Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Who Visits Florida in the Summer?
Jen, Anne and I made a quick trip to Tampa last week to visit Jen's parents, Marge and Tom. They are trying to decide whether to give up their golf community home of 20 some years for a continuing care community. Such communties require a fairly hefty, non-refundable entrance fee upfront -- at least $100K . Residents then pay a monthly fee which covers all maintenance and upkeep, utilities, and taxes. Sometimes meals are included in the monthly fee. As age and health require, residents may move from independent living to assisted living to nursing home care. Hence, the "continuing care" concept.
We visited St. Mark Village in Palm Harbor, founded in 1980 by a local Lutheran minister. His son, Doug, gave us the tour. As the photos in the gallery show, it's a nice enough place. Unlike many continuing care communities, St. Mark offers guaranteed care meaning if you run out of money they'll pick up the tab as long as a you live.
If you want to go the continuing care route, it's best to decide early on, i.e. when you have a few good "active" years left otherwise that upfront fee is going to be difficult to recover. If you're in failing health and well on in years then it would seem to make more sense to begin spending that entrance fee on in-home assistance and, perhaps eventually, an assisted living and/or nursing care facility.
Other odds and ends
 |
| Florida in June |
We visited St. Mark Village in Palm Harbor, founded in 1980 by a local Lutheran minister. His son, Doug, gave us the tour. As the photos in the gallery show, it's a nice enough place. Unlike many continuing care communities, St. Mark offers guaranteed care meaning if you run out of money they'll pick up the tab as long as a you live.
If you want to go the continuing care route, it's best to decide early on, i.e. when you have a few good "active" years left otherwise that upfront fee is going to be difficult to recover. If you're in failing health and well on in years then it would seem to make more sense to begin spending that entrance fee on in-home assistance and, perhaps eventually, an assisted living and/or nursing care facility.
Other odds and ends
- I've never been to Florida in summer. I've heard it's hot. It is, but no more so than Maryland.
- I finally saw my first alligator in the "wild" -- an 8 or 9 footer crawled out of the pond behind Tom and Marge's house and saundered across the lawn to the pond next door.
- Why do politicians allow developers to develop without adequate, safe access to their developments. ( I think we all know the answer to that one.) It's frightening watching 90 year old drivers making left turns onto four lane highways without benefit of a stop light.
- The round-trip airfare from Dulles to Tampa was $356 for the 3 of us on Southwest. If you can't go first class then you can't beat Southwest. The seats are relatively comfortable and clean and the crews are great.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Overcharged?
Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won’t pay for a roof, won’t pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far $5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore
Need a loan to tide you over 'till payday? Well, you no longer have to deal with the likes of Tony Soprano, just hop on down to your Wells Fargo bank. The vig is competitive with Tony's -- 120% APR -- with less potential wear on your kneecaps.
We used to call it loansharking and it was illegal. Now, it's called "sub-prime lending" and its legal. And, it's an increasingly sophisticated big business according to a Business Week special report.
Outfits named in the report that are on the frontlines of the "alternative financial services" sector include J.Y Byrider, Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, Baltimore-based Bluehippo Funding and Compucredit. If you've never heard of these guys, then how about Bank of America, U.S. Bancorp, Merill Lynch, GMAC Financial, Sallie Mae, or HSBC Finance? These are some of the mainstream financial institutions playing an increasing role in this arena. For example, the report notes that Merrill Lynch works with CompuCredit to "package credit-card receivables as securities which are bought by hedge funds and other big investors."
Kevin Phillips does an excellent job in American Theocracy explaining the cultural big picture on the "financialization" of the U.S. economy which Phillips views as a sign of "late-stage debilitation, marked by excessive debt, great disparity between rich and poor, and unfolding economic decline" (p.268). He also notes that ordinary citizens "suffer most, but they usually lack the expertise to fully comprehend the changes under way." The Business Week report stories the lives of such ordinary citizens caught in the debt trap set by the "alternative financial services" providers.
For those of us calling ourselves Christians, these stories should inspire not only heartbreak but moral outrage that we've allowed this to happen -- "this" being the abandonment of Biblical principle in the pursuit of financial gain.
One question the report doesn't address is whether or not those who belong to a church community are less susceptible to financial predation. Surely, even a passing familiarity with the Great Commandment makes us less likely to exploit our brothers or sisters? I grew up "working poor". My parents were forced to buy on installment back when such an act was a sure sign of moral desuetude to many. Our church, however, was a leveler -- a place where every Sunday we sat next to S.T Kelly, the town banker who owned the mortgage on our house. We knew his character was subject to no judgement other than his Maker's. S.T. knew the same about ours.
Granted, this memory is nothing more than a pleasant vignette from my increasingly distant childhood -- I doubt there are any "town bankers" left whose hands aren't tied by forces larger than the local economy. Still, I am pretty sure Jesus' teachings have not changed -- at least not in my lifetime. I am also fairly certain that good church people might still be able to help each other find the larger truths about life. The ones that don't require a plasma screen television to discover.
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won’t pay for a roof, won’t pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far $5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore
-We Can't Make It Here, James McMurtry,
The righteous know the rights of the poor; the wicked have no such understanding.
- Proverbs 29:7-7
Need a loan to tide you over 'till payday? Well, you no longer have to deal with the likes of Tony Soprano, just hop on down to your Wells Fargo bank. The vig is competitive with Tony's -- 120% APR -- with less potential wear on your kneecaps.We used to call it loansharking and it was illegal. Now, it's called "sub-prime lending" and its legal. And, it's an increasingly sophisticated big business according to a Business Week special report.
Outfits named in the report that are on the frontlines of the "alternative financial services" sector include J.Y Byrider, Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, Baltimore-based Bluehippo Funding and Compucredit. If you've never heard of these guys, then how about Bank of America, U.S. Bancorp, Merill Lynch, GMAC Financial, Sallie Mae, or HSBC Finance? These are some of the mainstream financial institutions playing an increasing role in this arena. For example, the report notes that Merrill Lynch works with CompuCredit to "package credit-card receivables as securities which are bought by hedge funds and other big investors."
Kevin Phillips does an excellent job in American Theocracy explaining the cultural big picture on the "financialization" of the U.S. economy which Phillips views as a sign of "late-stage debilitation, marked by excessive debt, great disparity between rich and poor, and unfolding economic decline" (p.268). He also notes that ordinary citizens "suffer most, but they usually lack the expertise to fully comprehend the changes under way." The Business Week report stories the lives of such ordinary citizens caught in the debt trap set by the "alternative financial services" providers.
For those of us calling ourselves Christians, these stories should inspire not only heartbreak but moral outrage that we've allowed this to happen -- "this" being the abandonment of Biblical principle in the pursuit of financial gain.
One question the report doesn't address is whether or not those who belong to a church community are less susceptible to financial predation. Surely, even a passing familiarity with the Great Commandment makes us less likely to exploit our brothers or sisters? I grew up "working poor". My parents were forced to buy on installment back when such an act was a sure sign of moral desuetude to many. Our church, however, was a leveler -- a place where every Sunday we sat next to S.T Kelly, the town banker who owned the mortgage on our house. We knew his character was subject to no judgement other than his Maker's. S.T. knew the same about ours.
Granted, this memory is nothing more than a pleasant vignette from my increasingly distant childhood -- I doubt there are any "town bankers" left whose hands aren't tied by forces larger than the local economy. Still, I am pretty sure Jesus' teachings have not changed -- at least not in my lifetime. I am also fairly certain that good church people might still be able to help each other find the larger truths about life. The ones that don't require a plasma screen television to discover.
Labels: alternative financial services, Christians, working poort
Monday, June 4, 2007
At Last -- Dairy Goat Gadgets on Google!
I've been looking for useful goat related Google Gadgets to add to the Almanac. I can't imagine why but, apparently, no one has bothered writing any. So, as you can see, I've written a couple of fun ones and added them to the "Almanac".
The first is a "tips" generator which operates kind of like the old Unix "fortune" program.. Each time you load the page, a random seasonally adjusted dairy goat management tip is displayed. These are mostly items which I've found over the years in the American Dairy Goat Association's News and Events newsletter. I'm hoping to add more so please pass on any brief "tips" you'd like to see.
The second is my goat "gestamater" due date calculator which was on the old littlebunch.com site for years. I've updated it by adding a nice little date picker calendar courtesy of Julian Robichaux.
You can add one or both these gadgets to your own web page. You can grab the code for the "Gestamater" by following the instructions here while code for the tips generator is here.
Labels: dairy goat management, gestation calculator
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