More on the Cincinnati earthquake: If you want homeowners' coverage for one, you can't get it
May 9, 2008 01:32 PM
Well I never thought this would be an issue. Just got the quote back from the insurance man for homeowners' coverage on the new house (yes, we're finally moving, no I haven't blogged about it. Not enough hours in the day). He gave me two quotes. One for earthquake coverage, one without. An explanatory note says the insurance company has suspended its agents' binding authority for earthquake coverage "until further notice." So if I opt for earthquake coverage, they'll add it to the policy, if and when they are allowed to cover earthquakes again.
This is Ohio! Talk about something that makes you think that "they" know something we don't. The Big One is just around the corner and the only people who know it is Big Insurance!
I say that in jest, of course. Kind of. It's been so long since I've blogged, my readers (if there are any left) may not know my sense of humor.
But anyway: If they are allowed to write coverage for earthquakes again, it will cost me $250 per year. For something that supposedly is really, really unlikely. Is $250 for earthquake coverage--in Ohio--a rip off? The house is brick, so any damage would be really expensive to fix. But what are the chances?
UPDATE: I asked the agent about it, and he said that within an hour of the earthquake, he'd gotten an email informing him that he no longer had binding authority for earthquake coverage. And, he says coverage is going to be getting a lot more expensive, not less. But for $250 per year in earthquake coverage, I'd like to at least be within a 10 hour drive of a palm tree.
Dusty Rhodes to Single Moms: "And your little dog, too!!!"
May 6, 2008 12:22 PM
From today's Enquirer:
Kathleen Akin of Wyoming was featured in The Enquirer April 24 for her decision to be a single mother. But it was her dog that got the attention of the Hamilton County Auditor's Office.
After a photo showed Akin, 45, and her children walking with Sophie, the family's King Charles spaniel, Akin got a letter from the Auditor's Office.
"We saw a picture from Thursday's Cincinnati Enquirer of you in the 'Single Women Who Choose Motherhood" article,'" stated the letter. "When we checked our dog registration database, we didn't find any references you had licensed your dog Sophie."
Obviously, something had to be done about these law breakers:
Can you f***ing believe? The Auditor justifies it thusly:
"We've done it six times so far," said Auditor, DEMOCRAT [ed.] Dusty Rhodes. "We've got a pretty hip staff and people are reading things."
His advice: "Keep your dog out of the picture if it's not licensed."
Since when is being an ass "pretty hip"?
Ohio, the Bleeding Heart of it All
May 5, 2008 05:00 PM
Wasn't that our state slogan at some point? It was something along those lines. Anyway, here's a story about the late Senator Metzenbaum that brought back fond memories of my grandmother. How can that be? Well, my grandmother absolutely despised Howard Metzenbaum. And this article from the Wall Street Journal would have made her fume all the more:
Former Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum, who died in March at age 90, was an ultraliberal as a politician but also a savvy and very rich businessman. Before going to Washington in 1976, he had made a fortune on parking lots.
As a three-term Democrat, he made his reputation in Washington by attacking big business and fighting anything that even hinted of deregulation. His attacks against Clarence Thomas in 1991 prompted a famous retort from the future Supreme Court Justice: "God is my judge, Mr. Metzenbaum, not you."
But we come today not to judge the late Senator, only to praise him for one last act of personal financial acumen. Though a lifelong Ohioan, the Senator moved to Florida in 2002, according to a declaration of domicile filed with the Broward County Clerk's office in 2003. In doing so, he avoided paying his home state's income tax (top rate: 6.55%).
More important as he neared the end of his life, the former Senator also saved his family from paying Ohio's death tax, which features one of the highest state rates (7%) and lowest asset thresholds – $338,333 – in the country. Florida famously has no income or estate tax, which is one reason other than the climate that it is home to so many northern-born retirees.
Howard Metzenbaum thus denied the state in which he lived most of his life a parting financial gift. But he has at least provided the rest of us with a teaching moment in tax policy. If a liberal lion like Metzenbaum is willing to relocate late in life to avoid his state's death tax, maybe living politicians in Ohio will better understand how their confiscatory tax laws are driving its citizens to warmer climes.
Thanks for nothing, Senator. The only thing that's nice about this is that Clarence Thomas was Senator Metzenbaum's Justice for the last seventeen years, and God is his Judge now. Everything else makes you want to throw up your hands in despair.
And speaking of despair: Did you know there are actually business owners in Cincinnati who "live" in Florida, have their families living in Ohio, and who actually go spend the night across the river in Northern Kentucky for X number of nights per year? You have to be out of the State for enough nights per year to keep the Ohio taxman at bay. I have clients do it all the time. Keep your receipts, we tell them. The government has to know where you sleep at night.
HT: WMD
Breaking economic news from the New York Times: People are being forced to live within their incomes!
May 1, 2008 07:10 AM
My times are bad, aren't they? Per the NYT:
As real estate prices plunge, so does the ability of homeowners to borrow against the value of their homes, crimping a major artery of spending. As banks grow tighter with their dollars in a period of uncertainty, families are running up against credit limits, forcing many to live within their incomes.
First, what's so bad about people living within their incomes? And second, if these people are up against their credit limits, THEY STOPPING LIVING WITHIN THEIR INCOME A LONG TIME AGO.
Maybe these people aren't the victims? Maybe they're actually the ones who deserve the blame for the bad economy?
The Obama v. Clinton Cage Match
April 29, 2008 10:52 AM
Why didn't someone think of this sooner? Thank you, New York Post.
I can't get the Hillary character to hit below the belt, though. It would be much more authentic if she could hit below the belt.
Mansfield's Memories: The Earthquakes of 1811-1812
April 18, 2008 09:13 PM
The memories of the earthquake of 2008, Chez NBS, are not nearly so interesting. It involved both of us waking up, and me, briefly thinking something was wrong with the furnace and making it thump. But why would the furnace be kicking on? And then it was, where's Henry? Because it was like he was on the floor, scratching like crazy with a hind leg. But he seemed fine, and once we established that, it was back to sleep for us. You tend to do that when you have a new baby and it's not wailing. Back to sleep, quick! It did occur to me for a minute that it was an earthquake. But I didn't speak up, and now wish I had. What an authority I would have seemed!
But anyway, what about Mr. Mansfield? If you've never read his Personal Memories: Social, Political and Literary with Sketches of Many Noted People 1803-1843, you're missing out. It's life in Cincinnati circa those days, and it is extraordinarly interesting. You think times are tough now? You aren't at risk of getting scalped by Indians.
Here's how he recalls the earthquakes. Yes, he says there was more than one. He says it went on for several months:
In the midst of this work [his father surveying Northwestern Ohio and Indiana] an event occured which was memorable then, and hardly less so now. On the night of the 16th of December, 1811, Cousin Mary and I were waked up by a rattling which we supposed to be rats, but which proved to be the handles of a trunk...
Mansfield was, by the way, from a wealthy family. And yes, they apparently had rats. I think everyone did.
...In a moment we found the room was shaking, and sprang up frightened. Then we heard my father's voice calling us. We rushed down stairs, and, with the whole family, ran into the yard. While we ran out the bricks were falling from the roof of the house, the chimney having been shaken down...
Thank God this didn't happen to us, we just got an offer on the house, and the inspection is Sunday.
...There was a light snow on the ground, and a carriage in the yard. My mother and little sister took refuge in the carriage, and my father went back to the house, saying there was more danger of rheumatism than of the house falling.
I like people who are sensible enough to be practical during natural disasters.
Anyway, back to it:
In Cincinnati...
Mansfield was not technically in "Cincinnati," by the way, he was two miles away, at "Bates Place." Bonus points to any commenter who can figure out where "Bates Place" was. I can't tell where it was, but Mansfield says that in later years, it was called "Mt. Comfort" and that their house was "down the Hamilton Road from Cincinnati." It sounds like was near Northside (f/k/a Cumminsville) but that community was established by then, so Mansfield must have been somewhere different.
But back to what was going on in the big city:
...the Columbian Inn, at the Corner of Main and Columbia Streets...
Columbia Street must have been below what is now Third Street, and is probably under what is now Great American Ballpark. There is no Columbia Street now, so far as I know.
...was the principal house of entertainment, where some of the first young men and ladies boarded. It is said, that on that night the street in front of the Columbian Inn presented a strong contrast to the ordinary rules of propriety; in fact, there was more of nature displayed than of fashion...
I find it hard to believe that's true. It was December, in the days before climate control. I'm sure they dressed appropriately for bed, if it really was a respectible boarding house.
The earthquake of December 16, 1811, was the first of a series of earthquakes, which continued about five months. My father, in order to test the state of things, put a very delicate pendulum inside one of our front windows, and that pendulum never ceased to vibrate in nearly five months. In the meanwhile, there were, in January and February, several violent shocks....
At our house, the earthquake gave rise to a sort of new life. Our family was, of course, much alarmed, and some of the gentlement in town would ride out and spend the night with us.... In this manner the winter passed. Severe shocks of earthquakes occured frequently. I remember one happening in the morning, when I was at a neighboring log-house. There was corn on the upper floor, and I heard that corn roll from one side of the house to the other. As I have said, these shocks did not cease until May. At that time we were preparing to go to the East, and the government making ready its troops for the march on Canada.
Those Brits. Still not happy about the whole independence thing.
I remember talk of the earthquake here in the early '80s--it was in August, and we were in Michigan at the time. It was the talk of the resort up there, since the resort is entirely made up of people from Cincinnati. And I can remember hearing from my paternal grandmother, who was in downtown Cincinnati that day with her sister. They saw a man running from a skyscraper, yelling that everyone should get away from the building, because there had been an earthquake. "Oh that poor man," they said. Because he seemed quite insane. Not everyone felt that earthquake, I guess.
But I think most people felt the one we had this morning, unless they were sleeping really soundly. I heard we had an aftershock around 10:30 am. I didn't feel that. Maybe we'll have more. Maybe it will go on for five months!
Wherein I say something positive about Barack Obama; He's not going to give out "Street Money" in Philadelphia
April 11, 2008 08:53 AM
What's "street money"? Per the L.A. Times, it is:
"[A] long-standing Philadelphia ritual in which candidates deliver cash to the city's Democratic operatives in return for getting out the vote.
Flush with payments from well-funded campaigns, the ward leaders and Democratic Party bosses typically spread out the cash in the days before the election, handing $10, $20 and $50 bills to the foot soldiers and loyalists who make up the party's workforce.
It is all legal -- but Obama's people are telling the local bosses he won't pay.
If that is legal, it is appalling. But for the Dems in Philly, it's just how things are done:
Obama's posture confounds neighborhood political leaders sympathetic to his cause. They caution that if the senator from Illinois withholds money that gubernatorial, mayoral and presidential candidates have willingly paid out for decades, there could be defections to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. And the Clinton campaign, in contrast, will oblige in forking over the money, these ward leaders predict.
Who's not surprised the Clintons don't have a problem with this? Anyone?
Another non-surprise? John Kerry didn't have a problem with it either. He paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in "street money" in Philadelphia in 2004.
The locals are hoping Obama will give in before next week's primary in PA. You know. For his own sake:
With a week and a half left before the election, political leaders hope that Obama will relent.
Garry Williams, a ward leader based in north-central Philadelphia, said that he had not heard directly that the Obama campaign was withholding money. But he said payment would be needed. Workers who are in the field for Obama on April 22 will put in days stretching from 12 to 16 hours, he said.
"It's our tradition," Williams said. "You don't come to someone's house and change the rules of someone's house. That's just respect."
No, it's just corrupt. If Obama can bring an end to it, kudos to him.
