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Weather: Mostly cloudy in the morning, then clearing. Highs in the upper 60s. Northwest winds 5 to 10 mph.
Monday Night: Mostly clear in the evening, then becoming mostly cloudy. Much cooler with lows in the mid 40s. Northwest winds around 5 mph. See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
Today at a Glance:
The Bunnell City Commission meets at 7 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell, where the City Commission is holding its meetings until it is able to occupy its own City Hall on Commerce Parkway likely in early 2023. To access meeting agendas, materials and minutes, go here.
The Flagler County Beekeepers Association holds its monthly meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Flagler Agricultural Center, 150 Sawgrass Rd., Bunnell (the county fairgrounds). This is a meeting for beekeepers in Flagler and surrounding counties (and those interested in the trade). The meetings have a speaker, Q & A, and refreshments are served. It is a great way to gain support as a beekeeper or learn how to become one. All are welcome. Meetings take place the fourth Monday of every month. Contact Kris Daniels at 704-200-8075.
Nar-Anon Family Groups offers hope and help for families and friends of addicts through a 12-step program, 6 p.m. at St. Mark by the Sea Lutheran Church, 303 Palm Coast Pkwy NE, Palm Coast, Fellowship Hall Entrance. See the website, www.nar-anon.org, or call (800) 477-6291. Find virtual meetings here.
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center: Nightly from 6 to 9 p.m. at Palm Coast’s Central Park, with 55 lighted displays you can enjoy with a leisurely stroll around the pond in the park. Admission to Fantasy Lights is free, but donations to support Rotary’s service work are gladly accepted. Holiday music will pipe through the speaker system throughout the park, Santa’s Village, which has several elf houses for the kids to explore, will be open, with Santa’s Merry Train Ride nightly (weather permitting), and Santa will be there every Sunday night until Christmas, plus snow on weekends! On certain nights, live musical performances will be held on the stage.
In Coming Days:
Dec. 23: Culmination of toy drive for Toys for Tots at AW Custom Kitchens, European Village, starting at 11 a.m. A drawing for all eligible participants will take place at 2 p.m. Anyone who will have donated toys for the drive will have a chance to win various items, including a 65-inch 4K Smart TV, an Apple iPad, a pair of Apple Air Pods, and gift cards from the co-sponsors of the event. Fifty such cards have been donated. With proof of a voucher, donors also will receive a free hot dog, a free drink, a free popcorn, a free cotton candy, and a free snow cone. There will be a variety of fun things to do such as a bouncy house for children in thanks to the community for its generosity. See details here.
Notably: George Brinton McClellan Harvey, Wikipedia tells us, “was an American diplomat, journalist, author, street railway magnate, and editor of several magazines. He used his great wealth in politics. He was an early promoter of Woodrow Wilson, but they became bitter enemies. Harvey was a conservative who wanted Washington to protect big business from what he saw as unjust privilege by labor unions. He repudiated Wilson when he saw Wilson oppose political machines and threaten big business in the style of progressive era reformers.” Warren Harding appointed him ambassador to Great Britain. On this day in 1922, Harvey was the featured guest at a dinner marking the inauguration of a group called the Forum Club in London. He said in his speech–as reported on the front page of the New York Times the next day–that “An old adage was that an ambassador was sent abroad to lie for his country. He had done that, he said.” He also said that the world was sick and tired of war, and that there would not be any more war for a while: “You cannot create any great war in this world for years to come, because the people will not have it. They will not kill each other. That is very encouraging.” He hadn’t been kidding about lying.
—P.T.
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
For the full calendar, go here.
That experience, of foreign travel, is very important to me, for the very reason that Israel continually claims that it is a part of Western culture. You should understand: the Israelis are not satisfied with having conquered us. They want to turn us into a colony of theirs, in every sense of the word, culturally as well. That means that they don’t want only to confiscate land, but also to impose themselves on the soul and thoughts of the conquered. It is very important for Israelis–in a sometimes touching way–to impress us. To convince us how much Israel is superior to us. And by the way, there is a huge difference between the propaganda that Israel directs toward the West Bank, where it wants to appear omnipotent, and the propaganda it directs toward the West, in whose eyes it wants to appear as a victim, surrounded by powerful enemies.
—Raja Shehadeh quoted in David Grossman’s The Yellow Wind (1988).
Chip D says
Hamburger is now $8/Pound at Publix. 2 years ago that was the price of Prime Rib. Regular people don’t look at the inflation rate or job market. The job market is so good, everyone has 2 jobs and still can’t pay their bills. Give me a break.
nick minnicozzi says
exactly !!!!!
Steve says
Burger all day long Black Angus 5.65/lb. May want to look elsewhere
Philip says
That might be true…but this is a world-wide economy. It’s not about one American president or another.
So…what is the answer in the world of global chess-gaming and greedy people?
Chip D says
Who mentioned anything about an American president?
That being said, your comments are eerily similar to the White House economic talking points.
Philip says
I mentioned the president…just one of many world leaders.
I’ve been around for a while… I don’t get my world view from any White House administration. Do you think, by chance, that any nation’s economy is based solely on themselves? Do you think world leaders are all fair and just and doing there best for all of humanity? I don’t and I doubt that you do either. So tell me — what’s wrong with my reply?
Ray W. says
A simple visit to the Publix site shows that Greenwise 92% lean ground beef costs $7.99 per lb. Publix ground chuch costs $4.49 per lb., if one purchases three or more pounds. About three weeks ago, a three-pound chuck of 73% lean ground beef cost $9.99 per chub.
Any FlaglerLive reader can infer that Chip D is engaging in a deliberate act of disinformation, because he uses the generic term of “hamburger”, instead of the specific term of Greenwise 92% lean ground beef. Given the many different forms of hamburger listed on the Publix sit, Chip D chose one of the most expensive items to illustrate his point.
Of course, there is more to this storyline. Given the war in the Ukraine, international grain prices rose significantly. And last year, American farmers throughout the Midwest endured a droeught significant enough to lower the water level in the Mississippi River near Memphis so as to make barge traffic impassable until the Army Corps of Engineers performed an emergency dredging of the channel to open the waterway. Corn, soybean and wheat yields suffered. The Idaho potato crop was impacted enough to require Maine potato distributors to ship potatoes to Idaho, a first in many decades.
Beef producers, anticipating a rise in feed costs, sold portions of their herds before full maturity in an effort to reduce losses. I recall purchasing five-pound chubs of ground beef last year for $1.99 per lb. before prices began to rise.
Over the winter, beef producers began to rebuild their herds. A second year of drought caught them out and they once again sold young cattle before they reached maturity. Earlier this year, I purchased a five-lb. chub of hamburger for $2.20 per lb.
What I am engaging in is called intellectual honesty. I have invested time over the years to better understand the subject of supply and demand. Cattle ranchers, facing financial losses due to higher feed prices, sold off portions of their herds early to cut their losses. Smaller supply can lead to higher prices. Simple capitalism at work. I constructed a limited foundation of knowledge about the subject of hamburger and shared a number of facts to allow others to perhaps better understand the issue. Chip D did not engage in intellectual honesty in the hamburger portion of his comment. He sought to mislead the reader by being as generic as possible, without informing anyone that he was building his comment on a specialty product offered by Publix. Of course, the gullible nick minnicozzi fell for Chip D’s misleading comment.
Let’s take a closer look at Chip D’s second portion of his comment. Again, he takes a broad general view that people today have two jobs and cainnot pay their bills, as if that is something new. One of my first trials, during the summer of 1984, was the Hale murder trial. I was still in law school. Mrs. Hale had two infant children. The two children died in a trailer fire. She was found not guilty on all charges for reasons too lengthy to describe here, but at the time of the fire, her husband was working a full-time job, plus two part-time jobs. Without overtime, he had to work that much at minimum wage jobs in order to struggle to pay the family’s bills. At that time, I had a boss who would give me all the overtime I wanted, up to 79 hours a week. He didn’t want to pay me double-time, but he would pay time and a half. I was in law school, so I worked as much as I could during Christmas Break, Spring Break, summertime, in my boss’ beachside restaurant. I saved as much as I could so I would only have to work part-time during classes. I didn’t have to work two jobs. My wife worked, too.
Again, Chip D is engaging in misinformation about people working two jobs at low pay. For the entire history of the American republic, some people, indeed many people, have had to work long hours for low pay in hopes of putting food on the table.
Chip D, please give Flaglerlive readers a break. Please stop posting misleading comments.
As an aside, since the focus of Chip D’s two misleading comments is the editorial cartoon about the strength of the American economy, perhaps it might be relevant to tell the story of the current owner of the Boston Red Sox.
As I recall an in-depth newspaper story about Mr. Henry, published roughly 20 years ago, when he was an agricultural major at a midwestern state college in the early 1970’s, he knew that the family farm was not big enough for he and his brothers to make a living at farming. He didn’t have the resources to buy his own farm. The family farm, while significant in acreage, was to be divided amongst the siblings when his parents retired, if they retired, and the divided acreage just wasn’t enough for each to be profitable.
In an economics of agronomy course, he conceived the idea of developing an algorithm to predict grain futures prices. This was in the 1970’s, long before the internet became anything more than a limited idea. But university libraries of that time stocked regional newspapers. Mr. Henry laboriously entered daily rainfall records from newspapers all over the Midwest into his algorithm and tested the results against government crop yield predictions. He attached different values to certain amounts of rainfall and changed the values if the predictions were off. Once he had adjusted the values to yield consistently accurate predictions (too much rain in a short period of time can damage yields just s too little rain over a long time), he began investing his money in the grain futures markets. He was able to predict grain yields faster than the government advisories and he made his fortune.
Why do I focus on Mr. Henry? Today’s currency exchange rate traders have massive amounts of data at their fingertips. Their companies have invested millions of dollars in developing algorithms that almost instantly process the data. If their unique algorithm values give them even the slightest of predictive edges mere seconds in time ahead of their competitors, they can make fortunes betting on currency exchange rate futures. Billions of dollars are gambled on any given day, based on competing algorithm-based predictions.
Over the past two years, guess which currency has been the focus of these futures gamblers? Yes, the American dollar. Last year saw the dollars reach record highs against almost every other national currency. This year, the dollar has receded slightly, but it is still stronger than normal against almost every other national currency. The American economy seems to be strong, relative to the rest of the year, based upon the decisions made by the people who make their living betting on currency exchange rate futures.
Yes, exchange rates change constantly. Yes, America might slide into recession. The Fed recently lowered its estimate of the chances of America sliding into recession to 30% in the near-term. Despite the Fed’s repeated efforts to cool off the hot American economy by raising borrowing rates, the American economy stubbornly remains strong. That most rare of outcomes resulting from a bout with inflation, that of the proverbial “soft landing” without a recession, just might occur.
No, I don’t want to live through a tenth recession. The first nine were enough for me. Almost all of them involved a shock to either the American or the world’s economy. Most involved rising crude oil prices based on interruptions to the international crude oil market.
For example, the Reagan recession resulted from the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War that disrupted oil exports from both countries. The Carter and Nixon recessions followed OPEC oil embargoes. The elder Bush recession followed the Kuwait War and the disruption to Kuwaiti oil exports.
Chip D, engage in a little intellectual honesty and prove me wrong about the cause of rising hamburger prices and the historical norm of people having to work two jobs because their employers refuse to pay them a decent living wage. Do not contort reason to fit your preconceived beliefs. Follow reason to whatever end it leads you.
Laurel says
Ray W.: You are correct. Our CPA commented on how it’s confusing people believing the economy is bad, when it obviously isn’t. Again, this misinformation is fed to a large group of Americans, who find camaraderie around the water cooler spewing what they heard on Fox Entertainment, or Newsmax.
No matter how much sense you make, it will fly overhead. Maybe I’m being unfair, and some will respond differently which would actually be delightful!
As to the two jobs, I had two jobs while going to college. The two jobs were required as I had an apartment, health insurance, utilities and all the necessary bills for food and gas, et cetera. I was as a bartender at a nice restaurant in one town, a waitress at a private club in the same town, and went to school in the next county south. One day, I got all dressed up for my bartender job, got on I-95 heading south towards school before I realized what I had done, and got off I-95, turned around, got back on, and headed for work.
My point here is it ain’t easy, but we do the best we can and succeed.
Willie says
Its funny that the inflation rate is over double since Jan 2020 and the unemployment rate is more than pre covid yet you talk as if everything is so much better than what it was.
Inflation rate average
2019 – 1.8
2020 – 1.2
2021 – 4.7
2022 – 8.0
2023 is on track for 3.8
Unemployment rate 3.6 pre covid 3.8 as of last month. 3.9.
So the drawing needs to say on the sign “I need to take my blinders off, everyone is right the economy is in terrible shape.”
Laurel says
The inflation rate is high because people are spending money, whether you think so or not. When I bought a house in 1995, my mortgage rate was 8.375%, and I thought it was great. Keep in mind that my house was $58, 500, so my monthly rate was the same as it was for renting my apartment. I was able to pay it off. Fast forward to 2013 as we refinanced a more expensive house, that we bought during the recession, at 2.5%! We were able to pay that off as well. However, when the lending rate dropped to 3% the houses started to become much more expensive, and inflation continued. People were spending, as they are now. The Fed is raising the lending rate in order to slow down the spending, which makes houses less affordable. Over time, the cost of a house should come down, but we will never go back to 1995.
More growth means more taxes and fees. When more people move in, Palm Coast needs more infrastructure, more fire houses, more water and sewer treatment plants, and that come out of my and your pockets.
So the facts are: gas has gone down, and inflation is slowing down. So why are products still high, and getting higher? Well, look to the corporations, that are making record profits all along now. Why is it I go to a dollar store and buy a large pack of Qtips for $1.25, and the same package is $5.50 at another, well known drug store? Because they can. You buy grass fed hamburger at one store for $8.00 whereas you can buy it at another, nearby, for $6.00. You can spend $4.00 for a block of cheese at one store, and buy it for $2.00 at another.
Stop paying attention to Fox Entertainment, they are lying to you and you should be mad about it. Fox Entertainment is making a bundle of money feeding you their garbage.