That is one big Hole!

Scale of Chicago Spire In case any of you were thinking that hole in the ground looked like a big foundation (which is in actuality ONLY the core foundation), check out this composite from the past two weeks of work at the site. They're excavating the tops of the double 12-foot caissons that will be under each leg of the building in order to tie them together into "supercaissons." Look at the size of this thing's overall footprint now ...http://www.thechicagospire.com/

Jack in the Box in Chicago

Do you remember when ordering your fast food involved talking to the "Jack in the Box"?


In this country, where each day, independent businesses loose ground to chains and franchises, it is surprising when you find a regional fast food franchise. While I hate the idea of dining in an up-scale seafood restaurant only to find they have 60 of them around the country each indistinguishable from the next. I'm upset when I find myself a thousand miles from home, exploring that city's "Hot" shopping district, and find that it has the same list of stores I can find in a 15 minute walk from my home.


But Fast Food franchises are exempt from my scorn. Just as I expect each city will carry the network's feeds, and my cell phone will work, my expectation is that the streets will be filled with a uniform list of fast-food joints. The fact is that simply is not true. Sure McDonald's and Burger King spots will be found, I think P.E.T.A. even found a method to franchise protesters to Stand in front of KFC restaurants, but In & Out burgers, are not to be found in Chicago.


Truth be told, I don't care about In & Out Burgers, comming from Chicago, the only thing I know about them is the Paris Hilton eat there one of the nights she got caught driving drunk. But Jack in the Box is a different story.

I grew up with "Jack in the Box" There were so many late nights, in a car filled too-full with friends, spent speaking to "Jack". Jack was my friend, he fed me those wonderful tacos. He got me hooked, I looked forward to those golden-brown, deep-fried, tasty treats. Then all at once, they were gone. Jack fled west of of the Mississippi, leaving me and so many like me, stranded, left with a craving we were unable to fill.



The other day, after a disappointing Y12 Epee contest, I brought my son over to a Jack in the Box, two blocks from the San Jose Convention Center, desperate to bring some happiness to an otherwise "Dark day". I put in my order for 6 tasty tacos, and from the first bite I was transported back to a happy memory-filled time of youth and grease, it was wonderful! O.K., I would have traded the taco for my son bringing home a medal, but that was not a choice offered.

Yes the tacos were just as I remembered them to be. Each time I find my self in a town that is lucky enough to still have Jack in the Box, I make a point of eating as many of these tacos as I can stuff down my throat. Jack never lets me down; though I am still mad at him for moving away.

Larry Lubell

Lebanon gives Hezbollah Veto Power

If Hezbollah has veto power over the Lebanese government, then aren't they the true power in the country?

So we have a Terrorist group in control of another country in the Mid-East.
From the inception of Hezbollah the elimination of the State of Israel has been one of Hezbollah's primary goals.
"If they go from Shebaa, we won't stop fighting them. ... Our goal is to liberate the 1948 borders of Palestine, ... The Jews who survive this war of liberation can go back to Germany or wherever they came from.
Hezbollah is a force behind the Palestinians suicide bomber's and scud missiles landing in Israel. The once beautiful Lebanon has been torn apart by years of war.

Afghanistan has seen its stability fall from increased Taliban power.

We have been unable to capture Osama bin Laden and destroy al-Qaeda. Over the past 5 years, their power has once again grown.

Iran's Ahmadinejad, who has stated his desire to wipe Israel off the map, is now warning it's enemies, that "Our finger will always be on the trigger and our missiles will always be ready to launch.“
With The price of gas in 2008 toping over $4.75 / gallon, and the world teetering on the sharp edge of a world recession, we are unable to challenge Ahmadinejad, and his threat to close the Strait of Hormuz

For some reason I'm not feeling all that "Safe" yet

Exxon's profits are not big enough

File this under ironic.

At he very time we are all struggling trying out how to pay for gas, The Supreme court just cut Exxon's damages from the Valdez spill one tenth of what the jury decided.

Justice David Souter wrote for the court that punitive damages may not exceed what the company already paid to compensate victims for economic losses, about $500 million compensation. The Exxon Valdez case involves reckless action that was "profitless" for the company and that has already resulted in substantial recovery for substantial injury, Souter wrote. A penalty should be "reasonably predictable" in its severity, he added.
Exxon asked the high court to reject the punitive damages judgment, saying it already has spent $3.4 billion in response to the accident that fouled 1,200 miles of Alaska coastline. A jury decided Exxon should pay $5 billion in punitive damages.
A federal appeals court cut that verdict in half in 1994. This come at the same time Exxon has generated the largest profits of any company in history. The punitive damage award is extremely large, but in fairness, it is less than half of the last quarters profit.

First-quarter profits at Exxon Mobil Corp. were $10.9 billion. The company's 2007 profit was $40.6 billion.

I'm glad to see our government is still handing out favors for big oil.

Stonehenge Mystery

Stonehenge, the most famous of all of the remaining neolithic stone circles was built over a five hundred year period. Walking around the sarsen stones it is easy to understand why this place still amazes and generates such mystery.

Read Full Story

Summer

http://urbaninsuranceagency.com/blog.php?content=displayPost&id=21

A Fair Tax Code

Rich people pay the lions share of the taxes in the US. They don't just pay the most money, they pay the largest percentage of their income.

Then again they have a lot more money.

This could then lead to the question, Which is a Better Measure of financial Inequality: Wealth or Income?
In fact the real difference in wealth is not seen by comparing the yearly income of the to top 10% and the bottom 10%- its when you compare the "NET WORTH" of those two groups. The net worth difference is more than `10 times as great as the income difference.The bottom 60% of households possess only 4% of the nation's wealth while it earns 26.8% of all income. This means that the rich pay a larger percentage of their income then the bottom half, but they pay a smaller percentage of their wealth. It is this reality that in large part is responsible for why the "Rich keep getting richer"

If we put aside income and focus on the distribution of wealth,the research points to two quite different views of the amount of inequality in American society.
"Ultimately, we are interested in the question of relative standards of living and economic well-being. We need to examine trends in the distribution of wealth, which, more fundamentally than earnings or income, represents a measure of the ability of households to consume."
Alan Greenspan, Former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank

It it easy to see why any question regarding the "Fairness" of any tax plan, is colored by the discussion of Wealth vs Income. Based on income, it is easy to make the point that the wealthiest Americans don't just pay the most money,they pay the largest percentage of their income, often while using the least amount of government services. Switch the discussion to talk about net wealth and the lower half see a system that favors the rich and one in which they are forever "Loosing ground". As property values increase, those who own property see their net wealth rise, where as those that do not, see the dream of home ownership get pulled further out of their reach.

From my own perspective, we have seen the foolishness of communism. The Soviet Union proved that if you try to eliminate the rich, you will not be able to distribute their wealth among the poor to make everyone "Middle-class", you just make everyone poor. Take away the incentive to achieve a higher standard of living, and you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The fact is, we need rich people.

For a country to prosper financially it needs the following:

1. A stable government.
2. A population that believes they have a vested interest in the country's success.
3. Insurance companies to protect both commercial as well as personal assets.
4. An educated work force.
5. Leaders that realize that it's the private sector that creates wealth and
Policies that provide conditions for that private sector to thrive.
6. Intellectual Property rights must be honored.
7. Taxes have to be enough to pay for the expectations of the citizens including
the infrastructure to be competitive in the global market- but low enough the
the majority of money is the control of the private sector.

Sure it helps if the country has a large amount of national resources, however Israel has created a standard of living dramatically higher than Saudi Arabia, and did so with out oil.
In fact there are many other conditions that can help or hurt the chances of any country's economy, but the seven above are critical.

So we need a tax system that levels the playing field enough to provide for a basic standard so even the poorest can maintain a reasonable standard of living, and feel vested in America; yet keeps enough wealth in the hands of the wealthy so as to provide conditions for the private sector to thrive and grow.
The truth is it can be very difficult to get that balance right.

Larry Lubell
www.UrbanInsuranceAgency.com