Wednesday morning is the most likely arrival time of tropical storm-force winds in Orlando.
(Science-deniers will falsely claim, as a matter of misinformation, that hurricanes have never previously hit Orlando and that, being 100′ above sea level, it is not going to be washed away via climate change like all of the rest of Florida. The deniers ignore the fact that we’re in a new age of super hurricanes caused by not enough laptop class members collecting subsidies from the working class to buy electric cars and rooftop solar.)
Separately, if you’re interested in why Disney having its own county is so important, read Buying Disney’s World: The Story of How Florida Swampland Became Walt Disney World. The company told the State of Florida that it was going to use the land primarily to build a city, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Therefore, it made sense for the new city to be able to issue tax-free municipal bonds to fund infrastructure. Given the high rates of federal personal income taxes at the time, Disney’s borrowing costs were thus halved at zero cost to Florida (did not then and does not now have a personal income tax (barred by the state constitution)) but with a big cost to the US Treasury. The Democrats who are passionate about Disney retaining its own county are essentially arguing for continued tax avoidance by Disney.
As loyal readers are aware, when it comes to homeownership I am a hater. The culture of homeownership is a huge drag on the U.S. economy, in my view, for the following reasons:
homeowners spend a lot of time working as amateur property managers, e.g., arranging maintenance or actually performing maintenance, that is much more efficiently done 100-600 units at a time
the high transaction costs, e.g., 5 percent real estate commission, discourage people from moving in response to the availability of better job opportunities
(This is not to say that I hate the single-family home as a living space. But I would think we’d be way more productive as a society if our single-family homes were owned commercially and managed professionally or, at the very least, owned in a condo-style arrangement where we didn’t have to touch anything beyond the interior.)
The “high transaction costs” in the second bullet point above are now vastly higher due to 2022 having become the Year of Mortgage Rate Drama. Someone who locked in a 3% rate, either via an initial purchase or a refinance, is sitting on an annuity that ends the minute he/she/ze/they decides to sell the house and move closer to where the better jobs are, potentially eliminating all of the economic benefit of switching jobs.
Housing inventory has risen from record lows earlier this year as more homes sit on the market longer. But the number of newly listed homes in the four weeks ended Sept. 11 fell 19% year-over-year, according to real-estate brokerage Redfin Corp. That is an indication that sellers who don’t need to sell are staying on the sidelines, economists say.
Larry and Corina Lewis of Tarrytown, N.Y., have two children and expect to need a bigger home in the next few years. But their current 30-year mortgage rate is 2.75%.
“The thought of giving this up in order to pay double in interest, that’s a nauseating thought for me,” Mr. Lewis said. Even if the average mortgage rate falls from its current level, he said, “I still don’t see it ever getting quite that low.”
The lack of housing inventory is one of the major reasons home prices have remained near record highs, despite seven straight months of declining sales as interest rates have roughly doubled since the start of the year.
Economists say it is difficult to predict how much the increase in mortgage rates could reduce home listings, because rates haven’t climbed this rapidly in decades.
Related:
“More Residents Looking to Leave San Francisco Than Any Other Major U.S. City, Report Finds” (Mansion Global (sister publication to WSJ), 9/20/2022): Despite life returning in force to big cities across the U.S., residents are still looking to leave them, and in even greater numbers than they were last year … In July and August, residents of San Francisco were the biggest flight risk. All told, San Francisco had a net outflow of 40,432 over the two summer months, a measure of how many more Redfin users looked to leave the city rather than move to it. Next on the list was Los Angeles with a net outflow of 34,832, followed by New York at 26,786. Washington, D.C., and Boston rounded out the top five. [Other than extended periods of public school closure, what do these cities have in common?] Miami was the most popular migration destination, “continuing a year-plus streak of the South Florida metro taking the number-one spot,” the report said.
Speaking of South Florida, here’s a fan of relocation to Jupiter. Mindy the Crippler’s priorities for a neighborhood are squirrels, rabbits, squirrels, rabbits, and, more importantly, squirrels:
Translation: At the Phoenix, Arizona, early in the morning in London (3:53 am GMT) on the 12th day of the month (i.e., evening on the 11th local time), wind was from the south (170 degrees) at 48 knots gusting to 75 knots. Visibility was 4 statute miles in a thunderstorm with blowing dust. There was a squall (SQ). Clouds will be the least of your problems, with just a few 2,800′ above the airport, some scattered clouds 9,000′ above the airport, and a broken layer of thunderstorm clouds 11,000′ up with one more broken layer 16,000′ above the airport. Temperature is a toasty 31C with a dewpoint of 19C. Altimeter setting is close to standard at 29.87 inches of mercury.
The Remarks (RMK) are tougher to parse. There was a wind shift at 3:38Z and now there is lightning distant SE and SW. CONS LTGCGIC SE-SW means “Continuous cloud-to-ground & in-cloud lightning to the southeast through south” (source). Finally, the thunderstorm is SE and SW, but moving north.
There are billionaires on both sides of the U.S. debate regarding whether we should welcome more low-skill migrants (this analysis by a Harvard professor says that an economically rational billionaire will choose more low-skill migrants). American billionaires are so rich that the kind of money Donald Trump was hoping to get from Congress for an effective border wall (about $11 billion) is within private reach.
Given how important the question of immigration is to the United States, I’m wondering why the billionaires arrayed on both sides aren’t in Mexico City offering to pay the Mexicans to adjust the flow. Democrat billionaires who’ve publicly advocated for more low-skill migrants could, for example, pay the Mexicans to assist caravans of those passing through from the south reach the Rio Grande. Republican billionaires could then step in and offer to pay to get the tide reversed or even pay Mexicans to Build the Wall!
“Governor Ducey Announces Border Wall Gaps Near Yuma Are Now Filled” (https://azgovernor.gov/): … 3,820 feet of previously open border near Yuma, Arizona is now closed with a barrier of double-stacked and secured shipping containers. … In just 11 days, Arizona did the job the federal government has failed to do — and we showed them just how quickly and efficiently the border can be made more secure – if you want to.” (i.e., the federal government need not be the only wall-builder, even on the U.S. side of the border)
“Containers are no hindrance for migrants on Arizona border” (ABC, a few days later): Hours before Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey declared “a major step forward to secure our border” with the installation of 130 double-stacked shipping containers, hundreds of migrants found their way around them, belying his claim. They walked through tribal lands to the edge of a towering wall built during Donald Trump’s presidency to surrender to border agents waiting outside the reservation, expecting to be released in the U.S. to pursue asylum. Families, young parents carrying toddlers, elderly people and others easily waded through the knee-deep Colorado River before dawn Wednesday, many in sandals with shopping bags slung over their shoulders. Migrants continue to avoid barriers by going around them — in this case, through a 5-mile (8-kilometer) gap in the Cocopah Indian Reservation near Yuma, a desert city of about 100,000 people between San Diego and Phoenix that has become a major spot for illegal crossings. President Joe Biden halted wall construction his first day in office, leaving billions of dollars of work unfinished but still under contract.
Until a few months ago, we paid $1.99 for 16 oz. of frozen peas. Now it is $2.29 for 15 oz. That’s 23 percent inflation.
Related:
“Frozen food category surges amid inflation: ‘It’s a dramatic shift,’ says food exec” (Yahoo! Finance, May 2022): Saffron Road’s Durrani added that “frozen is now considered an ESG value,” as well— representing yet another benefit to the overall category. …”Consumers are making a discerning choice to pay up for ‘better-for-you’ brands,” he continued, adding that the brand upped its pricing twice since the start of the pandemic — once last year (+5%) and again this year (+5%). “We haven’t seen any backlash when it comes to those price increases,” he revealed.
Aside from immigration, the big political question in the U.S. is what percentage of GDP should be consumed and directed by government. In the old days, the Federal government was limited to some extent by the Constitution, but today the only limit on the great things that the Federal government can do is our imagination.
The Federal Child Nutrition Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is a federally-funded program designed to provide free meals to children in need. The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service administers the program throughout the nation by distributing federal funds to state governments. In Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) administers and oversees the Federal Child Nutrition Program. Meals funded by the Federal Child Nutrition Program are served by “sites.” Each site participating in the program must be sponsored by an authorized sponsoring organization. Sponsors must submit an application to MDE for each site. Sponsors are also responsible for monitoring each of their sites and preparing reimbursement claims for their sites. The USDA then provides MDE federal reimbursement funds on a per-meal basis. MDE provides those funds to the sponsoring agency who, in turn, pays the reimbursements to the sites under its sponsorship. The sponsoring agency retains 10 to 15 percent of the funds as an administrative fee.
As part of the charged scheme, Feeding Our Future employees recruited individuals and entities to open Federal Child Nutrition Program sites throughout the state of Minnesota. These sites, created and operated by the defendants and others, fraudulently claimed to be serving meals to thousands of children a day within just days or weeks of being formed. The defendants created dozens of shell companies to enroll in the program as Federal Child Nutrition Program sites. The defendants also created shell companies to receive and launder the proceeds of their fraudulent scheme.
To carry out the scheme, the defendants also created and submitted false documentation. They submitted fraudulent meal count sheets purporting to document the number of children and meals served at each site. The defendants submitted false invoices purporting to document the purchase of food to be served to children at the sites. The defendants also submitted fake attendance rosters purporting to list the names and ages of the children receiving meals at the sites each day. These rosters were fabricated and created using fake names. For example, one roster was created using names from a website called “www.listofrandomnames.com.” Because the program only reimbursed for meals served to children, other defendants used an Excel formula to insert a random age between seven and 17 into the age column of the rosters.
In total, Feeding Our Future opened more than 250 sites throughout the state of Minnesota and fraudulently obtained and disbursed more than $240 million in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.
In other words, the Minnesota and Federal governments spent $250 million that Americans had paid in taxes without ever simply driving to any of the fictitious cafeteria/restaurant sites to see if there anyone was being fed.
Who is indicted?
Abdi Nur Salah
Abdiaziz Shafii Farah
Abdihakim Ali Ahmed
Abdikadir Ainanshe Mohamud
Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh
Abdimajid Mohamed Nur
Abdinasir Mahamed Abshir
Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed
Abdiwahab Ahmed Mohamud
Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin
Abdul Abubakar Ali
Abdulkadir Nur Salah
Abdullahe Nur Jesow
Ahmed Abdullahi Ghedi
Ahmed Mohamed Artan
Ahmed Sharif Omar-Hashim
Ahmed Yasin Ali
Aimee Marie Bock
Anab Artan Awad
Asad Mohamed Abshir
Asha Jama
Ayan Jama
Bekam Addissu Merdassa
Fahad Nur
Farhiya Mohamud
Fartun Jama
Filsan Mumin Hassan
Guhaad Hashi Said
Hadith Yusuf Ahmed
Haji Osman Salad
Hamdi Hussein Omar
Hanna Marekegn
Hayat Mohamed Nur
Khadar Jigre Adan
Liban Yasin Alishire
Mahad Ibrahim
Mohamed Jama Ismail
Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff
Mustafa Jama
Qamar Ahmed Hassan
Sahra Mohamed Nur
Said Shafii Farah
Salim Ahmed Said
Sharmarke Issa
Sharmake Jama
Yusuf Bashir Ali
Zamzam Jama
The Federales note “An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” but we know that this isn’t true with respect to Donald Trump, whose guilt may be established even prior to any indictment.
Why couldn’t Federal or state officials, at some point during the three years in which payments were made, have made an in-person visit to see what was being served for $250 million in tax money? Weren’t they curious to check out the menu and food?
The local power company wants to sell us an $11/month surge protector that is sure to protect our home from a 100-million-volt lightning strike and then, because it works so well, charge an additional $6/month to clean up the damage when the surge protector fails to provide any protection:
Florida has epic thunderstorms, for which climate change can be blamed, but the lines feeding our house are underground so I don’t see why we would be vulnerable. I’m wondering if we can infer from the pricing that the surge protector is only 50 percent effective. It costs $12/month to buy electronics surge protection as pure insurance, with no hardware installed in the house. It costs $6/month additional to get this surge protection if one is already paying $11/month for the protection hardware plus insurance on the appliances that will be zapped when the protection hardware does not protect.
Having gone my whole life without suffering anything damaged by a power surge or knowing anyone personally who has lost anything electronic to a power surge, I would ordinarily map this into the “total waste of money” category, especially given our underground lines. I would also be concerned that the surge protector would fail in a way that shuts down power to the house despite no surge having occurred. A neighbor who has been here since the inception of Abacoa (2003 for this corner) has never had or heard of a surge problem.
But given that everything is out of stock forever, I’m wondering if the idea isn’t as dumb as it seems. If our KitchenAid 42″-wide built-in refrigerator failed, it would be four weeks before we could get the required two service visits plus part replacement to restore it to functioning. If we wanted to replace it, that would take months. If we wanted a new GPU card for the PC, we’d have to rob a crypto miner. Working from home makes a power surge that takes out cable modem, network switch, WiFi access points, or PCs far more destructive than if one were using a house only for sleeping and watching TV.
Readers: Has anyone ever had anything damaged by a power surge?
The 50 asylum-seekers sent to Martha’s Vineyard have reached sanctuary in the middle of a military base in the middle of an off-island forest. Where can the next group of migrants who want to escape to a properly governed Science-following state land? Here’s an email that I received today from an airfare alert service:
Only $234 for a migrant to start enjoying his/her/zir/their best life amidst the “No Human is Illegal” sign forest of Massachusetts, entering via an island of vacant-through-May mansions. Given TSA rules, perhaps this would work only for undocumented migrants who have documents such as passports.
Attorneys want DeSantis and his fellow defendants to be banned from “inducing immigrants to travel across state lines by fraud and misrepresentation,” as well as damages “for the harm suffered by the migrants.”
According to the complaint, the Venezuelans, who are pursuing the proper channels for lawful immigration status in the US, “experienced cruelty akin to what they fled in their home country. Defendants manipulated them, stripped them of their dignity, deprived them of their liberty, bodily autonomy, due process, and equal protection under law, and impermissibly interfered with the federal government’s exclusive control over immigration in furtherance of an unlawful goal and a personal political agenda.”
If the cruelty here in the U.S., due to the existence of Republicans, makes life in the U.S. as bad as life Venezuela, why take the trouble to leave Venezuela? Or maybe the migrants will leave Venezuela, but stop and request asylum in one of the countries through which they would previously have simply passed?
“The Work versus Welfare Trade‐Off: 2013” (CATO); Table 4 shows the dramatic superiority of being on welfare in Maskachusetts (spending power 1.2X what a worker at the median wage gets) compared to cruel Florida (only 0.4X the spending power of a median worker). The absolute dollar figures can be ignored because they are in pre-Biden money.
a Massachusetts resident commenting in a chat group: “[folks on Martha’s Vineyard] have hundreds, maybe thousands, of empty beds and $9.8 million budget surplus in just one of the three towns alone to pay rental on those beds. What do they think other cities do? NYC pays $500 a night to house each person. They have the lowest tax rate of any town in the entire state and had tons of room to raise the property tax to replenish the surplus. Instead they called in a 125 person military response to remove them to an internment camp. So much for the yard sign virtue signaling. We need Martha’s Vineyard Airlift 2022 T shirts.” (the correct figure for empty beds on MVY is surely “thousands” not “hundreds” because the difference in in-season/off-season population is more than 50,000)
On the way back from Oshkosh, I stopped (early August) at the idiot-proof Cedar Rapids, Iowa airport (KCID) and spent 20 minutes driving through beautiful rolling hills covered in corn to the Amana Colonies, home to German-Americans who lived communally here from 1856 through 1932. (If you feel lucky, there is a 2600′ “fair condition” grass runway in Amana, C11.) They purchased the world’s most productive agricultural land for $1.25 per acre.
At the museum, I learned that, although the members of the colony were immigrants to the U.S., they were quite selective about who could immigrate into the commune, which would then be responsible for housing, clothing, feeding, and caring for the immigrant. One reason that the museum provides for the break-up of the communal lifestyle is that “some pretended to be sick or refused to work because they knew they would still receive room and board, resulting in the society hiring more outside laborers.”
The communalists followed Christianity, attending 9 church services per week. Once Americans lose their faith in Jesus, what religion do they follow?
Families shared a house, as in Soviet Russia or present-day New York City. However, there was no kitchen in the house. Everyone ate together in a communal kitchen, which typically fed 30-40 people at each meal. They loved coffee (served to children as well) and horseradish:
Today:
For those who buy dollhouses at Amazon or Costco:
The success of the Amana Colonies was used as an argument by those who thought that a Communist form of government might work for the United States:
(Let me stress that the current American system, sometimes described by critics as “Communist” or “Socialist”, is the opposite of how things worked in the Amana Colonies and Soviet Russia. In Amana and Russia, every able-bodied adult was required to work.)
In church (9 times per week!), men and women were segregated into left and right sides of the room.
Equal in death, members of the Amana Colony are buried with same-size headstones in chronological order. There are no family plots nor any sculpture.
Don’t miss the Barn Museum in South Amana, in which Henry L. Moore’s replicas of rural American are displayed. See if you can spot Elizabeth Warren’s hometown…
I’m not sure that the proprietor, the craftsman’s son, will be voting for Elizabeth Warren:
Where to eat? There are three restaurants in town and you have your choice of German, German, and German.
Where to stay? An old mill has been turned into a boutique hotel:
The Amana Radarange, the first home-use microwave oven, may not be your preferred souvenir. But you can buy blankets and beautiful furniture. Here’s the pavement-melting SUV that a wag at Hertz decided to drop at the FBO for me after I reserved a “car”:
Ready for departure at KCID:
As noted in The flying-to-Oshkosh part of flying to Oshkosh, the fuel/breakfast stop on the way to Chattanooga was KMWA in Illinois, which features an on-field recreational marijuana store, open every day that the public schools in Chicago were closed.
A friend whose teenage son is a fanatical Patriots fan indulged the boy and his brother with a trip to Miami to watch the Patriots-Dolphins game on 9/11. A mutual friend texted his opinion:
Football is a barbarous gladiatorial display which sacrifices black bodies on the altar of entertainment.
We were glad that we hadn’t invited him to come down from the Northeast.
My friends rated Hard Rock Stadium, entirely privately funded (compare to what New York taxpayers are doing in Buffalo), as superior to Gillette Stadium in the Boston exurbs. It took less than one minute to get through security and ticket validation.
The stadium is set up so that the home team has an enormous advantage. The “home” sideline is on the south side of the field, shaded by the south portion of the structure. So the home team in September is on the sidelines in “only” 90-degree heat. The visitors are on the north sideline, exposed to the direct Florida sun, and able to fry eggs on their helmets.
If you’re looking for backyard flag ideas, here’s what the Dolphins did for 9/11:
If you’re sitting in your $2,000/person premium seat and seized with a California-style passion for housing the unhoused, you won’t see any in-stadium messages regarding poverty or how say-gooders can help. If you’re passionate about 2SLGBTQQIA+, Pride, and the struggle for equality, you’ll be disappointed to see that there are no rainbow flags in the stadium. Those with a passion for social justice are not entirely ignored, however. One end zone bears the message “End Racism” while the opposite end zone reminds spectators “It Takes All of Us”:
Conveniently, as with waving a rainbow flag, ending racism does not require us to spend any money (except on NFL tickets!). Let’s hope that ending racism doesn’t require perfect hearing because every part of the stadium is loud. Music is played before the game and there is a literally deafening roar from the fans during the game. Calls from the referees are amplified, but difficult to understand (much harder than when seeing a game on TV). I wouldn’t take a noise-sensitive kid to the stadium.
We are informed that the Venezuelan economy is in tough shape, but there was a huge line of people at halftime for the $8 arepas.
Speaking of Venezuela, here’s a gal from that country who was forced into following the NFL and cheering for the Patriots by her fiancé (unhappy in the background as the Dolphins maintained their lead, ultimately resulting in a 20-7 victory for the Team of Party On over the Team of Science. 2.5 years of masks and “essential” marijuana did not help the Patriots win). She even had Patriot-symbol earrings.
Tip: try to eat before the game and don’t expect to be able to get any food or drink (other than from a water fountain) during halftime.
How about seats? We were in cheap ($200, including fees, purchased as “verified resale” a few day days prior) seats in section 317 and the view seemed good. Legroom is skimpy, however, so stay home on the recliner if you want to stretch out. You can see the half-empty premium seating section below. The customers for these seats in Miami are so rich that they don’t bother going to the Ticketmaster web site to transfer their $2,000/seat tickets. There were some empty seats in the nosebleed sections, but the super expensive sections had the lowest occupancy. Maybe it is time to vote in Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren so that these folks will be forced to pay their fair share?
Transportation? My friends were latecomers to the parking party and ended up in Lot #20 (buy in advance from Ticketmaster), which would be regarded as Siberia from the perspective of VIPs and season ticket holders. This is a 15-minute walk from the stadium, but the reward is that you get in and out without sitting in any traffic. Highly recommended. Another good option would be to park between the Sonic and Walmart at the SW corner of the stadium. The risk of being stuck in traffic seems a little higher, but nothing like it would be in the close-in official lots.
Inspired by stadiums in Japan that have no parking lots at all, but are instead built near train stations, I decided to join by taking the Tri-Rail commuter train from West Palm Beach. This is just like the trains in Norway, which I recently enjoyed, in that it rides on steel rails. After that, the similarity ends. Commuter lines in Norway run every 15 minutes; Tri-Rail runs every hour on Sundays (and was 30 minutes late, which means some passengers waited 1.5 hours in stations that don’t have bathrooms (the toilet on the train was broken and overflowing)). The Norwegian trains are clean and quiet. Tri-Rail has a ventilation system that overpowers the Florida heat, but at the cost of a huge amount of noise. Tri-Rail is so bumpy that it is tough to read while in motion; the Norwegian trains are smooth.
Because it is so noisy and expensive, even though I am passionate about ending racism I am not enthusiastic about returning with the family for a Dolphins game. If we did go, however, we would drive and park in Lot #20 or similar, aiming to arrive at least one hour prior to the game so as to avoid the worst of the traffic.
Part of the post-game survey:
There is no difference between Chinese and Samoan:
