Moving Old Fashioned Common Sense

Right Flight! (4.00 / 1)

Wow. A distorted repeat of white flight from inner cities, but from Vermont.

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by: bmike @ Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 09:01:28 AM CST

Good luck in Florida, Sir! (4.00 / 1)

It is generally recognized on a national level that the regulatory policies adopted by our Democratic majority in Vermont were responsible for cooling the unsustainable fever of development that consumed much of other states' economies in the crash.  We are told that our regulatory policies actually preserved value in Vermont.

Of course, most of Florida wouldn't even exist if Americans had begun long ago to observe some fundamental environmental rules. Sometimes I'm irresistibly drawn to the idea that the endless cycle of natural "disasters" that batter Florida residents might be a planetary "immune response" to combat persistent and expanding infestation.

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by: Sue Prent @ Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 11:51:35 AM CST

Florida (4.00 / 5)

is a great choice (all rankings based on #1 being best)

Violent crime (FBI)
VT 3rd
FL 47th

% under 18 in poverty (Census)
VT 11th
FL 29th

Teen birth rate (Kaiser Family Foundation)
VT 2nd
FL 34th

HS graduation rate (US Dept. of Education)
VT 8th
FL 45th

Diabetes (HHS)
VT 5th
FL 38th

(figures from the Job Gap Study 10.1)

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by: Doug Hoffer @ Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 12:59:37 PM CST

Every looks fine inside the bubble! (4.00 / 2)

Thank you, Doug, for tracking down the statistics.  Yet, I don't think the "poor" rich who are fleeing like modern Joads to the New Land of Florida really give two hoots about crime, poverty, teen birth rates, graduation rates and diabetes from behind the walls of their protected compounds and gated communities.

Several years ago, a very nice lady -- a League of Women Voters stalwart -- said to me, "You know what the problem with America is: the poor!"  Unfortunately, I was speechless and said nothing in response.  I almost immediately felt ashamed of ... myself, for not speaking up.  The poor are relatively powerless; the rich are not.  Wealth controls the levers of power and will fight those who try to wrest that control from them.

Here is a comment that seems to reflect this state of affairs:

   "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint.  When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.

       The late Dom Helder Camara,
       Archbishop of Recife, Brazil

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by: Bruce Post @ Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 15:56:04 PM CST

[ Parent ]

land (0.00 / 0)

America is not a land that really gives a damn for the poor anyway.  

When you wake up each morning look around you.  It might be the last time you get to do it.  

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by: Watercloset @ Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 19:43:50 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Don't forget (0.00 / 0)

Might be instructive to compare foreclosure rates, too.

NanuqFC
In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying. ~ Bertrand Russell  

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by: NanuqFC @ Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 18:27:51 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Good riddance! (4.00 / 3)

I hope the gentleman from Lamoille County has the time of his life in Florida. So many of the supposedly financially beleaguered right seem to forget that "you get what you pay for."  Most Vermonters, I think, know this. That's why, even during these tough times, were willing for the most part to pay for town and school budgets. If folks want to pay less to enjoy Florida's "quality" of life, then by all means please move there.    

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by: GeorgeLTirebiter @ Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 16:07:59 PM CST