The Federal Reserve's KC Annual Symposium is WHERE?

Why is the Federal Reserve's "Kansas City annual symposium" in Jackson Hole, Wyoming if we're paying for it all?

Why the hell isn't this in Kansas City, Missouri, where it belongs? They could have stayed at our finest hotels and gone to our finest restaurants and STILL saved a LOAD of money.

Granted, it's a figurative drop in the bucket, moneywise, to the overall national budget but hey, you start saving money SOMEWHERE. This seems like a terrific place to start.  And cut.

The white man screws over Native Americans yet one more time

If you listened to NPR last evening, you may have heard this story:

EPA Wants To Allow Continued Wastewater Dumping In Wyoming

Dirty water from the oil wells flows through oil-caked pipes into a settling pit where trucks vacuum off the oil. A net covers the pit to keep out birds and other wildlife. Streams of this wastewater flow through the reservation and join natural creeks and rivers.
_________________________________________________________

It's a real beauty.

It's not like the European settlers didn't cheat, lie, hurt, maim, torture and kill Native Americans enough since we arrive here about 500 years ago. We have to, apparently, keep on doing all we can to hurt these people.

A little from the story:

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to let oil companies continue to dump polluted wastewater on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. This includes chemicals that companies add to the wells during hydraulic fracturing, an engineering practice that makes wells produce more oil.

An NPR investigation last year discovered that the EPA was allowing oil companies to send so much of this contaminated water onto dry land that it was creating raging streams. At the time, there was a controversy within the agency over whether to keep allowing this practice, according to documents NPR obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

On Friday, the EPA will close the public comment period on proposed permits for several oil fields on the reservations. The proposed permits include some additional restrictions, but would allow companies to continue releasing the water.

So the EPA may let the oil companies keep draining their wastewater onto what is the Native American's land. Isn't that great?

And check out a short list of just some of the things that may be in the water:

"The biggest concern is still what's in the water," says Duke University's Jackson. "It has salts, metals, radioactive elements like radium, and chemicals such as benzene, and sometimes at levels 150 times what's allowed in drinking water. Who wants to eat a cow that drinks water laced in benzene?" (Robert Jackson, a professor of environmental science at Duke University.)

Let's see, we came here, 500 years ago, took their land, killed many of them, shot, hurt, tortured, maimed and killed others, took away their language, their dress, their religion, their culture, gave them alcohol and guns, shoved them off to obscure lands we call, hypocritically enough, "Reservations"--because hey, we're reserving them a space in our country, right?--and now, on top of all that, we're going to heavily pollute their land and water and poison their and our own animals, water and soil and someone thinks this is okay and that it should continue?

Oh, hell, no.  We need to put an end to this ugliness, this gross injustice.

It's no way to treat the water, the soil and especially no way to treat a group people.

Ow. This hurts, Missouri

From the wires today:

Survey ranks Missouri as 8th most miserable state

It seems Bloomberg News ranked the 50 states from most to least miserable and this is where we came in.

Yikes. Not good.

What they had to say and show about us:

8. Missouri
> Well-being index score: 64.8
- Life expectancy: 77.4 (12th lowest)
- Obesity: 30.5% (10th highest)
- Median household income: $44,301 (14th lowest)
- Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 86.9% (22nd lowest)

Between 2010 and 2011, Missouri’s well-being score went from 17th worst in the country to eighth worst. Conditions in the state declined in every category Gallup measured. Missouri residents polled rated their emotional health as 14th worst in the country, down from 25th worst last year. The state also declined from 18th worst in life evaluation to third worst in the country. The state has the 11th-highest rate of smokers in the country at 21.1%. Heart disease, cancer and diabetes rates are all among the top 20, and life expectancy in the state is 77.4 years, the 12th lowest in the U.S.

Adding insult--and pain--to this injury is that, in sharp contrast to our, Missouri's ranking, neighbor Nebraska comes in as one of the top 10 "happiest" states, at number 8 while--get ready for this--next-door-neighbor Kansas (of all states) comes in even worse--higher, better--on this happiness list at number 7.

Yow.

This hurts.

I mean, this really hurts.

Links: http://247wallst.com/2012/03/02/americas-most-miserable-states/2/

http://247wallst.com/2012/03/02/americas-happiest-states/2/

Best- and worst-run states: a next-door neighbor is number 2

The website 24/7 Wall Street has analyzed all 50 states "on financial health, standard of living and government services by state to determine how well each state is managed. While Wyoming comes out at number one, for best-run and California--no surprise here--comes out in last place at 50, what's maybe most noteworthy in the list is that neighbor Nebraska is 2nd best: "The state has the fourth lowest debt per capita, and it is one of 13 states with a perfect AAA credit rating. Besides being financially sound, Nebraska also has an unemployment rate of 4.2%, the second lowest rate in the country. The state also has relatively low poverty, high graduation rates and the seventh lowest rate of foreclosures last month." Heads up, Missouri--maybe we can learn things here. Other mentions are that there are plenty of midwest states in the top group, too, with North Dakota at 3, Minnesota, 4 and--again--next-door neighbor Iowa at 5. Kansas came in at a very respectable number 9. Good on you, Jayhawks. Mizzou? Well, not bad but you're at 20. At least you're more than in the top 1/2. The highlights on Missouri: "Missouri has moved up five spots from last year’s rank of 24 partly because its unemployment rate has decreased from 9.3% to 8.7%. The state also boasts a AAA credit rating from S&P thanks to state efforts to fund its debts. Yeehaw for us midwesterners, eh? "Flyover country" has good things going for it after all. Link: http://247wallst.com/2011/11/28/best-and-worst-run-states-in-america-an-analysis-of-all-50/

Neighboring states with "Healthiest Housing Markets"

There's yet another media ranking out there right now, this one by CNBC, rating "States with the Healthiest Housing Markets".  It seems we aren't on it but neighbors Iowa and Nebraska are, for anyone and everyone interested in real estate and housing:


No. 5   Iowa
Debt as percent of income: 13% 
Unemployment rate: 6.1%
Home ownership: 71.1%
Negative equity: 42.9%
Average home price: $152,000
Loan as percent of home value: 66.7%
Percent of U.S. Market: 0.42%

Iowa has some of the lowest real estate prices in the top 10. But it has one of the highest rates of negative equity in the top 10, which is probably what kept them from ranking higher on the list, Findlay said. Other than that, it has the best debt as a percent of income on the list at 13% and it has a low unemployment rate. “They just missed out on taking the gold!”, according to the article

No. 8   Nebraska
Debt as percent of income: 15% 
Unemployment rate: 4.3% 
Home ownership: 70.4% 
Negative equity: 46.5% 
Average home price: $160,000 
Loan as percent of home value: 72.3% 
Percent of U.S. Market: 0.28% 

Nebraska has two big hits against it, Findlay notes: It has the worst negative equity in the top 10 at 46.5%, compared to the national average of 35%, plus its loan as a percent of home value is higher than the national average. Offsetting those items, however, are the fact that they have a low unemployment rate at 4.3% and very low debt as a percent of income (15%, vs. the national average of 27%).

For what it's worth, North Dakota was in the number one position.


Final, side note:  I love this picture they used, too, shown above, of Iowa.  Besides farm fields, this depicts Iowa to me, perfectly.

Links:  http://www.cnbc.com/id/42557873?__source=yahoorealestate|healthiesthousing|&par=yahoorealestate
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42557873?slide=4
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42557873?slide=7

Crazy spending imbalances

Look at the imbalances of what is being spent per capita in each State from the "Stimulus money" at the following link:

http://projects.propublica.org/recovery/

I’m sure it’s typical but Missouri is getting $903.00 per person while Alaskan citizens are getting $2711.86 each spent on them. That's galling enough, by itself, with that crazy inequity but keep in mind, this is where Ms. Palin abhors government--and government spending.

Yeah, I'll bet she does.

Then, on top of that bit of indignity, Washington, DC citizens are getting $5780.30 per person spent on them.

Would someone explain this to me?

Why is it that this is supposed to make sense?

That’s some crazy imbalances.

If you’re from a large Western state where, again, they “hate government” and there’s hardly anyone out there, load up ‘cuz they’re each getting lots more money spent on each of them. (e.g., Montana @ $1,619.97 each).

Damn gubmint.