Equal Pay for Equal Work

Flipping through the channels during lunch I stop at C-Span. Yesterday Hillary Clinton, today Senator Barbara Mikulski from Maryland. 

Hillary and Lilly

Mikulski’s speech was a call for the Senate to vote in favor of women’s rights by promoting “Equal Pay for Equal Work” through the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (S.181).

This bill was previously voted down by just two votes and  President Bush was threatening to veto it. Mikulski said that tomorrow (Thurs, Jan 14, 2009) there would be quite a debate about this resurrected bill. 

What?!

What is there to debate?!

Let me see… I have no idea what anyone makes at my office but I only have 180 days–from the day that I was paid less for the same job–to file a formal complaint? That is just silly. In April of 2008 the Republicans protested the bill because they were afraid too many lawsuits would follow. 

What?!

Isn’t that the idea? If women aren’t getting equal pay and their employer doesn’t rectify it, isn’t their legal course of action to sue?

Unfortunately, suing is one of the ways things get done in the US simply because our pocketbooks always speak loudest (no big surprise that electric cars finally started getting publicity when gas prices shot up to $4/gal and the Detroit Auto show is promoting fuel efficiency the year they asked for a bailout).

Mikulski stated that women currently only make 77 cents for every dollar that a man makes. This has changed very little in the last 30-40 years.

Over the holidays I learned from two professors in the family that women in academia (professors) make significantly less than a male counterpart who does the exact same job. I was shocked!

Click here for statistics (see page 3)

The problem is that even if people find out that professors make unequal salaries, of course a man isn’t going to demand that his salary is lowered to become equal to that of women and the women don’t want to risk their jobs.

Do you know if you are making the same salary/wage as your male counterpart?

Take action by contacting your local Senator today. It is easy and it really only takes a minute. Express that you would like them to vote in favor of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.

 

Resources:

GovTrack: A civic project to track congress

PA Editors Blog: Political affairs magazine

Nature News: German Professor in Sex Discrimination Battle

UBC Planning and Institutional Research: Statistical Analysis of UBC Faculty Salaries

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Female Professors at U. of Texas-Austin Earn $9,000 Less Than Male Peers

Vilsack for Department of Agriculture or Corn Lobbyist

“Vilsack has championed the development of ethanol, an alternative energy, in Iowa — something that coincides with Obama’s vision for an energy-independent future, and something he can promote from the Department of Agriculture.” Source: CNN

Is ethanol really a good alternative energy source? What are the pros and cons? Will Vilsack be a good representative of the entire Department of Agriculture or will he spend all his time pushing for more ethanol production?

PROS OF ETHANOL
1. Clean burning
2. Potential providing more horsepower than gasoline
3. Already in production and added to current fuels
4. Higher thermodynamic efficiency = potentially better performance (if no gasoline is involved)
5. The Department of Energy claims the process of making ethanol results in a 34-66 percent surplus of energy
6. Gasoline blended with ethanol lowers carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emissions 

CONS OF ETHANOL
1.  Alcohol is corrosive so storage tanks would need to made of stainless steel or plastic
2. Increases the use of pesticides, fertilizers, heavy equipment and transport
3. Doesn’t work well in cold weather
4. Cornell University scientist David Pimentel claims that it takes 1.3 gallons of oil to produce one gallon of ethanol.

The question is where to put our financial resources to most effectively reduce pollution and our dependence on foreign oil? Corn, hydrogen fuel cells, solar, wind? What fuels will dominate in the future?

60 Percent or More Increase in Home Values

Study Shows Housing Values Have Climbed 

News reports have been packed with stories about declining home values, but a recent government report shows that the situation is not nearly so dire as some reports make it sound.

Despite big loses in some areas of the country, the majority of markets continue to show growth in home value over the last five years.

According to the third-quarter survey released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, out of 292 metropolitan markets, 273 showed positive net home values in the last five years. Only 19 percent were negative. 

While home values declined 4 percent on average in the last year, values were up nearly 29 percent over the past five years.

According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, markets that gained the most over the last five years were:

• Honolulu: up 78.7 percent
• Virginia Beach: 72.6 percent
• Flagstaff, Ariz.: 66.5 percent
• Bellingham, Wash.: 65.6 percent
• Wilmington, N.C.: 62.1 percent
• Baltimore: 60.6 percent

Source: The Washington Post Writers Group, Kenneth R. Harney, (12/06/08)

Real Estate Hot Spots in CO, TX, ND, NM and More

Top 10 Most Promising Housing Markets

Housing Predictor, which provides housing forecasts in 250 markets, has identified 10 markets where the regional economies are healthy and have strong potential for increasing prosperity.

These housing markets have bucked the national trend in 2008 and avoided the subprime crisis, the consultancy says.

Whatever the future holds for the housing market as a whole, Housing Predictor forecasts that these cities will continue to see steady, dependable growth.

Top cities and the percentage sales prices have increased so far in 2008.

Biloxi, Miss., 4.9 percent
Salem, Ore., 4.7 percent
Bismarck, N.D., 4.6 percent
Spokane, Wash., 4.4 percent
Yakima, Wash., 4.1 percent
Austin, Texas, 4.0 percent
Grand Junction, Colo., 4.0 percent
Fargo, N.D., 4.0 percent
Mobile, Ala., 3.9 percent
Albuquerque, N.M., 3.5 percent

Source: Housing Predictor (11/15/08)

First-time Homeowner Tax Credit

FIRST-TIME HOMEOWNER TAX CREDIT

It is a good time to re-familiarize people with the $7500 tax “credit” for first-time
homebuyers that all of us real-estate professionals will be asked about this spring.

Here are the highlights:

1. The $7500 tax credit is applicable to your 2008 or 2009 tax year.

2. It is for 1st-time homebuyers (people who have not owned a primary residence in three or more years)

3. The full benefit is for available for single taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000, and married couples with incomes up to $150,000

 4. The $7500 is repaid to the federal government, interest-free, in $500 increments over 15 years. These payments are part of your future tax liability.

5. The credit is for home purchased between April 9th, 2008 and July 1st, 2009

For more info, call Eric Peltier or visit: www.FederalHousingTaxCredit.com

SOURCE:

Eric S. Peltier
Dovetail Lending LLC
ericpeltier@dovetaillending.com 
Boulder, CO 80302
Phone: 303-449-0343
Mobile : 303-579-6386
Colorado License #MB100008090
NAMB Member

Is your lender Carbon Neutral, Zero Waste, Wind Powered, Locally Owned, and providing Paperless Originations?  Could Your Mortgage Be Organic?   TM

JEN’S NOTE:

This Tax Credit is essentially an INTEREST FREE loan from the government. If you are currently strapped for cash or your tax situation warrants it, this may be a good option for you.

However, if paying an additional $500 over the next FIFTEEN YEARS is going to be a struggle or annoy you severely, you may want to forego this government loan. 

Another spin on this program.

Clues to a Future Economy in Farmland and iPhones

How will the US economy change to support our evolving society? The clues may be in the demand for farmland and the mass production of iPhones.

A recent dinner conversation revolved around where our economy and society are heading. Not a surprising topic, I know.

The surprise for me, however, was an interesting theory put forth: we will increasingly return to growing our own crops, working in cottage industries and revert to living much the way our society did before the industrial revolution.

I think I hear the Luddites cheering in their graves. But, should they? 

This “back to basics” trend seemed to clash with my theory that we are moving into a new “knowledge worker’s” economy. Farming gave way to industry and industry is giving way to knowledge work.

Need convinced? Challenge yourself to buy only products made in the USA or think of one person who currently (today, not 10 or 20 years ago) works on a factory line.  The idea that farming would be the alternative to industry sounded ludicrous, at first.

Then I mulled the new farming economy idea over a bit.

“Back to basic” classrooms haven’t abandoned the computer and just because we are becoming a more holistic (female oriented) thinking society again–evident in touch screen applications like the iPhone and the HP SmartTouch computer–doesn’t mean we have abandoned analytical (male oriented) thinking–evident in literacy and the binary code.

Holistic Computing

 

Then I did a little research. It’s true, growing crops or running a small organic farm is becoming increasingly popular. The US Department of Agriculture shows a 14 percent increase (between 1997-2002) in people under 35 operating small and medium-sized farms. (source wnyc.org)

Farmland is hot property these days. Nationwide, it is up nearly 9 percent from a year ago. Iowa farmland has increased in value 18 percent. South Dakota’s value has risen 21 percent.

While some wealthy landowners celebrate this, average farmers and young people who want to own their farms are shut out.

“There are a whole lot of young people wanting to farm – both children of farm families and young people from cities and suburban towns who want to farm,” says Teresa Opheim, executive director of Practical Farmers of Iowa. (Source: The Christian Science Monitor, Richard Mertens (11/18/08))

Come to think of it, a personal friend of mine just moved back to South Dakota so that her husband could start a cattle business with his father and another friend created gardens in a Denver suburb as part of an outreach program.

It is also true, however, that farms and cottage industries don’t run at all the way they did during the pre-industrial era. They use machines to complete tasks, research, chart, and sell products. The poor Luddites would be so confused with all this melding of old and new.

At a fundraiser I was thrilled to hear a woman politician expound, “We need more women in politics, not to put down men but to have equal representation. If we want peace in the world we need the the differing insights of both women and men working together.” 

In the same way, I am thrilled to think about a new economy where we can take the best of our past holistic matriarchal societies and our more recent analytic patriarchal society to create a hybrid society that is both scientific and caring, profitable and creative. This is the change I voted for!

Of course change is often a struggle, whether it’s cutting a first tooth, learning to read or working on a home remodel, but I don’t want to be toothless, illiterate or live with 1980s Oak Express stairs.

Maybe, just maybe, we should be celebrating the recent economic “readjustment”?

No Driver Tractor

Pirates of Somalia

To take the Suez Canal or go the old school route around Cape of Good Hope? That is the question that shipping companies must now make in the rise of Somalian piracy.

Shipping vessels must decide either to risk being hijacked by Somalian pirates if they go through the Gulf of Aden, which leads to the Suez Canal short cut to Europe, or take two additional weeks to sail around the southern tip of Africa, which will increase prices for consumers. No one wants an increase in prices so buck up sailors!

How high is the risk really? 90 vessels have been hijacked this year. Sounds like a lot until you compare it to the amount of traffic going through the area. According to the Maritime Transport Sector of Arabic Republic of Egypt 20,384 vessels came knocking at the Suez canal in 2007. If as many ships attempt that route in 2008 there is a 4/10th of one percent chance that a ship will be seized by pirates. That may not seem like much but who wants to be “the one” ram-shacked by pirates? 

Another problem the pirates inadvertently created is an increase in Insurance for ships who do risk going through the Gulf of Aden–by ten fold in the last year. Is it the 100% chance of paying extortion insurance or 4/10th of a one percent of being seized by pirates that shippers are concerned about? Just a guess but, maybe the true decision maker of whether to take the short cut might be the additional price that every ship must pay if taking the short cut. 

So, what do the pirates want? What everyone wants! Money. The Saudis shipping the oil want it, the companies insuring the ships want it, and who can blame the Somalians for wanting their share too?

Pirates hold the ships hostage and ask for $300K-$1.5M in ransom money. What do they do with it? Act like good business men and buy more ships to more effectively pillage the seas. If you are imagining a group of rough and tumble barbarians acting like ancient business men, the incarnation of Jack Sparrow, think again.

When word gets out that a ship has been hijacked a bunch of guys who have been enjoying a meal at the local pirate diner in Ely, Puntland (an autonomous but not independent region in Somalia) jump up, change into spiffy clothes and ties, grab their laptops and run to shore. They are the pirates’ accountants, chief negotiators, and such. Although only a few men are pirates there is an entire industry supporting them back on shore from guards to cooks.

Somalia is an agricultural based country, one of the poorest in the world.

With fancy houses, expensive cars, fast boats, powerful weapons, clan relations to the president, and contacts in Dubai do you think that the pirates in Ely will be stopping anytime soon? Can they be stopped?

One might equate the pirates to the “mafia of the coasts”, the “drug lords of the seas”, or “terrorists of the oceans” but at least they aren’t blowing anyone up (well, not yet anyway). In fact, several legitimate catering businesses have popped up and are booming in Ely by supplying the meals that feed the hostages during negotiations. 

Perhaps the pirate industry in Somalia should rebrand themselves as the ship tolling industry. “Want to take the shipping short cut to Europe? Just a smallish fee and we’ll let you through.”

(Picture borrowed from “Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster” blog. Thanks!)

A Bust Denver Economy?

The cost of living index for Denver in 2006/2007

(nat’l avg = 100) / Denver Consumer Avg Expenditures

all items = 103.2 / $49,996

grocery = 102.2 / $6,251

housing = 110.4 / $15,772

utilities = 104.4 / $3,013

transportation = 95.9 / $8,646

health care = 105.8 / $2,724 

entertainment = ? / $3,227

Population in Denver County

Total = 566,974

Male = 50.9%

Female = 49.1%

Owner-occupied housing units = 55.6% (Colorado 68.7%)

Median household income = $40,900 (Colorado $52,015)

Jobs gained in Colorado between Nov 2006 and Nov 2007 = 34,375

Denver Median Home Price (current US Median $210,200)

December 2006 = $247,500

December 2007 = $220,000

Carlon Index

In the month of October, each job in Colorado generated an average of $4,402 in retail expenditures. That is a 9% increase from October 2006.

Definitions to remember from high school…

Median: the midpoint in a series of numbers; half the data values are above the median, and half are below. For example, in the odd series 1, 4, 9, 12 and 33, 9 is the median. In the even series 1, 4, 10, 12, 33 and 88, 11 is the median (halfway between 9 and 12). …

Average: The average is the total of all pieces added up and divided by the number of pieces.