In about 20 minutes I'm heading to a walk-through of two newly constructed homes. On behalf of a client of mine, if all goes well, we will close on the purchase of the two homes on Monday.
What's the big deal? My client is purchasing the two homes to provide housing to Katrina evacuees. Yes, FEMA has extended the hotel vouchers for another month but that can't go on forever.
Special thanks to Foundation Communities, for assistance in finding the families for the homes and creating the program which, if all goes well, will have these families on their feet financially and purchasing these homes in two or three years.
Special thanks to my client as well. Your generosity is extraordinary.
Update: finished the walk-though and the houses are beautiful. These will be tow very fortunate families, indeed.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Monday, November 21, 2005
Tow-heads
A colleague of mine brought his two sons to the office today and the term "tow-heads" immediately sprang from my lips.
Their hair reminded me of my current and erstwhile nephews and nieces.
I've never known how the term was derived. Now, thanks to Word Detective, I know:
"In the case of 'tow-head,' understanding the phrase depends on knowing that 'tow' is another word for raw flax or hemp fibers. 'Tow' in this sense is apparently unrelated to the 'pull' sense of 'tow,' and comes from a prehistoric [Scooter's note: not sure I buy that] German word meaning 'to spin or weave.' Flax fibers in their natural state are a very light golden color, so 'tow-head' is a logical description of someone with very light or blonde hair. The phrase 'flaxen-haired' applied to such people is somewhat more common than 'tow-head,' although both phrases are gradually disappearing."
Their hair reminded me of my current and erstwhile nephews and nieces.
I've never known how the term was derived. Now, thanks to Word Detective, I know:
"In the case of 'tow-head,' understanding the phrase depends on knowing that 'tow' is another word for raw flax or hemp fibers. 'Tow' in this sense is apparently unrelated to the 'pull' sense of 'tow,' and comes from a prehistoric [Scooter's note: not sure I buy that] German word meaning 'to spin or weave.' Flax fibers in their natural state are a very light golden color, so 'tow-head' is a logical description of someone with very light or blonde hair. The phrase 'flaxen-haired' applied to such people is somewhat more common than 'tow-head,' although both phrases are gradually disappearing."
The death of manners
Don't miss George Will on manners.
From today's Jewish World Review:
"Actually, manners are the practice of a virtue. The virtue is called civility, a word related —— as a foundation is related to a house —— to the word civilization."
From today's Jewish World Review:
"Actually, manners are the practice of a virtue. The virtue is called civility, a word related —— as a foundation is related to a house —— to the word civilization."
Monday, November 14, 2005
More on "Windfall Profits"
From Jeff Jacoby:
"Exxon's profits last quarter amounted to 9.8 cents for every dollar of sales. Is that obscene? Well, it was more profitable than Shell (which netted 7.8 cents of each dollar of revenue) or Chevron (6.6 cents) or BP (4.6 cents). But compared to Coca-Cola (21.2 cents), Bank of America (28.3 cents), or Microsoft (33.2 cents), it was nothing to write home about. "
And:
"Over the past 25 years, according to the Tax Foundation, oil companies paid state and federal taxes of more than $2.2 trillion (in inflation-adjusted dollars). During the same period, the companies' profits totaled $630 billion...."
Who's responsible for high gasoline costs and shivering children in the north?
"Exxon's profits last quarter amounted to 9.8 cents for every dollar of sales. Is that obscene? Well, it was more profitable than Shell (which netted 7.8 cents of each dollar of revenue) or Chevron (6.6 cents) or BP (4.6 cents). But compared to Coca-Cola (21.2 cents), Bank of America (28.3 cents), or Microsoft (33.2 cents), it was nothing to write home about. "
And:
"Over the past 25 years, according to the Tax Foundation, oil companies paid state and federal taxes of more than $2.2 trillion (in inflation-adjusted dollars). During the same period, the companies' profits totaled $630 billion...."
Who's responsible for high gasoline costs and shivering children in the north?
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Wiseguy
Just got my Wiseguy (Mel Profitt) dvd set in the mail. For those who don't recall, it was a short-lived series in the 80s with Mel Proffitt appearing in 1987.
Ken Wahl plays a DEEP undercover agent and as I recall, there were about three subseries within the series...each subseries being about eight or ten episodes.
Mel Profitt and his sister Susan are Vancouver kingpins in the coke smuggling trade. Mel is played by Kevin Spacey and Susan by Joan Severance. Both characters were very quirky and the sibling relationship quite disturbing.
Can't wait to get home.
Ken Wahl plays a DEEP undercover agent and as I recall, there were about three subseries within the series...each subseries being about eight or ten episodes.
Mel Profitt and his sister Susan are Vancouver kingpins in the coke smuggling trade. Mel is played by Kevin Spacey and Susan by Joan Severance. Both characters were very quirky and the sibling relationship quite disturbing.
Can't wait to get home.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Redundant Rambling about Price "Gouging" and "Windfall" Profits
Seems to me that those are two terms that we've read a lot recently.
I remember reading in Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics an example he gave about price "gouging." I believe it was about the scarcity of hotel rooms and flashlights following a disaster like a tornado or hurricane. By "gouging," retailers and hotels actually more efficiently allocate resources by forcing the first family to reach the hotel or the flashlight store to think twice before taking more than they might really need: two rooms for the family of four at the hotel or four flashlights rather than just one. Thus, there is a room and flashlight available for the next family because the first family was priced out of the second room and a second, third or fourth flashlight.
He reiterated the argument after the 2004 hurricanes in Florida here at Jewish World Review.
The argument certainly made sense intellectually, but somehow still seemed wrong. My first thought was that the millionaire would still be able to take all the rooms and flashlights but, on further reflection, that would be an anomaly indeed, most millionaires having bolted for safer climes long before the tragedy struck.
So take most millionaires out of the equation.
Most of the people bolting Houston in those 20 hour traffic jams were pretty much regular folks. My friends who came to Austin were in fact relieved when they could purchase gasoline at "outrageous" prices. They didn't like it but were relieved to get the gas.
I remember hearing about a guy gassing up his 200 gallon cigarette boat before heading to Lake Travis and thought, "What a selfish S.O.B. All these folks up from Houston and he's sucking up 200 gallons." He is my millionaire. Fortunately, there were not too many of those and I think Houston was completely back in business in about a week.
I've seen the free market model work and still it seemed somehow wrong. Then it hit me: the model didn't seem wrong; it felt wrong. If I've learned anything in forty-five years, I've learned that feelings (mine, at least) are notoriously unreliable.
Walter Williams and John Stossel have also written about this recently and have helped me put things in perspective.
What are the alternatives to the "market" or Smith's "Invisible Hand?"
First, there is government. Katrina efforts don't speak too well for governmental efforts, but assume that, practically speaking, government works as it did in Texas. Williams, elsewhere in JWR, would call the taxation aspect of government assistance "theft" and Stossel implies that without the taxation, the government's alternative is "totalitarianism." (Both positions sound extreme here but Williams just means that government taxing us for altruistic purposes is both unconstitutional and forcing us to contribute to charity that we might or might not support. Stossel just means that the government could just order people to to the needed work).
By the way, it has always seemed to me that the idea of one or a hundred making making a million economic decisions rather than millions making dozens of economic decisions that affect them directly is inherently illogical...maybe it worked in feudal times when there were far fewer decisions to be made, but not today. A subject for later.
Second, there is altruism. This is what gets me beyond the "feeling" that the market should be forced to work differently. Whatever we have seen in government efforts over the last year (disgraces in Tsunami and Katrina and, in my view, triumphs in Texas and Florida), we have seen people, especially Americans, shine with their generosity. Generosity of Amerians goes a long way to lessen my concerns about Williams' $20.00 loaf of bread or Stossel's $20.00 bottle of water, too.
But Stossel is right that we cannot rely on Blanche's "kindness of strangers" to get us through more than the short term. It may even get us a great deal of the way through the mid-term, but it seems to me it is the market upon which we must ultimately rely because, as much as we might like to do require otherwise, we have to let the people decide what to do with their own assets of time, talent and treasure.
Basic Economics should be must reading for every American high school student...ok, maybe college student. My biggest gripe as I read it was that Sowell repeated too many of his points. In hindsight, he was just teaching. One can actually read the book once and learn the basics of economics, funny how he picked the title. The man knows his audience and what his audience needs.
I learned in one week reading Sowell more about economics more than I did in two semesters at my beloved University. (I rationalize that by telling myself that as a sophomore, I wasn't really paying attention. College, like youth, is too often wasted on the young.)
Ok, I'm going to bed.
I remember reading in Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics an example he gave about price "gouging." I believe it was about the scarcity of hotel rooms and flashlights following a disaster like a tornado or hurricane. By "gouging," retailers and hotels actually more efficiently allocate resources by forcing the first family to reach the hotel or the flashlight store to think twice before taking more than they might really need: two rooms for the family of four at the hotel or four flashlights rather than just one. Thus, there is a room and flashlight available for the next family because the first family was priced out of the second room and a second, third or fourth flashlight.
He reiterated the argument after the 2004 hurricanes in Florida here at Jewish World Review.
The argument certainly made sense intellectually, but somehow still seemed wrong. My first thought was that the millionaire would still be able to take all the rooms and flashlights but, on further reflection, that would be an anomaly indeed, most millionaires having bolted for safer climes long before the tragedy struck.
So take most millionaires out of the equation.
Most of the people bolting Houston in those 20 hour traffic jams were pretty much regular folks. My friends who came to Austin were in fact relieved when they could purchase gasoline at "outrageous" prices. They didn't like it but were relieved to get the gas.
I remember hearing about a guy gassing up his 200 gallon cigarette boat before heading to Lake Travis and thought, "What a selfish S.O.B. All these folks up from Houston and he's sucking up 200 gallons." He is my millionaire. Fortunately, there were not too many of those and I think Houston was completely back in business in about a week.
I've seen the free market model work and still it seemed somehow wrong. Then it hit me: the model didn't seem wrong; it felt wrong. If I've learned anything in forty-five years, I've learned that feelings (mine, at least) are notoriously unreliable.
Walter Williams and John Stossel have also written about this recently and have helped me put things in perspective.
What are the alternatives to the "market" or Smith's "Invisible Hand?"
First, there is government. Katrina efforts don't speak too well for governmental efforts, but assume that, practically speaking, government works as it did in Texas. Williams, elsewhere in JWR, would call the taxation aspect of government assistance "theft" and Stossel implies that without the taxation, the government's alternative is "totalitarianism." (Both positions sound extreme here but Williams just means that government taxing us for altruistic purposes is both unconstitutional and forcing us to contribute to charity that we might or might not support. Stossel just means that the government could just order people to to the needed work).
By the way, it has always seemed to me that the idea of one or a hundred making making a million economic decisions rather than millions making dozens of economic decisions that affect them directly is inherently illogical...maybe it worked in feudal times when there were far fewer decisions to be made, but not today. A subject for later.
Second, there is altruism. This is what gets me beyond the "feeling" that the market should be forced to work differently. Whatever we have seen in government efforts over the last year (disgraces in Tsunami and Katrina and, in my view, triumphs in Texas and Florida), we have seen people, especially Americans, shine with their generosity. Generosity of Amerians goes a long way to lessen my concerns about Williams' $20.00 loaf of bread or Stossel's $20.00 bottle of water, too.
But Stossel is right that we cannot rely on Blanche's "kindness of strangers" to get us through more than the short term. It may even get us a great deal of the way through the mid-term, but it seems to me it is the market upon which we must ultimately rely because, as much as we might like to do require otherwise, we have to let the people decide what to do with their own assets of time, talent and treasure.
Basic Economics should be must reading for every American high school student...ok, maybe college student. My biggest gripe as I read it was that Sowell repeated too many of his points. In hindsight, he was just teaching. One can actually read the book once and learn the basics of economics, funny how he picked the title. The man knows his audience and what his audience needs.
I learned in one week reading Sowell more about economics more than I did in two semesters at my beloved University. (I rationalize that by telling myself that as a sophomore, I wasn't really paying attention. College, like youth, is too often wasted on the young.)
Ok, I'm going to bed.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
First US case of Avian Bird Flu?
A week ago I started to feel something coming on...started all the pseudo-science preventives...massive Vitamin C doses and the other stuff they put in those pre-cold things and that horrible tasting zinc stuff.
Didn't work, I think I've been hit by H5N1.
Didn't work, I think I've been hit by H5N1.
Friday, November 04, 2005
"Enlightened Jacksonianism"
Just as I was getting depressed with the analysis of the Paris riots, Victor Davis Hanson comes along and cheers me up.
He concludes that the efforts of the Bush Doctrine, while certainly far from perfect, are reaching results both "striking, and admirable."
He concludes that the efforts of the Bush Doctrine, while certainly far from perfect, are reaching results both "striking, and admirable."
Eurabian Civil War
I can never seem to get home in time to catch Mark Steyn on the web with Hewitt so I am grateful to Radioblogger for those long posts. Great discussion on the Paris riots.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Is OJ now searching for a thief?
The Houston Chronicle reports, "U.S. District Judge Theodore Klein ordered Simpson last week to pay $33,678 in attorneys' fees and costs" to DirecTV "two months after he was ordered to pay the company $25,000 for pirating its satellite television signals."
Wish I could say the title was mine...I stole the concept from a friend.
Wish I could say the title was mine...I stole the concept from a friend.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Memory at Middle Age
Not only do I now have to wear those $2.00 reading glasses (still at magnification 1.0, thanks) at the computer and any font less than 14 (forget about maps in the car at night or menus in dimly lit restaurants), now I have to suffer with an unreliable memory.
Yesterday in our weekly Business Section Meeting at my firm, an associate mentioned that he was working on a file representing a hospital against a donor who wanted his donation returned because the hospital was not using the funds as he proscribed at the time the donation was made. (Actually, the proscriptions were quite broad and we all agreed that the hospital was, in fact, using the donation appropriately but we're talking about ME here.)
I chimed in confidently that I'd read about a case involving a large donation made to Harvard early in the 20th Century that was to be used for specific purposes within what would later become the JFK School of Government. The heirs of the donors wanted the money back because Harvard wasn't using the donation sufficiently within the parameters of the donors' proscriptions.
Today the associate found this article in the New Mexican.
No, the donation was in fact made during JFK's term not in the early 20th Century. Donor graduated from Princeton in 1926 and I'm not even sure if the second quarter qualifies as "early."
Princeton, not Harvard; Woodrow Wilson, not Kennedy.
Suit was filed in 2002 so it's not like I read about this in law school. The indignity.
Yesterday in our weekly Business Section Meeting at my firm, an associate mentioned that he was working on a file representing a hospital against a donor who wanted his donation returned because the hospital was not using the funds as he proscribed at the time the donation was made. (Actually, the proscriptions were quite broad and we all agreed that the hospital was, in fact, using the donation appropriately but we're talking about ME here.)
I chimed in confidently that I'd read about a case involving a large donation made to Harvard early in the 20th Century that was to be used for specific purposes within what would later become the JFK School of Government. The heirs of the donors wanted the money back because Harvard wasn't using the donation sufficiently within the parameters of the donors' proscriptions.
Today the associate found this article in the New Mexican.
No, the donation was in fact made during JFK's term not in the early 20th Century. Donor graduated from Princeton in 1926 and I'm not even sure if the second quarter qualifies as "early."
Princeton, not Harvard; Woodrow Wilson, not Kennedy.
Suit was filed in 2002 so it's not like I read about this in law school. The indignity.
Social Security unfair in effect...
I first heard this point made by Walter Williams while guest hosting for Limbaugh one day several years ago. Thomas Sowell repeats it today in his column, Civil Rights Rites.
"Social Security is not a racial policy either, but economists who have studied it have long described it as a system that transfers money from black men to white women, given the different life expectancies of these two groups."
When one considers the obvious truth to the description, why has there been so little discussion? Another reason for the privatization, even if a contributor didn't live long enough to access the privatized account, at least he could leave it to his spouse or children.
"Social Security is not a racial policy either, but economists who have studied it have long described it as a system that transfers money from black men to white women, given the different life expectancies of these two groups."
When one considers the obvious truth to the description, why has there been so little discussion? Another reason for the privatization, even if a contributor didn't live long enough to access the privatized account, at least he could leave it to his spouse or children.
"Revolt for Excellence"
Blankley's Miers analysis is best I've seen...
Though I was wobbly in the Hugh Hewitt and Beldar camp until I cratered at the very end, I'm looking forward to the fight. Though I expect too little civility, I believe it will be a genuine battle of ideas. Survival of the fittest in the marketplace/jungle of ideas. The right has been training for thirty years. This should be fun.
Though I was wobbly in the Hugh Hewitt and Beldar camp until I cratered at the very end, I'm looking forward to the fight. Though I expect too little civility, I believe it will be a genuine battle of ideas. Survival of the fittest in the marketplace/jungle of ideas. The right has been training for thirty years. This should be fun.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Early thoughts on the scuttling of Miers
This is an email I Blackberried to Scooter while I was driving home listening to Hugh Hewitt's show on the radio:
"To: [Scooter]
Sent: Oct 6, 2005 5:31 PM
"Brownbeck on HH. He met today with Miers, did not sound impressed. I'm predicting Repubs torpedo her."
Comments: Yes I was driving home at 5:30 on a Thursday. Problem?
I was thinking of a revolt on the committee. Scooter emailed me back that it would be very tough for the Republican senators to go against the President. I thought about it and had to agree.
So what? While we were spared a hearing (which would have been a disaster) and a public revolt by the Republicans on the committee, I had an inkling that the nomination wasn't going to go.
"To: [Scooter]
Sent: Oct 6, 2005 5:31 PM
"Brownbeck on HH. He met today with Miers, did not sound impressed. I'm predicting Repubs torpedo her."
Comments: Yes I was driving home at 5:30 on a Thursday. Problem?
I was thinking of a revolt on the committee. Scooter emailed me back that it would be very tough for the Republican senators to go against the President. I thought about it and had to agree.
So what? While we were spared a hearing (which would have been a disaster) and a public revolt by the Republicans on the committee, I had an inkling that the nomination wasn't going to go.
Scooter's indictment
I've not read it nor all the commentary leading up to it, and I'm not sure this is THE lie, but if Libby lied about the fact that Cheney told him about Plame early on (as his notes seem to indicate) then he was covering for his boss. Which, it turns out, he didn't need to do because she hadn't been covert for the requisite number of years.
While lying to a grand jury is a serious matter, his motives were at least selfless (cf Martha Stewart).
Query: Is the loss of Libby all that big of a deal to the White House?
Query two: Don't the facts that (1) the indictment is about only (!) lying to the grand jury, and (2) Rove was not indicted make this a rather tepid tempest in the proverbial teapot? And to query further, doesn't this take the wind out of the Left's sails AND with the upcoming strong nomination for SCOTUS, put The White House in the best position it's been in for weeks?
While lying to a grand jury is a serious matter, his motives were at least selfless (cf Martha Stewart).
Query: Is the loss of Libby all that big of a deal to the White House?
Query two: Don't the facts that (1) the indictment is about only (!) lying to the grand jury, and (2) Rove was not indicted make this a rather tepid tempest in the proverbial teapot? And to query further, doesn't this take the wind out of the Left's sails AND with the upcoming strong nomination for SCOTUS, put The White House in the best position it's been in for weeks?
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Congratulations, Chicago!
The series was better than 4-0, but the White Sox did a great job.
Conagratulations, too, to the Astros...great year.
Conagratulations, too, to the Astros...great year.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
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