Metropolitan Rural

Do you love the zoo?  Wouldn’t it be great if you could have one of your very own?  We’ll, now you can, just follow my 16 easy steps.

1. Marry and animal lover - this is a key point that is not to be over looked.  If your new spouse is allergic to pet dander, then your plan is sunk before you even get started.
2. Get a puppy as your first pet - A key here is to try and find a puppy that will have emotional issues as he grows up.  That way it leads very nicely into step 4
3. Now that you have a dog, move out of your apartment into your first house with a yard - The bigger the better, after all, if you’re going to have a zoo you’ll need some room.
4. Now that you have a big yard and 1 dog with emotional issues, get a second dog as a companion - Make sure to get the cute dog that no one seemed to want, after all, that must mean it’s a great dog.
5. Buy a REALLY good vacuum cleaner
6. Let your emotionally challenged dog teach your new dog all his bad habits thus doubling the “fun”
7. Let Santa bring your kid(s) stuff for guinea pigs and then go pick some out at the pet store - They should be old enough now to take care of them, so you won’t have to mess with them at all.
8. Take care of the guinea pigs yourself
9. Decide to move to another city to work for a French owned pet food company - With two dogs now the free dog food alone is worth the hassle
10. Realize the free dog food isn’t worth it, move back to the city to a bigger house with a smaller yard and learn to pick up the yard
11. Let your animal loving spouse talk you into a kitten - Don’t forget, this needs to be a special kitten to fight off the 2 dogs and take control of the house
12. Train the cat to use the toilet - You spend enough time picking up after the dogs in the yard and cleaning the cage for the pigs, you don’t feel like cleaning up a litter box too.
13. Realize that all wood floors with 2 dogs wasn’t such a good idea - This step is also be titled “Where the Hell did all this fur come from!”
14. Your, now older, child(ren) decide they are now responsible enough for their own pet and ask to get a fish - You could possibly flip out here and think you are being over run or that your house will be taken over, so be careful
15. Force your child(ren) to do research and write a report all about the fish they want, how to care for it, and put together a budget to purchase and care for it.
16. When you hear your spouse talk about getting chickens for the yard and wanting a bird be prepared to have a cow, curl up into the fetal position and start crying.

This weekend was the first mowing of the yard with the new manual push-reel mower.  It was a wonderful experience!  Most of our grass is dense, thick Zoysia that works very well with this type of mower.  I was even able to mow the entire back yard while I was grilling bratwursts for dinner, and nothing burned. 

From my own experience, here’s what I like about the new mower:

• It’s quiet, I could mow and still talk with my wife and son without yelling.  Plus, they could be in the yard and not be drowned out by noise.
• Safety, the wife and kid were able to be outside and not worry about flying debris from the mower.
• Smell, it was so nice to NOT smell like gasoline when I got done mowing
• Ease, I expected a rough workout with the mower, but I was pleasantly surprised that it really wasn’t all that bad.  Sure, it took a few more passes in some spots than the gas mower would have, but it’s so much lighter and easier to manuver that I really felt about the same when all was said and done.
• Convenience, being able to easily start and stop mowing let me do other things and take care of the yard in between checking on the food.
• Quality, the yard looks very nice after the mowing.  Everything I’ve read about reel mowers is that they provide a much better cut of the grass.  It’s often compared with scissors.  For a bit of proof to the quality, stop by your local golf course.  The golf community spends more money on research for grass than any group in the world, and nearly every golf course you see will be using a reel mower (though they are mainly pulled behind a large tractor to mow twelve foot plus paths). 

To top it all off, I know I’m not having to buy and use gas just to cut my grass.  Granted, I’ve only used a couple gallons a year for this yard, but that’s still a waste for such a silly thing as a bunch of grass.

The Post-Dispatchis reporting today on a new bill being sent to Governor Blunt creating a specific crime and punishment for mortgage fraud.  Here are some excerpts and comments on the article:

The legislation defines mortgage fraud as making false statements or failing to disclose material facts. It creates fines and allows for the licenses of real estate brokers, agents and appraisers to be revoked. It also bars attempts to influence real estate appraisals through extortion or bribery.

Pearce’s bill allows for civil fines of up to $2,500 per violation for those who commit mortgage fraud. It also makes mortgage fraud a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison.

State appraisers and real estate commissions and the state finance division also would get more power to investigate allegations of mortgage fraud and the ability to levy even higher fines — up to $5,000 per violation.

That all seems fairly reasonable to me.  It should surely have an impact on the market and help keep some unscrupulous people out of the business during the next boom.  Of course, the extortion and bribery are already crimes, so I’m not sure why it was necessary to add that to the legislation.

Rep. Jeff Harris and Pearce had filed separate legislation that bars charging fees for early mortgage payments, directing consumers eligible for standard loans to subprime deals, and persuading borrowers to take out new loans unless there is a clear benefit.

That legislation also would require lenders to ensure consumers can afford monthly payments on variable rate mortgages when interest rates increase, create a legal responsibility to act in borrowers’ best interests and allow lawsuits from consumers for violations.

Harris, D-Columbia, said the bill approved Thursday “doesn’t do anywhere near what it should be doing” for lawmakers to claim that they have addressed problem mortgages.

Okay, Mr. Harris, I believe you are going a bit far there.  As consumers we still have some responsibility as well.  No one is telling us we shouldn’t buy that car because it will cost too much in 2 years when we lose a job.  No one tells us we shouldn’t buy that big TV on the credit card because the interest payments will be too much to handle when the economy slows down. 

If anything, maybe the legislation should include some provisions for consumers who knowingly sign false documents stating a much higher income.  Why do we only punish the business?  Where is the individual responsibility for their own actions.  Sure, the business shouldn’t do something to knowingly deceive the consumer, but the consumer shouldn’t do something to knowingly deceive the business either.  There’s two sides to this coin.

You can read the full text of House Bill 2188 here.  It’s only 12 pages, and it’s big print, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to read!  If you aren’t confused by the end of page 3 you must be a lawyer!

There was a post on the Mayor’s website yesterday about a call from Gubernatorial candidate Sarah Steelman.  She let Mayor Slay know that she will be holding a press conference in St. Louis to call for the city to phase out the city earnings tax.

Ms. Steelman rightfully presents that the earnings tax does indeed discourage people and businesses from locating within the city of St. Louis.  The Mayor also makes the valid point that the earnings tax makes up a third of the city budget and is difficult to replace and replacing it would mean raising other taxes on the current businesses and residents of the city causing the same discouragement as the earnings tax.

So, here we are, at an impasse.  The cart before the horse.  The chicken or the egg.  The end solution I’m sure will be to do nothing.

I agree that phasing out (not just cutting it out in one fail swoop) the earnings tax would be good for the city, and the city has some good opportunities to do that if we take them when they come. 

Here lies the problem.  If my budget at home can not pay for everything I want I have to either bring in more money or spend less of it, period.  The city is no different.  So, that leaves the city with two options if they cut out 1/3 of their income.  They can either raise taxes as the Mayor says the would need to, or they can cut spending (which is also not always a pleasant idea). 

I took a browse over to the city website for their annual financial statements.   I looked through the statements for 2007 and 2005 to get some information going back to 2002 for annual revenue and annual tax revenue from the employment/payroll tax.  Here are my findings (all my numbers are in millions):

Well, it seems the Mayor wasn’t comparing the payroll taxes to Gross Revenue, but just to tax revenue because it’s really only 18-19% of our total revenue.  So, that’s a little easier chunk to swallow.  Total revenue has been growing over the last 5 years.  If you just looked at real dollars, we have 80 million more in revenue in 2007 than 2002.  That could cut the earnings tax in half!  Of course, that doesn’t reflect inflation either.  Expenses are bound to grow some as well as we give city employees at least the bare minimum raise to equal inflation (though I’m sure they don’t typically get that much). 

However, from what I read on the Mayor’s site and in the Post-Dispatch from week to week, we seem to take any “new found” money and throw it at development projects for our “buddies.”  Sure, it would be great also if we could continually expand city services, improve the schools and whatnot, but why can’t we take a realistic approach and gradually “phase out” the earnings tax with some ever decreasing rates while our revenues are growing?  Wouldn’t that gradually encourage more residents and businesses who will grow other areas of the tax base naturally and allow us to speed up the decline of the earnings tax?  Let’s not forget as well that there will be an increase in property tax revenue in the coming years as all those tax abated homes start finishing off their abatement period. 

So, why not cut the earnings tax to 0.9% for the next year and cut back a bit on giveaways to encourage specific companies to move in.  That small drop will be a freebie to anyone and hopefully (with a long term plan in place to get rid of it all) the increase in business and residents will make up for the missing earnings tax over time. 

Of course, the mayor also suggested that the state give a tax credit for the city earnings tax.  So, let’s reduce the state’s tax revenue so that the city residents can keep paying their earnings tax.  That means more Missourians will be picking up the statewide burden for those of us here in the city.  Great for us but would suck to be them.  Let’s play fair shall we?

… ask what you can do for your country.

A truly great sentiment from the beloved President John F. Kennedy during his inaugural address.  Yet, where is that belief now?

• “Why doesn’t the government do something about gas prices…”  (so I can drive my SUV 35 miles each way to work.
• “Why doesn’t the government do something about the food prices…” (so I can continue to eat too much, go out to eat, and throw away food that is still good)
• “Why doesn’t the government do something about the high energy prices…”  (so I don’t have to consider the impact of my energy consumption on the environment)
• “Why doesn’t the government do something about the mortgage and credit crisis…”  (so I don’t have to feel bad about making a bad financial decision for myself/my corporation)
• “Why doesn’t the government do something about the high price of health care…”  (so I can get as much care as I want without considering the cost)

It seems so much is going on today asking the government to fix our problems from the top down.  What’s wrong with real people making real changes to their own lifestyles that lead to real changes in our country.  Let’s try things from the bottom up.  Sure, each of us as individuals make a minuscule impact on each of these things.  However, there are over 300 million Americans today. 

If each American saved just 1/2 gallon of gas each week this year, that would add up to 7.8 BILLION gallons that would not be used over the course of a year (at the DOE estimate of 388.6 gallons per day consumed in the US, that is 20 days of gas savings for the year).  For an SUV that gets 18 MPG, that amounts to driving just 9 miles less each week, just over 1 mile less per day.

Let’s not forget, we have a government OF the people, BY the people and for the people.  Let’s stop emphasizing the for and think about that it’s not an Us against Them when it comes to government.  We ARE the government.  Each of these problems above can be solve quite simply by changing the behavior of ourselves and expecting the same of our neighbors.  We are 300 million strong and can have a huge impact when we start to do things that might not be pleasant for us, but that we know if for the greater good of all. 

Let’s stop thinking about “what our country do for us” and get back to thinking about “what we can do for our country.”

I was talking with some co-workers on Friday who were discussing the high cost of gas.  I did some math on our new car and discovered this.

We’ve had the car 20 weeks now.  During that time, we have bought just over 160 gallons of gas.  Average gallons per week is just over 8. 

My co-workers, on the other hand, were buying somewhere in the neighborhood of 20+ gallons per week because of longer commutes, multiple cars and both spouses working. 

With gas currently being around $3.50 a gallon, I’m spending $28 per week and $1,456 per year on gas.  The suburban commuting co-worker(s) is spending $70 per week and $3,640 per year (and one of their cars is a Prius, the other I believe is a Corrola, imagine the 2 SUV family!).  That means I save $2,184 each year on gas.  Not to mention that I don’t have 2 car payments, 2 sets of oil changes, 2 insurance payments or 2 sets of new tires to buy either.  Sure, I spend $60 a month on a bus pass, but that pales in comparison to the extra costs they are paying.  

What else I don’t get is that this co-worker lives southwest of Fenton.  She works downtown here and her husband is a teacher at some school in south county.  A home in south city or county would save them quite a bit in gas alone I’m sure.   

After all, I can buy a LOT Of Ted Drewes with my extra $42 a week!

Mayor Slay gave his annual state of the city address to the board of aldermen and guests this morning.  A transcript of the speech can be found on his website here.

While I don’t always agree with the methods our mayor and city government goes about the ideas of progress and development, I do have to give him some credit here.  Yes, there are many things he talks about which are better about the city than 7 years ago when he took office.  Yes, as he says, there is still a lot of work to do as well.  Also, he recognizes that the effort has much to do not just with his office, the aldermen and other city employees, but has a lot to do with citizens and private organizations as well.

Could another mayor have lead the city to the same growth and improvements seen under Mayor Slay?  Of course.  If he really is a smart man (which I’m pretty sure he is), I’m sure he’d agree that he’s not totally 100% unique in that. 

While he has been at the helm while the city has undergone recent growth, much of the growth surely would have happened with or without him.  My issues with our city government still lies in their approach to creating new opportunities and development.  Of course, we are not alone in that respect.  Many cities follow each other on the same paths we lead.

To be more fiscally responsible as a government, we should put into place a more well defined zoning ordinance as stated by Steve Patterson on a number of occasions over at Urban Review St. Louis.  It is a view shared by many in the historic preservation circles of the city.  A comprehensive zoning ordinance will let the city grow even faster by shortening the time for plan review and approval for all city developments.  No longer does a developer need to deal with the alderman and/or mayor in order to get plans approved for large development.  Many individuals are reluctant to do some projects for that very reason. 

However, the zoning is only part of the fix.  We’ve also seen millions of tax dollars thrown at pet projects such as Loughborough Commons and new downtown Schnuck’s both being developed by Desco (the development arm of Schnuck’s).  There are numerous other projects that we could go on and on about.  I won’t argue that sometime economic development needs some added incentives in order to encourage developers.  Mayor Slay speaks about a new initiative to have $150 million dollars of investment in the predominantly black neighborhoods of north city.  How do we go about using that to encourage the development?  Should we hand pick some “friendly” developers and give it away to them in exchange for re-election campaign contributions (which Mayor Slay mentioned his own fundraiser in his speech, how tacky).  I think not.  With comprehensive zoning, we would know exactly what kind of development needs to take place, so it’s about dividing up the spoils of tax payer money to get development started.  Why not make it available more broadly and let the real competition of development come out to make the best use of property based on the zoning code?

We see this same sort of thing going on with the historic preservation tax credits.  Anyone working on buildings withing the preservation area meeting preservation guidelines qualifies.  There is no need to be a campaign contributor or friend of specific government officials to qualify.  It’s a much more democratic way to do things.  While the dollar amounts may be lower in a residential neighborhood, the rate of development is surely to be higher with the competition of more developers in an area. 

So, let’s take a step back and appreciate this wonderful city for all our architecture, parks and (most of all) residents.  Looking ahead lets think about how to best encourage general growth without constant meddling by elected officials.  Instead of spinning our wheels doing one deal at a time, lets create the structure to let things happen on a broader scale at a much faster pace.  With the recent housing market drop and rise in gas prices, the city could be poised for massive investment for those interested in moving closer to work into affordable homes.  Unfortunately, because we missed our chance to have a better system in place, we may be left behind once again with a trickling growth rate that seems impressive when you talk about only the dollars of investment, but compared to the grand scheme of things is still rather puny.

Do you get sinking feeling every time you pull into the gas station to fill up?  If so, I’ve developed a fool proof solution to help you save some money.

STOP DRIVING SO MUCH!!!

Oh sure, you might not like my solution, but it’s guaranteed to work, 100% of the time.  I would offer a money back guarantee, but I’m not charging you for my advice.

I read the other day that Presidential candidate John McCain was going to propose a holiday on the gas tax for the summer driving season to give US consumers a relief.  Great, just what we need, another excuse to use more gas because it’s not so expensive.

You see, economics works from 2 angles called Supply and Demand.  If the suppliers of gasoline can continue to reap large profits by raising prices, they should be not only allowed, but expected to raise prices.  Honestly, if you ran a business and knew you would make more profit by simply raising prices you would too. 

If, on the other hand, the Demand becomes too inelastic (meaning demand falls enough when the prices is raised that the Supplier makes less revenue and thus less profit) they will stop raising prices and lower them in order to make more money.  Yet, as much as I hear people complain about gas prices, few people are changing their behavior around it.  I don’t hear those people talking about moving closer to work, cutting back on the kids activities, taking fewer driving vacations or even going out to eat less.  Instead, they’d rather complain and ask the government to fix it so they can continue on their merry way.

High gas prices excite me personally.  I just wonder how much farther we’ll go before people finally get the idea and conserve gas.  How much higher before alternative fuel cars like fuel cells, hybrids or even electric start to make financial sense for the masses?

I’ll be mostly gone for a few days while I complete my civic duty as a juror.  Will write more later this week.

I came across some free material recently on the FDIC website for teaching basic personal finance and banking to adults.  With all the pay day loan places in my neighborhood I thought it might be a good way to help teach people some alternatives.  I was wondering if any of my many readers (okay, it’s many to me even if I can count everyone on my fingers and toes) has any experience setting up a not-for-profit entity? 

Drop me a line on my contact form if you think you might be able to point me in the right direction.  Even better, if you might want to help (cause I know I can’t do all this by myself)!