A commission appointed by the governor after the death of Michael Brown in August 2014 is calling for sweeping changes on matters of policing, the courts, education, health care, housing and more.
Among the top priorities outlined in the 198-page report that will be made public in Ferguson, Mo., this afternoon: increasing the minimum wage, expanding eligibility for Medicaid and consolidating the patchwork of 60 police forces and 81 municipal courts that cover St. Louis and its suburbs.
"It's interesting how we understand secrets of the universe, but we do not now how to make good functional society in which all people have food to eat and roof on there heads." --Tomislav Veg (Friend of a friend on FB from Croatia).
Another new ranking--this one from Kiplinger's and Kansas City is not in the top 5, anyway, but Omaha, dependable Omaha ranks number one: Best Cities for Housing Values, 2011
1. Omaha, Neb.
Population (metro): 829,702;
Unemployment rate: 4.6%;
Cost-of-living index: 90.3;
Median household income: $53,457. Wichita, Ks is number 8 and Cedar Rapids, Iowa is 9, for what it's worth. We'll just have to try harder, I guess, right?
Link: http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/best-cities-for-housing-values-2011.html
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.
What with all the other major world catastrophes going on right now, most especially the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear power plant meltdown, it would be easy enough to overlook a rather small but hugely important article I saw today online:
Home prices falling in most major US cities
Home prices falling in 19 major US cities, with 4 now at lowest level in 11 years
Janna Herron and Derek Kravitz, AP Real Estate Writers
NEW YORK (AP) -- Home prices are falling in most major U.S. cities, and the average prices in four of them are at their lowest point in 11 years. Analysts expect further prices declines in most cities in the coming months.
Home values in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Detroit and Cleveland are now below January 2000 levels. A majority of the metro areas tracked by the index now have home prices at levels dating back to 2003, just as the housing boom began.
"The housing market recession is not yet over, and none of the statistics are indicating any form of sustained recovery," said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's.
As either an economist or just a regular old citizen of this United States, that is big.
Not finished there, there is also this out today:
Inflation worries push consumer confidence lower
Soaring gas prices and soured outlook on income push consumer confidence down in March
My point?
It is not to say "the sky is falling", I can tell you that.
My point is that, as Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman is pointing out more and again, lately, is that now is decidedly not the time to try to cut $61 billion out of the government's spending.
I'm not all about big spending and we do need to address it and our debt and deficit spending, but to repeat Mr. Krugman, now is decidedly not the time.
I'm concerned that either the Right-wing and Republicans and Conservatives aren't listening and/or don't care because a) they have to cater to the "Tea Party" and extremists in their party so they can be re-elected OR they simply want/need this president and his policies to fail so, again, they can be re-elected.
"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal.'" --President John F. Kennedy
Okay, this time it's Coldwell Banker and they ranked the most affordable homes cities in the US and Kansas City came out at number 7.
And before Tony (at TKC) trashes this place one more time, you have to admit, between the low traffic jams, really, and the arts and the good schools (either the private ones or the ones on the Kansas side of the state line), we have it pretty good here.
Could it be better? Sure. Right now we could have a mayor who could lead and work with others and a lot of other things but all in all, it ain't bad.
So go ahead, Tony, trash us--trash the city. But face it, it could be worse. You could always live in Topeka that came in at a not-too-shabby-all-things-considered No. 10.
The fact is, with global climate change and what it’s doing to the world—drought, forest fires and losing at least 20% of their food crops all in Russia alone, the floods that have ravaged the people, cities and towns of Pakistan, the 100 square mile ice sheet that just broke off Greenland this week, along with the shrinking of both polar ice caps and the glaciers all over the planet, I think the point needs to be made and considered that humankind can no longer afford war or war machinery and the senseless killing of each other any longer. It seems evident that we need to, instead, use the helicopters and war materiel to, instead, feed, clothe, house and nurse one another and build infrastructure—roads, bridges, highways, streets, power plants, hospitals, etc. If you look at conditions around the world ni various countries from Iraq to, again, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, China, etc., it’s clear too many corners of the world and peoples of the world are in desperate condition. Heck, even look here in the US at what we need—we have too many homeless, underfed, undernourished, in need of health care and so on. So, yeah, the time has come and the time is now. We need to accept that we can afford war no longer. We need to come to this collective conclusion and start working together aound the world. Too many of us are already dying and it will surely only get worse, the longer we put it off.
Links to additional posts:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100816/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan_floods
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100816/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_russia_fires
* 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.
Link to original post:
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here's-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?tickers=^DJI,^GSPC,SPY,MCD,WMT,XRT,DIA
First, I don't know how they're on it as I didn't think St. Louis was in that good a position and two, Kansas City is absolutely not ranked in this "top ten", to be sure.
Memphis, TN and Columbus, OH (tied at 6) are both on the list as are Indianapolis (5), Minneapolis (4), Louisville (3) with Pittsburgh, PA at number one.
Makes me wonder what these mid-sized cities are doing particularly right, compared to us.
I mean besides paving their streets and seeing to it the snow is plowed in the winter.
Posts
