Politics

Why Governor Crist Is No Better Than Palin…

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I’ll admit right away that I’m a mother to a toddler of nearly 2 years old, I am pretty doggone busy every day as I try to keep up with my son’s physical pace and intellectual thirst for knowledge (yes, pointing at things and grunting in a questionable way as to what that object is called).

Yet, I still try my best as do most parents to stay somewhat connected to the current events, especially locally…so when I see the headlines in the The Palm Beach Post read: “State to act against BP, Crist says”, I get pretty worked up since I can’t help but be insulted by our Governor’s assumption that we just want to sue BP because of the oil disaster brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. You can read more for yourself at: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/florida-may-file-lawsuits-as-early-as-monday-679030.html

Yes, because even though I’ve been unable to keep up with all the specifics of this tragedy I still find it ridiculous that our Florida governor, you know- the Senate now Independent candidate has decided that BP must be have “action taken” against them.  That’s right, because I’m sure that BP thought it was a brilliant idea to have their oil rig have an accidental and fatal (to at least 11 persons) explosion take place to grant them fabulous and infamous media scrutiny as the coastal economies brace themselves for what may be the oil spill fallout.

Here’s the long and short, humble opinion of mine as to why Gov. Charlie Crist is no better than former Vice Presidential candidate and former Alaskan:  He is an opportunistic politician that just keeps grabbing at straws even though his chance to drink victory is long gone.

I can’t help but shake my head and just be plain disgusted that he would tout taking any type of action against BP, especially since it’s vague and just is a lame attempt at tugging at Floridian’s heart-strings.

What upsets me most as a native Floridian about this BP oil spill situation is that the nation as whole assumes that all Florida residents are against oil drilling in general, especially off our shores.  However, the reality is there are a good number of us that were open to the idea since we don’t all wish to be hypocrites.

At the same time, I’m willing to concede that oil drilling off our shores is a bit risky since our main industries are tourism and agriculture in Florida.  But here’s the issue that I struggle with: how is it okay that we drill elsewhere on Earth, but not in our own country because of the ENVIRONMENT?

Don’t get me wrong, I love our environment, I don’t rejoice in the fact that we have to over-harvest some of our resources as our appetite seems insatiable.  Still, I have a huge issue that we find it okay to rip out oil from Africa and Arab countries, but we’re above that in the United States of America. Really? The ANWR  (Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge) is too risky? For what, the animals that live there? How about the clam and oyster beds, the fishermen, the hotels and resorts along the Gulf and perhaps even Atlantic coasts (thank you Gulf Stream current capabilities)?

The hypocrisy of our nation gets me even while I am in the throes of raising a family…we guzzle oil, we must accept that fact and be adult about our responsibility in that and stop just assuming that our sources should be elsewhere, not our backyards.

Overall, my biggest complaint is with the attitude of our current governor, he’s much more concerned about his political welfare.  There’s no denying that oil drilling ideas for Florida were pretty  much killed after what happened with BP in the past few weeks, but Crist’s is taking it to a personal crusader level just to help win him some opportunistic votes for his struggling U.S. Senatorial race…

RVSB

Friday’s Closing Thoughts: Simplify, Why & Gov. Crist’s Peril

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CLOSING

It doesn’t matter what type of work you’re involved in, Fridays still seem to hold such a relief factor for most of us.  Especially if you have children and go by school or self-imposed schedules weekly.  For stay-at-home parents, Friday also brings the joy of your other half coming to the home front for hopefully most of the weekend helping you feel a little like an adult again. Welcome to Friday friends!

SIMPLIFY

I pulled an all-nighter this past week, I believe it occurred on Tuesday evening when my husband was out-of-town for a business trip.  It began with crusade to clean out our car, it has been a virtual gyspy-mobile for months with the necessity of mini-cleans along the way.  However, the spring cleaning I’m talking about consisted of pulling out all rugs, mats, special vinyl and leather cleaner, leather conditioner (yes, conditioner cream for leather!),vacuuming EVERYWHERE, de-gunking all appendages, buttons, et cetera. 

In addition to the car itself, I boldly attempted to clean my son’s car seat as well. WARNING to all my parent friends and strangers alike, do have your owner’s manual to the car seat handy before you start to remove fabric pieces and if you can manage, just take wipes and spot clean for the large areas. I almost tossed the entire entourage out of frustration of trying to reassemble the doggone contraption while my beloved toddler was in tantrum wind-up mode the next morning. (another caveat: reassemble child car seat while child is still sleeping soundly, so even if it’s 3:40am, just do it!)

Besides the car, in my post-tax season purge, I went nuts and tore into all random bags of receipts, bill stubs, business cards, random mail, you name it and I found it in its burrowed sack/box and had it all on the floor.  Between sips of my favorite Greek Retsina wine and leftover Publix cake, I battled through this reorganization, reallocation and ultimate trash-fest at about 4am officially Wednesday morning.  Shortly before 5am I came to my senses and realized that I was on morning kid duty in less than 2 hours so a nap would be in order.

You may expect that I regretted staying up all night clean and organize but the fact is that taking that unfettered time to simplify areas of my life that I spend so much time in was the best thing I’ve done in months.  Yes, I’ve paid through being a little more tired this week but I’ve relaxed in my mood because the catharsis of simplifying clutter and mess has allowed me to just indulge in the adventures (both expected and unexpected) of every day after Tuesday this week.  If you can find a way to do this for you and your family, I highly advise it as it truly has been a relief.

PERIL: Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist

In other news, I awake this morning to the www.sayfiereview.com headline for Gov. Crist stating that the stage may be set for him to become and run as an Independent in the state as he seeks the election win for the U.S. Senate race.

A fun quote from Mr. Steve Bousquet’s report from the Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau reads: “Crist is boxed in politically. His political future is in peril. The former quarterback who loves sports analogies needs to throw a Hail Mary.” You can look this story up here: http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/elections/with-veto-crist-sets-stage-for-independent-run/1087793

I remember working in Congress for a Florida congressman back when Crist was seeking to run for the Florida governor seat he now occupies. I had been tracking him in the headlines for years as I watched him strategically position himself to be the right candidate on paper.  Many of my colleagues contested the idea that he’d win the race, I stood my ground because I knew he was packaging it well.

In this case, I haven’t been paying much mind as everyday life keeps me occupied from reading all the details of the going-ons in the politics world. But I believe my sense of Crist hasn’t changed and I’m disappointed that he got the governor’s seat only to look again to other higher political aspirations instead of just doing the job he was elected to do. Now a young, vocal and naive Marco Rubio comes out and challenges him like Rufio from the Lost Boys in the Peter Pan movie rendition of “Hook” with Robin Williams.  Crist is flustered that his carefully crafted goals may be shook and possibly destroyed so he goes for the old change-my-political-affiliation get-out-of-jail free card.

Sigh. I love Florida and the politics in our state truly can be unique from other parts of our nation.  I just hope that this governor’s race plays out for the best of the citizens of the state of every political party: democrat, republican, independent and otherwise.  I’ve lived through both democratic and republican governors in our state and respect the office and the job they do more than the party they affiliate with. 

I simply don’t support Crist for the U.S. Senate seat because I feel he just went through the mediocre motions needed to fulfill his governor’s role and with that type of attitude, I don’t want him to represent our Florida voices in the U.S. Senate.

RVSB

A Housing Crisis Solution: Why Banks Could Do It But Won’t

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In my local paper, The Palm Beach Post, Ms. Kimberly Miller’s Story on the top of the front page reads: “Loan forgiveness wave in sight?”  You can look at the piece yourself at: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/real-estate/bank-of-america-has-new-forgiveness-program-to-438657.html

In short, Bank of America announced yesterday that it’s unveiling a new program that may cut up to 30% off of mortgage loan balances.  My heart was racing as I started reading this article because I have been very adamant for a couple years now that the paralyzing effect of the housing bubble calls for an equally radical reaction from the banking institutions that doled out countless home loan that are now upside down with no end in sight.

Evidently, as Michael Sichenzia, president of Dynamic Consulting Enterprises in Deerfield Beach, Florida points out, the banks are facing the stark reality that it cost a lot to administer all these foreclosures rampant in our nation and despite politicians on both sides-there isn’t  slowdown in this trend, people are simply too tired and drained even if they have the funds to carry on with home loans that are of no benefit, especially for those who have to move out of an area and can’t sell.

I was actually hopeful until I reached the unfortunate caveat that every housing crisis “solution” has as its disclaimer: “To qualify, a borrower must prove financial hardship, be two months delinquent in payments, and owe at least 20 percent more on the loan than the home is worth.”‘ -source: Palm Beach Post, Kimberly Miller, http://www.palmbeachpost.com

Forcefully reading through the rest of the article I was fuming.  Again, it’s a “solution” that is not addressing the real issue.  Every few months the numbers released about delinquent loan holders reveals that many are repeat offenders in their delinquency.  These housing crisis solutions continue to target those who are “delinquent”. Why? Except for a marginal few, statistically speaking it’s a bad bet to continue to reward those who are not fulfilling their signed contracts.  At risk of being called a racist, why must we “ghetto-ize” ourselves in order to seek assistance? (note: I was born and raised in a mixed-race ghetto as a dark olive-brown Greek girl)

The whole “hardship” clause in all of these housing crisis solutions is flawed because it’s like pretending that there’s just a few people out there hurting when it’s plain economics that we all are in hardship-regardless of our social or economic class backgrounds.

I’m not excusing the fact that our real estate market got out of control as we entered the 21st century.  Certainly there is enough blame to go around from the selling agents, the over-eager buyers, the zealous mortgage brokers, the welcoming banking institutions, the “flippers” and so forth.  I personally struggle with trying not to regret our home purchase in 2005 as we did so in order to make sure we could sell it in Maryland when the time came for us to leave so that we could afford to buy real estate in my native state of Florida.  Whether it was for honorable or dishonorable reasons, many of us in America got duped by what was considered a sound investment of the Aughts decade.

Here we are today mired in the wastewater of “bigger than life” housing dreams, many already extinguished their credit lines in exchange for release from loan interest payments they couldn’t honor.  Then there are those in silent majority who every month pull out the checking book or queue their checking account to transfer the mortgage payment each month even though many of us may not even live in our property anymore.

For instance, my husband and I had to leave a year ago from the Washington, DC area to follow a job lead here in Florida.  Given the job market at that time, we had to leave even though putting our house up for sale was impossible unless we consented to a short sale.   When we found out the details on what a short sale was, my hair stood on end–it was reminiscent of the feeling I got when adjustable interest or no-interest rates on our mortgage were suggested to us years earlier, no thanks, there’s something not right about it.  For short sales, there was the possibility of your banking institutions “forgiving” the balance of the loan that you owe if you can’t sell your house for that amount but there was no guarantee that your credit line wouldn’t be affected and no details on for how long. We were finally able to rent out our house but at a loss that we still pay out at least $700 a month toward the mortgage, effectively stamping “BOOMERANG KID” on our foreheads until we pay down the mortgage enough to sell at its value or win the Florida lottery (which odds are better?).

Here’s my humble laymen’s proposal: we need to hit the “reset” button on this housing/mortgage loan industry.  If President Barak Obama claims that we can have “hope for change”, then this is my “We can” moment to rail upon.

By no means am I saying that the banking institutions shouldn’t make profit on us, in fact, I’ve always believed that Americans take it for granted that you can have something on borrowed money/credit.  What I am advocating is that our banking institutions take an ego hit and recalibrate all existing home loans to amount what the property’s value is currently. There should be a time frame set in place to help the overall recovery process; basically allowing for these loans to be equal to the property’s value and any variations in the next 3 – 5 years (or whatever the smarter economists and statisticians think may be best).

Although this would be a quickly felt financial shock on the part of the banks, I do believe it would allow for another chain reaction to occur almost immediately.  Just like a boat vessel performs better after barnacle and other underwater gunk removal, the real estate market would start to move more naturally again.  At the moment, it’s a feasting ground for some first-time home buyers and investors (many foreign, note) that are able to clean up on the short-sale and foreclosure landscape.  Finally, those that legitimately need to sell would have a better chance as they could list their property is for what it’s truly worth (attracting buyers) and upon sale would still make sure their lender is paid(bank is happy, not dealing with administrative sludge and cost of foreclosure or default).

This may seem like a pipe dream but I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility.  We have incredibly smart people in this nation that can work out the numbers and the parameters of a proposal like this to what could really be a viable option for our government, banks and citizens to cooperate on.

Plainly speaking, we who bought ought to pay the banks their due.  However, that needs to be balanced with a dose of reality-checking on the banks’ part.  Banking institutions should drop the idea of government “bail-outs” and instead get the government’s economists and statisticians to calculate the right equation for existing mortgage loans to be calibrated to the current value of the property.

Again, I don’t have a PHD in economics or the like, however as a meager English major, I hope someone reads this and passes on to people who can help make a difference in this housing crisis that our nation is crippled by financially.  If China can do whatever the heck it wants with its currency value, why can’t America step up and pull together on this one?  Consider this issue our “Victory Garden”, the problem that we all need to work on and get through.

As a final note, I do applaud Bank of America Corporation for at least attempting to make a step in the right direction.  Still, it’s not what they could do and I just wish they would.

RVSB

Personal Reflection: Politics and Poisonous Speech

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In my life I have had the honor of working in the U.S. Congress as a legislative aide and in a Presidential Administration as a humble political appointee.  During those ‘working bee’ years, I came to understand how our nation’s legislation is written, enacted and executed.  Admittedly, I came in pretty ignorant…I actually kept a book at my desk that broke down what we all should have learned in our Social Studies/Government Civics classes in grammar school.  Alas, nothing is a better education than being immersed in the daily grind of it all, down to the most mundane amendments written for bills on the House Floor.

However, my personal work experience in DC Beltway politics also served to affect me in a negative way.  One of my bosses went down in an ill-gotten scandal and although I already had garnered a jaded chip on my shoulder about politicians on both sides of the aisle–this one was pretty jolting.

My first inclination was to walk away altogether from politics for a while, but I did enjoy carrying out and interacting with ‘the people’ that have the power to elect and vote out these lawmakers.  Thus, when opportunity knocked to become a political appointee and work at the U.S. Department of Treasury, I leapt into it.

I can truly say that my post at Treasury was the hardest I had ever worked in an office environment in my career so far.  The people I met and worked with were among the highest caliber and yet I also came in contact with some who were so power-hungry and obsessed with subjects not necessarily in our nation’s best interests.  My political and bureaucratic education was once more expanded and it was extremely difficult to avoid becoming disillusioned further–again, both political parties to blame, neither better than the other.

Is the answer to abolish our heavily two-party system?  No offense to Independents, Libertarians, Green Party and so forth, but the Democrats and Republicans do have the most members and money of all our other political parties in this country.

Although the speeches between the politicians, the pundits and even the public has become so poisonous at times, I cannot believe that getting rid of the balance of powers would ever work for our nation.  Just as I can debate with my husband, my family, my friends and even strangers, I think it makes me a better person and perhaps more open to other ideas than just my self-formulated ones.

Many recent politicians, even our current President, have attempted to deliver a new way, a “hope for change” if you will.  Please understand that sort of promise in action is challenging in the present political halls of power.  Having worked with others who believe in compromising and working things out for the best of our people’s interests, even those persons in powerful positions have run and still run into the wall of “the way thing are”.

Having said all of this, I still firmly believe that our system of checks and balances in our government is the best for our time in our nation.  Another solution to consider is personal responsibility for everyone involved: the voting public, the worker bees in government, the lawmakers and elected officials.  Just as if we all simply let someone pass in front of us while we drive on the road this week, everyone would enjoy driving much more than the common ‘road rage’ many of us endure daily–we should consider that if everyone did their active part for our nation’s local and federal governments, there would be less griping about ‘the system’ because the system simply deconstructed is designed for “the People, by the People.”

Note:  A trip to Epcot with my son and a close friend yesterday yielded this thought tangent after viewing the Presidential show in the United States section–random but true:-)

RVSB