Transit Boondoggle

The people in Noblesville, Fishers and Hamilton County in general or anyone else for that matter can decide for themselves to have bus service to anywhere they want right now.  They don't have to wait for someone else to deliver a train to their doors.  Any bus system created could be coordinated with Indy routes to permit connectivity.  So, why haven’t the people of Hamilton County demanded that their elected officials provide transit?  The reality is that the demand is low. Just because a couple of hundred people ride a few buses doesn't mean that there is some pent up demand for transit. 

Furthermore, for Indianapolis to even be considering spending any money on a separate transit system for commuters in Fishers is ridiculous when no funding is now available to repair, extend and link the existing multi-modal transportation options.  When Indygo has, just within the last year, provided signs identifying bus route stops (by number, and still has an innumerable amount of bus stops without bus stop pads and/or sidewalk links, it is criminal to even be discussing spending hundreds of millions of dollars for a train to carry a few thousand (if they are lucky) passengers while these other needs remain unmet.

Frankly, if the people in Hamilton County are that concerned about the cost of their commute, they have the option of moving into many stable neighborhoods where they could make use of the existing bus system, walk and/or bike to work.  They have a choice.  A 160- million dollar train is a bailout for their poor choices.

False economies

The relatively affordable housing developments are tempting enough, but coupled with special mortgage sweeteners, they become impossible to resist for those at the margins dreaming of homeownership.

These marginally qualified homeowners, coupled with economic turmoil, eventually leads to foreclosures and depressed prices, begetting more dreamers lured by low prices, etc. until the housing market tanks. 

Unless real economic development (not headline grabbing subsidized automobile plants, etc) occurs in this city, via synergistic growth by entrepreneurial migrants and locals, there will not be any "real" rise in home values.

Of course, eventually, all will be forgotten, and another false economy will be created, collapse, ad infinitum. 

Road resurfacing

I believe that the city’s resurfacing priorities and curb and sidewalk program should focus solely on arterial and collector roads.  Local residential roads should only be considered if they are at the point of failure. If not at the point of failure, these local streets should be appropriately patched.

While the city’s policy to try to balance the resurfacing program by allotting approximately 75% to arterials and 25% to residential streets is commendable, I believe that because of the limited funding, higher speed and traffic arterial streets should get 100% of the resurfacing dollars.  To me, it is a fundamental waste of resources for a local street to get repaved, while the surrounding arterials are crater-filled hazard zones.  While only a few people drive on the local streets, everyone drives on the arterials.  The pothole problem on arterials streets is directly related to the increasing time lag between resurfacings.  Arterial streets that have been fairly recently resurfaced have few, if any potholes, while those that haven’t are riddled with them.  These potholes cause expensive damage to vehicles, damage that people can not afford, particularly with the inflationary economy of the last several years.  These potholes can also cause accidents and injuries. 

However, the people who live on the local streets are well aware of where the potholes are and can easily avoid them because of the lack of competing traffic.  Frankly, the best way to control speeds on local roads is to not resurface them so that remain rather rough.  The bumps and dips on the local street help deter most speeders; drivers of clunkers not withstanding.  Oh, and try riding public transportation over these arterial roads; it is not fun to literally get bounced out of your seat.  Frankly, the people who whine and complain about the patch of asphalt in front of their homes needing paving are generally selfishly motivated.  Anyone really concerned about their community would put their selfish concerns last and focus on what is best for the larger community.

For those reasons, I am asking that no requests be made to pave local streets, and I would ask that DPW only resurface those local streets that are at a point of failure. 

Lastly, I would ask that sidewalk priorities also be focused on arterial roads for many of the same reasons.  Although, the DPW’s general policy is to not construct new sidewalks, so as not to add to the future repair inventory; it seems to me that eliminating sidewalk gaps along arterial streets is much more important, particularly more important than replacing sidewalks along local streets, again, since the pedestrian traffic on arterial streets is heavier and generally transportation-related and not recreational.  I would ask that the curb and sidewalk program focus on eliminating sidewalk gaps along arterial streets and extending the sidewalk network in major traffic areas.

Again, I am asking that requests not be made to rehab sidewalks along local streets, but that instead requests are made to eliminate sidewalk gaps and extend sidewalks on arterials. 

 

Riding the wave of easy money

There is nothing risky about spending someone else's money.    It's only a risk when it is your money on the line.  Just as it is for homeowners who do not make a downpayment for their house, it is easy to walk away when its financed with borrowed money.

There is a reason that "sleazy" is frequently used as a modifier to developer.

The fact is that people, including bankers, are seduced by the fast-talking dreamers, and seemingly forget that there has to be substance behind the words.  And if there isn't it all comes crashing down.

Everyone involved gets greedy and basic sound business practices go out the window, as everyone tries to ride the wave of easy money to short-term riches.  Well, when the wave brings the ship crashing into the shore, you have to deal with the wreckage the best you can and, hopefully, walk away intact. I, for one, am not going to cry any tears for Chris White or any other developer who refuses to see reality.  If someone in the development game doesn't understand how phony certain aspects of our economy are, so be it.  It's just as ridiculous as these Wall Street people who come up with arcane, unexplainable financial products, who pretend that they did not realize that they were basically gambling that a perpetual pyramid scheme would work. 

By the way,  it is going to get worse before it gets better.  Those predicting a turn-around by the end of the year are dreaming.

Party like it's 1999

Wow, now I know what I want to be; a party planner. All of the hula bola about the Superbowl by Indianapolis City officials has convinced me that I need to be a central cog in the definitive economic industry of our times.  Yeah, Indianapolis economic development strategy, as evidenced by the billions of dollars of subsidies, is clearly focused on throwing a good party for visitors at our hotels, restaurants, stadiums, arenas, public parks and city streets.  However, every time, I inquire about party planner jobs with the City of Indianapolis (or any other city for that matter), I get strange reactions and befuddled looks or I get connected to the Division of Planning in DMD and/or DPW, neither of which know anything about throwing a good party.  Maybe these jobs have a different name, if so; I wish someone would let me know.  But it all sounds like party/event planning to me and I want help Indianapolis throw a party likes it’s 1999.

Gas prices & speculators

The recent run-up in gas prices is a result of 1) increased demand 2) a crazy war, 3) inflationary monetary policies of the Federal Reserve and government generally, 4) the falling dollar and 5) commodity speculation.  The most recent run-up in prices from $3+ to $4+ is mostly the work of speculators, as their speculative dollars have fled the phony housing market.  Until the speculators are distracted by another bright, shiny object, gas prices will continue rising.  

Modern government creates more problems than it solves

Government perpetuates itself by always solving problems with solutions that are not really solutions.  So, of course, either the problems persist or the "solutions" create new problems, which government proposes to solve with more half-baked solutions. 

Government officials never want to concede that there are some problems that they can not solve.

So, in the downtown area, they have created a pyramid scheme that can only be maintained by successive subsidized projects designed to prop up, support and maintain the previous (and many times extended) subsidized businesses (Hoosier Dome, Convention Center, hotels, expanded convention center, hotels, mall, expanded convention center, hotels, new arena, hotels, new stadium, hotels, expanded convention center, hotels, etc.).  It is all a house of cards that would eventually collapse without further subsidy.  They know it, but won't admit it.

Of course, when government largess is made available, someone will always be available to take it, but willingness to participate in a pyramid scheme does not validate it as a viable or appropriate method of development. 

Most pyramid schemes collapse.  Unfortunately, government can levy additional taxes, borrow money and use all sort of financial voodoo to maintain the pyramid regardless of its long-term impact on the city’s core mission or viability.

We are giving Honda what!

Kudos to Honda for extorting 141.5 million dollars (okay, only about $40,000,000 directly in their pockets) from the taxpayers of Indiana.  Honda Motor is listed 27^th on the Global 500 by Fortune, with revenues of $80,486,600,000 and profits of $4,523,900,000. Those revenues would place them 17^th on the Fortune 500 list of American Companies, if they were an American Company and 32^nd on the list of most profitable companies (And I do not mean to pick on Honda, the previous incentives for Toyota, with more than twice the revenue and profits of Honda, are beyond ridiculous).  Honda is just the latest recipient of government’s largesse in the name of economic development. 

 

My first reaction to the request for incentive packages by Honda is that the location analysts for Honda should be fired for picking a site that can not meet their needs, without major infrastructure and other financial incentives being paid by someone else.  So, why aren’t they picking a site that does not need massive infrastructure improvements, so that no one, including the taxpayers, has to spend millions of dollars beyond the cost of the plant?  Either Honda really needs the incentives to make the project work, or they do not need it and just decided to steal some money from us.  Of course, we were happy to give it, as “My Man Mitch” was grinning ear-to-ear, as were the Honda executives.  Mitch, when you can get a company to locate in Indiana, without providing incentives other than advancing scheduled infrastructure improvements, I will be impressed.  Until then, you have not done anything that any other yahoo, with millions of dollars of other people’s money at their disposal, couldn’t have done.  So, stop grinning and get to work.

Ad infinitum

The relatively affordable housing developments are tempting enough, but coupled with special mortgage sweeteners, they become impossible to resist for those at the margins dreaming of homeownership.

These marginally qualified homeowners, coupled with economic
turmoil, eventually leads to foreclosures and depressed prices, begetting more dreamers lured by low prices, etc. until the housing market tanks.

Unless real economic development (not headline grabbing subsidized automobile plants, etc) occurs in this city, via synergistic growth by entrepreneurial migrants and locals, there will not be any "real" rise in home values.

Of course, eventually, all will be forgotten, and another false economy will be created, collapse, ad infinitum.

Comprehensive immigration reform - NOT!

There does not need to be a new immigration bill passed. Congress needs to provide the funding for the enforcement of current laws. I remember the 1986 amnesty by Reagan, which never should have happened. I also remember how employers were supposed to ensure that the employees they hired were United States citizens. I also remember, in the late (80's) thinking that maybe the government was actually going to be serious about enforcing citizenship as it related to employment. But certain employers quickly found out that no enforcement would be forthcoming and they began recruiting Hispanics throughout the Great Plains, Midwest and other parts of the country. Subsequently, whole factories and large portions of several industries began to be dominated by Hispanics, at much lower wages. The importation of these illegal aliens has had an impact on many working Americans who find that the jobs that use to have been illegally taken from them. At the same time, they see that their government wants to reward the very companies and illegal aliens who took their jobs.

Chaos Reigns

I have no sympathy for people who marry illegal aliens. They are free to join their spouse in their native countries.

We can't continue to accept anyone who decides to violate their visa or just enters the country without one.

If we don't do the things necessary to be a nation, we will no longer be one.

All one has to do as look around the world or at our past history to see what the results are from unrestrained immigration, particularly illegal immigration. Two dominant cultures will eventually clash. Wars are just a grown-up version of gang warfare and protecting one's turf.

There is this myth going around that democratic governments unite people together, however, what holds a nation together are common values and a common culture. Countries without common values and culture are held together by dictators. Remove the dictator and chaos reigns.

Billions and Billions

"Without them and the $3.56 billion the tourism and hospitality industry pumps into the local economy, Indianapolis would be just another decaying post-industrial city surrounded by former cornfields of two-story tract homes full of people with nothing to do."

I am not sure what the $3.56 billion consists of, but I do know (according to Stats Indiana (http://www.stats.indiana.edu/profiles/pr18097.html), the total earnings from accommodations, food service, arts, entertainment, recreation and retail trade only made up 9.4% (3.4 billion) of the total earnings in Marion County. And of course, the average wages of these sectors are amongst the lowest. Obviously, only a portion of that is attributable to tourism.

What Ketzenbeger should be doing is providing a real analysis of the minor role that the convention center, etc. actually play in the local economy and contrast that to the percentage of subsidies (tax abatement and tifs, etc. provided to this sector of the economy.

Tech workers

I don't buy the argument that there is currently a shortage of technically skilled people. If no one remembers, we had a technological boom, even if only a false one, during which there never was any evidence of a shortage of workers. After the tech bust, what happened? Did all of these workers disappear? No, they haven't; they still exist and they are looking for work. But under the new paradigm of cheap labor uber alles, a lot of lips are flapping about the need to obtain more cheap labor by lying about the availability of American workers. Only if and when Gates provides verifiable data, will I consider believing a word he says about this issue.

However, having an immigration policy that is based on attracting highly talented foreign-born workers is an acceptable policy to add to, not to replace American workers. It is surely a much better policy than our intentional policy of not enforcing our immigration laws and permitting millions of poor, uneducated people to flood into our welfare-laden society.

And of course, our entitlement laden, easy money society provides so many disincentives for developing the proper work ethic needed for the study of math and science. There really has to be societal attitude changes before we can really turn the corner in our elementary, secondary and post-secondary educational systems

Multiculturalism

Providing foot sinks is pandering to religious sect and smacks of the multiculturalism that is slowly destroying this country. A counrty can not survive with multiple culturals. It most have one dominant culture. All our problems today are related to people not wanting to assimilate into our culture, whether it be the variety of people, black, white, hispanic, etc. who embrace ghetto culture and refuse to fully participate in the broader culture.

Multiculturalism says we should provide foot sinks and that they should expect foot sinks. Assimilation says that one needs to make a choice - if footwashing is a problem, than the individual needs to figure out where they can wash their feet without impacting the broader culture.

Multiculturalism says that I should be able to do what I want to fulfill my needs regardless of how it impacts the broader culture.

Assimilation sayst that I must consider the broader culture when deciding how I practice my religion and conduct my daily life.

Illegal immigration bill

Supporters of Senate Bill 335 are not motivated by race; we are motivated by reality. We are motivated by the reality of the concerted effort to reduce labor costs in everyway imaginable, including the exploitation of illegal aliens, workers in domestic and foreign sweatshops, forced and prison labor camps, and child labor.

Illegal immigration, unfortunately, is just one part of the sordid nature of our economy that those who reap direct benefits from cheap labor or cheap prices (not for long with the falling dollar) chose to ignore.

What also is ignored is the fact that billions of dollars earned by illegal aliens is siphoned from our economy and infused into foreign economies, thereby bolstering their economies while diminishing ours. Meanwhile, the social welfare system of the United States provides an extra incentive for illegal immigrants to violate our laws since comparable safety nets do not exist in their countries. Our social welfare system subsidizes those entities that exploit those workers and flaunt U.S. immigration law.
We can not continue to tolerate the illegal residency of those who decide to violate their visa or enter our country without one. We must decide whether we will be a nation that focuses on “the general Welfare” of “We the People” as specified in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, or whether we continue to follow the path of Corporations uber alles.

Senate Bill 335 is just a small step to indicate to the Federal Government that the citizens and resident aliens of the State of Indiana will not continue to tolerate the subversion of our laws and the exploitation of our overly generous welfare system by those who seek to abuse them. It also seeks to ensure that illegal alien criminals, regardless of where they originate from, are identified when and wherever possible. Is that too much to ask?

Stimulus bill

The recently passed stimulus bill is a symptom of our economic problems. Because we refuse to reduce government spending, we borrow money from foreign governments and inflate the money supply (and pretend there is low inflation) to fund our government, our illegitimate war and consumer spending. Instead of our government and citizens admitting their collective addiction to overspending, the government, at our urging, has decided to rain dollars down upon us to cure our economic ills. Of course, other spending will not be reduced; so, thank Communist China for your check.

Our economy and our federal, state and local governments are in trouble because we believe that we can base our economy on consumerism, and somehow believe that contrary to our past and every other emerging economy, we can prosper without having a vibrant manufacturing sector. In other words, we believe that saving, investment, capital formation and production can be replaced by borrowing, spending and importing. Meanwhile the dollar is sinking (meaning those foreign-made goods will no longer be as cheap) and our trade deficit grows ever larger as we pretend that the value of the dollar has no relationship to the cost of imported oil.

Of course, what was deemed to be a positive impact of these policies, the recent phony real estate bubble economy, is, in fact, a symptom of the problem. The policy of inflating the money supply by maintaining artificially low interest rates, combined with lax lending standards and the perverted use of ARMs, interest-only loans and negative amortization ARMs helped feed the hunger of slobbering speculators, while we either jealously watched or joined in. Now, all of those involved in the “party” want to be bailed out with principal reductions, interest-rate freezes and the like. So, we want to reward those who engaged in speculation and took a risk or who borrowed against equity that really didn’t exist, while those who saved for consumer purchases and purchased homes based on sound financial principles pay for it, like all unnecessary government debt, for years to come.

I have a dream that one day we will return to a “real” economy, instead of one based on the exploitation of illegal aliens, domestic and foreign sweatshops, ridiculously easy credit, massive personal and government debt, a devalued dollar, phony government inflation and employment data, financial machinations and trade deficits. I only hope that it happens by choice, otherwise, it will be a long painful transition back to sanity.

Military bases

I am not sure whether we spend enough or not, but we generally end up spending too much of what we do spend, particularly in areas with little or no significant population growth, on new infrastructure for people and businesses who choose to relocate, while neglecting the maintenance of existing infrastructure. Then, of course, the cycle repeats itself.

We probably spend too much on the military (we probably just spend too much in general) and, of course, those expenditures become important to U.S. localities and many become dependent on them just as individuals become dependent on entitlement programs. And the economic benefits are also one of the same reasons (though a more sensible one), many countries are willing to host American bases. Of course, many people in those countries as well as neighboring countries oppose those bases. While it is arguable that bases are needed outside of the U.S., it becomes a little more difficult to argue that 700+ are needed. Supposedly, there is going to be a redeployment of many of the 200,000 troops on those bases, possibly leading to the elimination of some of them. But it appears that we are adding bases in other areas like Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikstan, which has, of course, made Russia very happy. Imagine if Russia had bases in Mexico or Cuba (oh, yeah, they sort of tried that once). Anyway, unless we, as a nation decide that our military role is much more limited than the current and past administrations have believed, there will be little change in our military spending. And of course, if the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war continues to be our modus operandi, the military budget will continue to rise, and even more local economies will be dependent upon it.

City fixing problems

Consolidating propeties and selling them as a block would only work if contiguous properties are available, and many times that is not the case. So, eminent domain would have to be used by the city. The city needs to stop trying to do things that it can not do. City government throws ideas at the wall and sees what sticks. They feel that they are succesful when they make an effort, however, the effort they need to make is to stay focused on the issues at hand, mainly public safety and infrastructure maintenance and repair.

Any investment that is not market driven is likely to be a bad long-term investment. The city needs to enforce existing laws and go after owners who do not maintatin their properties, whether it be the banks, HUD, corporations or individuals. The city should provide leadership and help each neighborhood help itself to enhance its quality of life. But the city, as well as real estate developers needs to stop pretending that they can create homeowners out of thin air. Instead, the message should be to citizens that homeownership requires a personal financial commitment, not just relaxed lending standards. If all of these homes are vacant and foreclosed, there must be a surplus of housing and in many cases, the homes and/or neighborhoods are not desirible. If so, no amount of government intervention is going to change that fact. The best that the government can do is to focus on improving the quality of life for the remaining residents and ridding these communities of domestic criminals and illegal alien criminals.