FLORIDA ISSUES WARNING ON HURRICANE SCAM ARTISTS

Well my friends, we finally have a hurricane! No, it's not threatening the United States, but it sure scared the hell out of some tarantulas and monkeys in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico ... and may do damage to more of Mexico when it hits shore again.

How long since a hurricane has hit the United States? Well ... almost two years now! That sure leaves a lot of pissed-off global warming cultists crying in their lattes.

But ... since we've actually had a hurricane now, the Florida Attorney General's office has seen fit to warn Florida residents about hurricane scam artists. That's a good thing, I guess, because any state with a population that many Democrat voters could sure use a warning about scams.

The problem here is that the Florida attorney general isn't warming Floridians about the biggest scammer of all ... and that would be the State of Florida.

What scam, you ask?

Florida's anti-price gouging laws. That's what scam.

Every time a disaster strikes Florida .. usually in the form of a hurricane .. the government makes a big deal of invoking the anti-price gouging laws. Oh, to be sure ... it makes quite a show for the politicians. "See how much we care about you? We're protecting you from evil greedy capitalists who want to make a profit from your misery after this hurricane!" The truth is, however, that these anti-price gouging laws hurt the very people the politicians claim to be helping.

A passing hurricane will increase demand for certain essential goods. Examples would be motel rooms, ice, bottled water, generators, building materials, batteries, lanterns, etc. Because of the aftereffects of the storm the supply often cannot meet the increased demand. The free enterprise economy has a marvelously efficient way of dealing with this problem. Prices go up. As prices go up the demand abates and the available supply can meet the needs of more people.

Two examples:

First; motel rooms. Florida law prohibits the operator of a hotel or a motel from raising prices in response to the increase demand caused by a disaster such as a hurricane. So, let's say you have a Comfort Inn with 150 rooms that regularly rent for $69 a night. Here come the evacuees. The motel starts filling up. The problem, though, is that many people are renting multiple rooms. A family of four, the parents and two kids, stop by to pick up grandma and head out of the storm's way.

They arrive at the Comfort Inn and find that the rooms are a relatively cheap $69 a night. (Why did I choose that particular price? Lord help me, I really don't know). So .. pop gets three rooms. One for the parents (there's nothing like a little motel sex, you know), an adjoining room for the kids, and another room at the other end of the motel for the mother-in-law.

Soon the hotel is filled up. You have 150 rooms occupied by about 90 families. Why? Because at that price there was no reason not to get those extra rooms to make the evacuation just a little easier on everyone.

Well .. the problem is that it doesn't make it easier on everyone. There are still people out there looking for rooms, and they can't find them. Why not? Because of Florida's idiotic anti-price gouging laws.

Let's try another scenario. Mr. Patel sees that the hurricane is coming, knows that people will be evacuating, and raises the price of his rooms to $175 each. Limited supply ... increased demand. You do know what's going to happen, don't you? People aren't going to be getting extra rooms for the kiddos and the old hag. Everybody is just going to have to make do in one room. Kids in the second double bed, hag on the couch. That means that Mr. Patel's 150 rooms will serve the needs of perhaps 150 families, not just 90. The marketplace suppresses demand for extra rooms by increasing the price ... and the shortage of hotel rooms is eased.

We'll try another example. Bottled water. Really, the same laws apply. Florida will slam you in jail if you try to raise the price of your bottled water during an emergency. This means that people will purchase much more than could reasonably need to meet their own needs. The people at the end of the line get none. Let the retailer double or even triple the price and people are going to buy an amount closer to what they might actually need .. and more people will have access to the water.

In addition, some entrepreneurs in Georgia and Alabama will suddenly realize that if they load a truck down with bottled water and head to South Florida they may make a few quick bucks! Ditto for generators and portable air conditioners! What happens then? The supply rises to meet the demand, and prices start back down again.

Speaking of ice. After the 2005 hurricane season Florida decided it would be a good idea to stockpile ice for the next disaster. Boondoggle. Florida stored 7 million pounds of ice at the Bartow Municipal Airport. It as never used. It went stale. Florida then spent almost $100,000 getting rid of it. This was all taxpayer money. That's not all. FEMA spent another $3.4 million getting rid of the ice it had stored for Florida hurricane relief.

Are you understanding this? Florida and US taxpayers spend well over $3 million just getting rid of ice! What do you think the taxpaying families who had to fork that money over to the government could have used it for?

Did government really need to stockpile all of that ice? Of course not. All they had to do was to allow the marketplace to respond to any emergency. Private enterprise would have made sure there was plenty of ice in Florida after a hurricane ... if government would get the hell out of the way.

All the state of Florida does by implementing these absurd anti-price gouging laws is to create and perpetuate the shortages that makes people so durned miserable.

If the people of Florida had any basic knowledge of economics – something they surely won't get in Florida's government schools – they would demand an end to these stupid anti-price gouging laws so that they could get needed materials in the event of an emergency.

The State of Florida needs to stop its own hurricane scam.

NO PROOF, NO PROBLEM

Maryland is what you would call a "sanctuary." Ok well maybe not all of Maryland but at least parts of Montgomery County.

In Montgomery County, illegal immigrants are handed IDs by a group known as CASA. They are called "CASA of Maryland" IDs, and it is estimated that over 10,000 cards have been distributed in the past 10 years.

What can these cards do? They can be used to enroll children in Montgomery County public schools ... without proof of residency in the country. They can also be used to cash checks and banks.

Fine. So you get this ID card. You have a group of Maryland citizens who are helping you break the law. Par for the course. But it gets worse. In order to qualify for the ID card you do not need to provide any proof that you actually live in Montgomery County. None. All you need is an ID from your native country.

CASA director of services Maria Paige that she has a challenge. She explains that she doesn't ask for proof of address because "a lot of immigrants don't even rent anything more than a sofa or a bed that somebody else sleeps in during the night and they sleep in during the day."

CASA also has an agreement with Montgomery and Prince George's County and Washington, D.C. police departments, which will accept this CASA card as a valid form of ID during routine stops.

Enabling lawbreakers. The American way. And just how many people have been killed by illegal alien drunk drivers in the past year anyway?

LIBERALS READ MORE ... SO WHAT?

A recent AP poll shows that 22% of liberals said they hadn't read a book in the past year, compared to 34% of conservatives.

Alright so that is what the polls say. But Pat Schroeder, the president of the American Association of Publishers had to take it to the next level. She says, "The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes ... It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page."

I know better ... but anyway .....

The fact is that non-fiction books by conservative authors consistently outsell books by liberals. Compare Ann Coulter to David Brock. Compare Hannity or Savage to anything ever written by an Air America talk show host ... or to Hannity's sidekick Alan Colmes. Do you think that liberals read more books on business and investing than conservatives? Yeah .... Suuuuure they do. What does that leave us with? Liberals read more fiction than conservatives. Well, that fits. They live in an unreal fantasy world anyway.

Schroeder also says that liberals tend to be "policy wonks" who "can't say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion." Wrong, Patsy. Liberals are just wordy. Their ideas are so inane and absurd they can't be efficiently expressed.

GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF REINCARNATION

If you didn't think China is a totalitarian state (and how could you not?), you will after you read this. China has officially banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. Yup... apparently there is now some sort of reincarnation license in China.

The State Administration for Religious Affairs says that this is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." Something as important as coming back again as something/someone else simply must be regulated by the government.

Clearly the Chinese are trying to downplay the influence of the Dalai Lama. By not allowing Buddhist monks outside of China to seeking reincarnation, it effectively gives Chinese politicians the authority to choose the next Dalai Lama. Or so they think.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Barack Obama wants to ease the embargo on Cuba. Maybe he could work with Hugo Chavez on this? In the meantime, let's see how his next campaign stop in South Florida works out. Boy is he in for a rude awakening.

Membership in the insipid Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is down. This is a good thing. The leaders of CAIR are nothing more than pigs and apes.

Some moonbat city councilman in Los Angeles wants the taxpayers to bail out people who can't pay their mortgages. What's next? Car payments?

Cal Thomas gives us an idea of what the American "superstate" will be like if a Democrat is elected in 2008 and Americans are taxed at higher levels.

Wisconsin Congressman Steve Kagan is reeling in the pork for his district. He secured a $218,000 grant for the Boys and Girls Club to provide exercise programs targeted to fight childhood obesity.

For all you warmers out there. The temperature yesterday in New York City ... 59 degrees.

More for your warming cultists ... farting mooses (meese?) do more damage to our environment than cars.

The EU caved. It initially cut off funding for power when it found out that Hamas was pocketing the money. After just days, the EU resumed the funding.

(Shockingly) Venezuela's congress – filled with all of Hugo's buddies – approved his changes to the constitution.

France is proposing itself to be an "honest broker" between the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions in Iraq.

CAIR is upset because it is losing membership and funding. And guess who is to blame? The government! Specifically the Justice Department.

The boy butt-slapping case doesn't seem to be closed. Now the boys' attorneys are going to sue County, McMinnville police and the McMinnville School District for unlawful prosecution.

Here's a story about a 15-year-old girl flew to meet her Internet boyfriend without an ID or parental permission. When the mother tried to stop her, the airport wouldn't release her information. When the police finally caught up with the girl, they technically couldn't detain her because she was considered an "unreported runaway."

I've seen the dog who can skateboard, but who knew that dogs could actually surf?

Todger? What in the wide wide world of sports is a todger? Is it anything like a codger? And why would you glue one to a vacuum cleaner attachment?

For all the aviation folks out there, think about this next time you're doing your walk-around pre-flight. Yikes!

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