PAtownhall.com
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
PAtownhall.com
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
by Ralph R. Reiland,
Professor of Free Enterprise
SATURDAY
There's a fun outdoor bar by the pool at our hotel, the Lago Mar Resort and Club, a quiet beachfront resort on the peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Mayan in Fort Lauderdale. The lime daiquiris are perfect and the bar's TV is tuned to the noon news. The big local story is the latest skirmish in the battle over the Florida re-vote.
"Our votes don't count," says an elderly man on the adjacent stool. He's eating a crab cake with mango and pineapple and explains that he's a retiree, living nearby, and a longtime member of Lago Mar, paying by the year.
"They don't know what they're doing," he says, referring to the mismanagement of the Florida primary. "I gave them money, but no more. The politicians aren't getting a dime when they come back for more money for the November election."
SUNDAY
It's easy not to feel rich at Grille 66 & Bar, a waterfront restaurant at the Hyatt Regency Pier. A supersized yacht is docked next to our outside table. "It took six full-sized gas trucks to fill its tank -- 35,000 gallons," explains our waiter. "And it's not here tonight but there's a yacht that docks here five times bigger that has two landing spots for helicopters." And I was wondering if I should go for the $15 per glass merlot or stick with the $8.50 glass.
The morning paper reported that yacht sales are booming, especially at the high end, in spite of foreclosures and the looming recession. Business is so good that there's a four-year wait for the largest yachts. "The business appears to be recession proof," writes Tork Buckley, editor of The Yacht Report.
The world's biggest yacht, at 525 feet, is the Dubai (naturally), owned by the ruler of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. It'll soon be topped, however, by the Eclipse, at 531 feet, currently being built in Germany, reportedly at a price of $1 million per foot for Roman Abramovich, a billionaire from the previously anti-materialistic Soviet Russia.
WEDNESDAY
It's a crazy day. A bill has been introduced in the Mississippi legislature that makes it illegal for restaurants to serve food to fat people. And Dr. Laura Schlessinger, blaming the victim and with no inside information, says it was Mrs. Spitzer's fault that Mr. Spitzer no longer is the governor of New York: "When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like her hero, he's very susceptible. The cheating was his decision to repair what is damaged and to feed himself where he is starving."
I'd say the government should leave the fatties alone and focus on murders. With the Spitzers, why not just say he's a jerk?
THURSDAY
Upturning economic theory, PricewaterhouseCoopers reports that "U.S. hotels are expected to increase room rates to make up for slack demand." Slack demand is supposed to produce lower prices. Still, the Sun-Sentinel reported today that "average room rates jumped 19 percent in January in Palm Beach County from the same month last year" --- and the high-end cruise business is up.
SATURDAY
The headline on a story in this morning's paper provides a peak into how economic development these days is less about private risk-taking and entrepreneurial innovation and more about taxes and government subsidies: "Hollywood going after restaurant for $120,000 in grant money."
The idea was that Michael's Kitchen, a "nationally acclaimed restaurant," would be "the key to downtown revival" in Hollywood, Florida. What followed was a $150,000 "incentives grant" from the city's Community Development Agency and an agreement from Michael's "owner and celebrated chef" Michael Blum and his wife to stay for 10 years or pay the city $15,000 for every year remaining in the 10-year grant if they closed.
The restaurant closed in its third year, the storefront is vacant, and the Blums say that skyrocketing property taxes drove them out of town. Similarly, Casa Collection, an upscale baby boutique closed in less than a year after getting a $25,000 "renovation grant" from Hollywood's central planners.
MONDAY
Our arrival in Lorton (just south of D.C.) on the Auto Train, the world's longest passenger train, is on time -- 9 a.m. During breakfast, several people were discussing the impact of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's racist rhetoric on Barack Obama's campaign. One of the questions answered itself: "How long would a white candidate last if he had attended KKK meetings for the past 20 years?"
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Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Ralph R. Reiland
E-mail: rrreiland@aol.com
Phone: 412-884-4541
"Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon Professor of Free Enterprise at Robert Morris University, the owner Amel's Restaurant, and a columnist with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review."
