Bill Theobald, writing for the Gannett News Service has an article entitled ’05 study is a snapshot of homelessness. The first study in a decade puts the number at “744,313” but notes it’s an estimate and that measuring homelessness is inherently difficult. The last comprehensive study, performed a decade ago, put the number at 440,000 to 842,000. The Urban Institute also noted that the number was a snapshot at a particular point in time and further estimates that, within any given year, between 2.3 million and 3.5 million people are homeless at some point in time.

Some other figures:

• 44 percent of homeless people, or about 300,000, live on the streets. The rest are in shelters or transitional housing.

• 59 percent were single adults. The rest were families.

• 23 percent were considered chronically homeless.

The report also measured the number of homeless by state and found Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington had the highest percentages of their population who were homeless.

The District of Columbia has the highest rate with 5,518, or 1 percent of its population.

Arizona has an estimated 1,351 to 12,264 homeless people, about 0.21 percent of the population.

Niki Kelly has an article for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette entitled, “State Minimum Wage Hike Gaining Steam.” State efforts seem spurred on by federal efforts, public sentiment, and the mere fact that it hasn’t changed in 10 years.

I always have mixed feelings about the minimum wage. It needs to be there. But I couldn’t say how to put it at a level that makes sense. I’m not sure you want it high enough to result in supporting a family if someone works 40 hours. Not all jobs are full-time or significant enough to warrant a living wage. If you want to hire someone for an odd job that isn’t very significant, you should be able to pay what the work is worth rather than some inflated price designed for a different type of situation. On the other hand, you want someone who works hard and plays by the rules to be able to support a family and prosper. You don’t want the huddled masses spending every waking hour struggling to make enough to shelter and feed themselves at a subsistence level.

Everybody seems to do better when the majority of Americans have a little walking around money. I figure the economy does better when the money is in the pockets of folks who are going to spend it on things like washers and dryers tan it does when the money is in the pockets of folks who are going to buy yachts or expensive works of art.

[tags]minimum wage, labor[/tags]

The Louisville Courier Press has an editorial honoring Momofuku Ando, the inventor of Ramen noodles who recently passed away. Ramen noodles, the staple of starving students everywhere, were reasonably filling, easy to prepare, and dirt, dirt cheap. I seem to recall the going price being 5 for a dollar at the grocery store in Oxford, Ohio — known for its gouging prices.

Thanks in large part to Ramen, I once ate for a week on Spring Break for $20. My menu was pretty much just a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, and piles and piles of Ramen. Of course this was supplemented by vast quantities of beer for which I’m sure I paid a lot more than $20. Ahh, memories. Thank you Mr. Ando.

Lesley Stedman Weidenbener, writing for the Louisville Courier Press has an article entitled Daniels, local celebs challenge Hoosiers to lose weight.

Kudos to Gov. Daniels for making fitness a significant theme in his tenure as governor. Changes in society have simply made it so that exercise does not naturally occur in the every day life of a majority of people. A good number of jobs don’t involve significant physical activity. A lot of residences are in places with limited yards, no sidewalks, and busy streets so it’s tough to go anywhere or do anything unless you drive there. Junk food is cheap, tasty, and abundant. You have to work a little harder and sometimes spend a little more to get healthy food. So, being out of shape really isn’t a sign of particular sloth or gluttony or other vices. It’s pretty much a natural result of the world we live in and a special effort is necessary to overcome it.

The effort is worthwhile, of course. Every day energy levels increase, and there are long-term health benefits. Also, in my humble opinion, once you get into the habit of exercising, it’s quite a bit of fun. Personally, I have taken to hitting the local YMCA 3 or 4 times per week, usually alternating between lifting weights and running on the treadmills. I won’t be running marathons any time soon, but I’ve gotten to where I can cover about 5 miles in a little under an hour.

I can’t really comment much on the eating side of the equation. I have what a friend described as an “irate” metabolism. So, I have never been in a position where I needed to limit my consumption. (An extreme example – I had an entire Totino’s pizza as a “snack” last night at about 9 p.m.). But, I naturally tend to favor plain meats and vegetables rather than carbs and heavy sauces. So, my weight is at around 150# on my 6’1″ frame. (But who knows what kind of crap I have building up in my arteries.)

That brings me to the governor’s challenge to lose 10 lbs in 10 weeks. I won’t be participating. My guess is that it would be medically inadvisable for me to intentionally reduce myself to 140 lbs. But, for most Hoosiers, statistically speaking, it’s probably a good idea. According to the Governor’s web site:

Registered participants will first receive an e-mail outlining how they can prepare themselves for the Challenge, such as keeping a food diary, taking an inventory of their pantry, and other tips. During the 10 weeks, participants will receive a weekly e-mail instructing them on how to lose one pound along with encouragement to stop smoking. Current INShape Indiana participants have been automatically enrolled in the 10 in 10 Challenge.

The weekly e-mails, being prepared with the assistance of a trainer and a nutritionist, will incorporate one suggestion for a change in diet (250 fewer calories a day) and another for increased physical activity (burning 250 additional calories a day). At the end of 10 weeks, participants will be asked to report back on their weight loss.

Good luck to everybody who decides to participate.

Update Taking a contrary view, Leo Morris does not like the idea of a government weight-loss cheerleader.

Robert Marquand, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, has an article entitled “How Kim Jong Il controls a nation”. An interesting description of how Kim Jong Il, from his own purely selfish perspective, has acted in a fairly rational manner and has been skillful in consolidating his power.

Apparently they hung him. He richly deserved to die, and die richly he did — Craig at R&F suggests it cost about $354 billion to bring him to justice (less the occasional “Mission Accomplished” banner and fake turkey.)

Anyway, I hope the questions asked in the wake of Hussein’s execution are not of the “is it good that he is dead” variety, but rather of the “was the cost worth the benefit” variety. I suggest that we paid (and will continue to pay for a generation or two since we’ve borrowed the cost of this adventure) far too much. Hussein and Iraq didn’t pose much of a threat to the U.S. He didn’t promote the sort of radical religion that motivates the likes of bin Laden — that sort of religious belief would have been a threat to his secular power which is all a tyrant like Hussein was interested in. So, we have paid hundreds of billions, lost several thousand soldiers, and destabilized Iraq (opening it up to the kind of religious agitators who do pose a threat) in exchange for removing and killing a dictator we didn’t like but ultimately couldn’t do much to harm us. Nice trade.

I highly recommend a column in the Evansville Courier Press by political science professor Stephen Graham entitled Government can’t avoid its responsibility to Hoosiers.

The Daniels administration views Indiana government agencies with the bottom-line mentality of the stockholders of a private corporation: How much is my dividend check this quarter?

n the words of the governor’s chief budget officer, Charles Schalliol, “If … a private-sector firm can do (government) service better and at less cost, we ought to accept that” (The Star, Dec.15).

The problem is that, in a democracy, government is not merely another vendor in a marketplace of goods and services. And citizens are not just taxpayer-consumers who vote based on the ratio of the dollars they pay in taxes to the dollars of benefit they receive in public services.

The commercial model of government trivializes and obscures the larger purpose of our democratic institutions, which is to inspire the loyalty and self-sacrifice of all citizens and to help guarantee for them the broadest possible equality of economic, social and political opportunity.

The foundation of our democracy is a social contract between the government and the people. Government agrees to protect and promote the rights and interests of all the people. The people, in turn, agree to support the government, not just by paying taxes, but also by participating in the civic culture.

[tags]Privatization[/tags]

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has published an editorial by Mitch Roob entitled “Personal Responsibility, Health Care Meet.” He cites some grim statistics relative to Hoosiers and health care and also the problem of lack of transparency in health care pricing. Then he goes on to describe the Governor’s health care plan which features an account maintained by the insured with $1,100 in it. There is apparently some kind of sliding scale that determines how much of that is supplied by the state and how much by the enrollee. That account is used to pay the insured’s deductible. If there is money left at the end of the year, and the enrollee meets certain conditions, the person will get some of the money in the account. One of the conditions is that the enrollee must get the mandated preventative care.

Sounds decent, as far as it goes, but Roob can’t be expected to bring up the negative aspects of the plan, if any.

[tags]Mitch Roob, health care[/tags]