Nappanee Advance-News, Volume 135, Number 1, Nappanee, Elkhart County, 2 January 2014 — Page 4
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Advance News • Thursday, Jan. 2,2014
Realizing lessons of life while on a deadline
This evening, I sat at my friend's house, four kids under age seven plagued my sight, knocking each outer over and shooting Nerf gluts at the baby. I was waiting for her to finish getting ready to go out with me. “Sure, I'll keep an eye on the kids, no problem!" I'd told her. And. then, problems. My daughter dragging the baby around like a doll and her son beating the crap out of mine. 1 thought back to when we first became friends -1 didn't sign up for four kids. At the time, there was just my son, which she
Economic model: more amenities equals higher income households
It is Christmas time again, and as usual I struggle to find good gifts for those I care about. To be honest, they are not much help. My lovely wife told me she might need a cleaning appliance of some sort, and my nine year-old confessed to wanting new underwear, socks and perhaps a few surprises. About the only thing I know to give this year that might be honestly appreciated is a brief column on a subject that affects almost every community. Moreover, it is almost entirely free of the ill-informed ideology that seems to drive so much public policy these days. It is a simple economic model of regional growth. Like any model, the regional growth model begins with some hypotheses. First, let us suppose that households that are better educated and more skilled have more choices about where they choose to work and live.
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babysat while I was at my college classes more than four years ago. Now I was standing in her living room, chasing kids and blocking doorways, pulling junk out of a toddler's mouth. This was
Second, let us suppose that households are willing to make trade-offs between the quality of life in the place they live and their earnings. So, households must be compensated extra to live in less attractive places. Finally, let us assume that businesses seek to maximize profits, a process which includes worrying about labor costs. None should any of this seem too much a stretch of common sense. An astute reader might see four or more equations in the preceding paragraph.
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Opinion
[woe's Psspfcm By Dani MoujiAß, Editor
Commentary By Michael Hicks
Baby, it’s cold outside
In case you missed it, the shortest day of the year slipped by last week. The winter solstice was Saturday, Dec. 21. 'Tomorrow, we will have daylight for a whole minute more," my friend Sue cheerfully exclaimed as we watched the daylight end while dining at a Merrillville Restaurant. I had spent the day with my two best friends, the two 1 have known since-
third gradM-oughly 45 fAto ago«j(i As the winter solstice was fnarked among us, winter also officially arrived. Last Saturday was the official start of the cold-weather season. It arrived without a whole lot of notice, lost in the fury of Christmas shopping and late autumn snowfalls that have people throughout northern Indiana digging out the week before. Still, according to the calendar, winter started last week. Winter is one of those seasons which people either love or hate. Who doesn't like spring or fall? Summer and winter, however, draw strong Cions. And, I'll admit, I'm one who winter and doesn't particularly appreciate summer. This time of file year, however, holds some very fond memories for me. I liked growing up in the snow belt and still enjoy the invigoration of a walk in the brisk cold. Nothing beats warming up after one of these walks under a fuzzy blanket with a cup of hot cocoa,
Don't be a Scrooge...or the ghost of Christmas past will get you. And it won't be the Holy Ghost. The IRS The IRS reminds me of an old building in disrepair. Is it worth fixing or would it make more sense to tear it down and completely rebuild it? Since the IRS methods are 90 inefficient arid costly, doesn't it make good sense to start from the bottom up and entirely rebuild the whole damn system? That is to get rid of the current overburdened, politically corrupt IRS and adopt a Fair Tax, which is more efficient and less costly.
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not in our plans. Life doesn't always go the way you plan, and it's sometimes hard, for me especially, to accept things as they are. Liz Mullet of the Nappanee Second Saturdays Committee, called me regarding my New Year's Resolutions request from my last column. Her advice: "Bloom where you're planted." There's nothing wrong with personal growth and wanting more, but there is a certain glory to just finally being happy with life as it is.
Solving these equations provides us some clear outcomes. Regions that are attractive places to live will attract households with greater location choices. These households will inevitably be better educated and command a higher income. However, all things being equal, workers in these places will not require quite as high a wage to live in these places as they would to live in a less desirable place. The first result of solving this model is the not especially surprising result that nice places tend to attract more people, and these people tend to be of higher income. This alone would commend efforts to improve communities as an important economic development tool. Population growth is, after all, the chief worry for most places in Indiana. However, there is more to the story than just this. The real magic of the model is trade-off
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sun,*del|yfamififrienfi j 2 Like some humans tend towards pseudohibernation in winter. We spend time indoors, nesting. I tend to take on those long put-off tasks like organizing my files when it's cold outside. Reading, an often neglected pastime the rest of the year, becomes a priority when the cold winds blow and rattle the windows. This is the story-telling season; the time of the year when the elders would tell the stories of the culture, passing on beloved tales and the oral history. Oral histories have been forsaken among our society, although the ability to tell a tale, even if it was the same one year after year at the holiday dinner table, is a favorite memory of my grandfather. My mother, his daughter, is also a good storyteller. I remember stories told on file half-mile walk to the bus stop every school day. This creative process, this think-on-her-feet skill,
The tax man cometh
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The Fair Tax is nothing more than a national sales tax, which would completely eliminate the current income tax system. Each time you buy something, you pay a national sales tax and that's it. Just think, no more income tax forms to fill out and no payroll deductions. Ihis means all the money you make,
So here I am, sitting in the living room, typing this up, daughter leaning on my shoulder; son dragging a train across my foot, airplane thrown at my head, ready to jump at the first sign of someone attacking the baby. I'm exhausted. I'm nervous. I'm, once again, on deadline, nonetheless I am happy. Etom Molnar is the editor of the Advance News and the Bremen Enquirer.
between wages and amenities, and what that does to economic growth. In our simple model, we see that higher income households are more likely to relocate to (or stay in) nicer places. But they are also willing to accept a lower wage to do so. The result of is a remarkable outcome. Places with better amenities do tend to have higher income households, and of course aU the benefits that accrue to them. But for a business looking for workers, the nice place will offer a wage advantage over less attractive locations. This result has great meaning, for it means improving quality of place reduces business costs on the most costly of inputs; human capital. So, as we think about attracting business to Indiana we ought to get better at thinking through these ample models. Michael Hicks is director of the Center for Business and Economic Research and professor
The Casual Observer LobTomaszewsw Managing Editor
fojNMff By Jim Schin£X£R
you can keep. The only time you pay any federal tax is
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manifested as my mother was helping raise my daughter. I always enjoyed the little stories my mother would tell as she brushed file tangles out of Rose's hair or entertained her on the front porch after school. My mother's stories could be the reason 1 write. As a youngster; I wrote stories on a typewriter in the basement of our Illinois home. The stories > ware usually about horses and were iftn&fc wSh" these stories°and poems, my love of writing was borne. It was when I realized that the ability to put words together and evoke an image through words is a powerful gift. Today, I can't imagine doing anything that did not involve writing and the use of creativity. So while winter is not the most fertile time for the growing of food, it is a fertile time to nurture creativity. When the pace is slowed by bad weather or outdoor plans are cancelled due to snow, this gives us the opportunity to create, to craft, to invent to write, to tell stories. And although I won't turn down an invitation to get outside and play in the snow, I'm hoping I carve out a little time to nurture the creativity that nourishes my soul. So here's to winter all 11 remaining weeks of it! Lois Tomaszewski is managing editor at The Pilot News Group.
when you buy something. In addition no mote accountant or attorney fees since there will be no year-end income tax returns. But best of all, the fair ta> would dramatically shrink the size o ffie IRS, eliminate thousands of jobs and saving the taxpayers a bloody for tune, while getting them off our butts. Merry Christmas, Happy New Yeai and God Bless! A graduate of John Carroll Universih and a successful businessman, Schindlei is the founder of Bandido’s Mexican res taurants, a small Midwestern chain Schindler's newspaper column, “Schindlei Sez,“ appears in several Indiana newspa pers. In addition, he is the author ofsevera books and has been a guest speaker at thi University of Notre Dame.