In race track terms preference will be given to those horses with the most lifetime earnings for the 550 yard race.  In quarter horse terms the $25,000 race will draw some very good horses....

The Pork Choppers are alive and thrive in North Florida.  Thanks to Fred Grimm a Miami Herald Columnist I've been informed of a manner of gerrymandering I'd really never thought of. Prisons are big business in rural areas and in some rural states for sure.  West Virginia when it became a state had to decide where the state university would be and where the state prison would be.  It came down to a coin toss of sorts.  Moundsville won and chose to be the site of the prison, Morgantown lost and became the site of West Virginia University.  The Moundsville Prison is now a tourist attraction and on many Saturdays the crowd in the football stadium is larger than any other city in the state for about three hours.  Go figure. Districts in Florida are supposedly equal in the fact they each have about 157,700 people in each district.  District Seven in North Florida has about 20,000 inmates in the district.  District Five ...