Right now, in my part of Florida, the unemployment rate is around 2%, which means that just about anyone who wants to work can find a job. Apartment vacancy rates are nearly as low as the unemployment rate. And — this shouldn’t surprise anyone — an awful lot of these jobs and apartments are have been taken by illegal immigrants. Some sectors of our local economy, notably agriculture, construction, and food service, have become totally dependent on these immigrants. Right now, with the economy going full-tilt, everyone sort of winks at this illegality and accepts the fact that we have lots of people driving without licenses, jamming 10 people into dwellings designed to hold three or four, and generally acting as a “below the law” underclass. The theory is that the illegals do jobs Americans and legitimate immigrants refuse to do, so we need to let them stay. But what will happen during our next recession? Will Americans still refuse low-wage work? I don’t think so.

I don’t want to see a company owned by the government of Dubai running vital U.S. seaports. I don’t want to see a British company running them, either. I don’t want to see foreign companies controlling any of our nation’s vital infrastructure. I also worry about the fact that we no longer make our own clothes, consumer electronics or, really, much of anything any more. Call me old-fashioned. Call me silly. Call me unrealistic. Or call me a Patriot, which is an old-fashioned, silly, unrealistic thing to be these days.

These are two concepts that came to me while visiting a friend who is staying in a Manatee County neighborhood so hopeless that our Sheriff’s Office responded to a “shots fired” 911 call later that evening with nothing but a cursory drive-by. This isn’t way out in the country. It’s just one block away from the famous Miller’s Dutch Kitch’n on 14th Street. And I suspect that as the Square Footage Divide gets worse around here, the Trickle-Down Theory of Real Estate Economics will make that neighborhood worse, not better.

Here’s the first paragraph from a Feb. 17, 2006, AP story in my local newspaper: “Lobbyists plan to sue presiding officers of the Florida Legislature on Friday to block enforcement of a new law that prohibits them from giving gifts, including food and drink, to lawmakers.” In other words, Florida lobbyists are suing legislative leaders to keep on bribing legislators even though the legislature passed — and Governor Bush signed — a law that says they can no longer give money, food, and booze to state officials in exchange for chances to influence legislation and purchasing decisions. The law has some other pretty good provisions, too, that also have lobbyists upset.

Yes, it’s his victim, poor (okay, rich) old Republican lawyer Harry Whittington, who might end up dead. Indeed, it’s a virtual certainty that Whittington will die, just as everyone else will — sooner or later. But Cheney will live on in embarrassment and shame, and his ignobleness will long live after him. He’s destined for the history books not as a brilliant shaper of foreign policy or even as a corporate benefactor to Halliburton and assorted oil companies, but as a bad joke.

Aren’t you glad you’re not Dick Cheney? Shouldn’t we all be glad we’re not Dick Cheney? That’s why we need a national ‘Be Glad You’re Not Dick Cheney’ week: a holiday that transcends political and religious divides and gives us — for once — something about which we can all agree.

Interest rates won’t stay as low as they are now. The Bush administration and its cronies in Congress are increasing our country’s debt at an amazing rate. Bush’s successor is going to need to figure out a way to pay back that debt, and the most likely way he or she will do it is by devaluing our currency through inflation. This will drive interest rates up. Way up. I remember mortgage rates of 18% (and higher) back when we were paying off our Vietnam War debt, and how those high mortgage rates depressed housing prices. Check these numbers…

One of the great problems faced by Manatee County over the past few years has been real estate speculation. Price runups of close to 30% per year have made it nearly impossible for working citizens to buy houses, and the condomization of mid-market apartment complexes has made rentals scarcer and more expensive. But, if this Herald-Tribune article is telling the truth, it looks like the tide is turning. Finally.

February 8 - 11 there’s going to be a “planning charrette” for the area along Rte. 41 between downtown Sarasota and Bowlee’s Creek (near Whitfield Road) in Manatee County. Most of it is being held during the workday, which makes it hard for many of us to attend, but the opening session on Wednesday, February 8, is at 6 p.m., and the closing session is Saturday, so some of us ought to be able to get to some sessions, anyway. I have no idea what these people hope to do about the area’s two main problems: Insane condomization and real estate prices beyond the reach of anyone who does Honest Work for a living. But it will be interesting to find out. I hope to be there at least for the opening session. You might want to be there, too, because people in government seem to take these charette things seriously — at least until the plans they produce get in the way of developers’ profits.

If you listen to Al Queda and other terrorist groups, the US and Israel are evil and should be fought, blown up, and terrorized because we hate all the world’s billion (or so) Muslims. Then we hear from “moderate” Muslim leaders that we are all in the fight against terrorism together. Next, we hear that western thought is not compatible with Muslim beliefs. And in between all this, Iranian leaders want to wipe out Israel and punish the US for invading Iraq, and we get the impression that all one billion Muslims are supposed to hate Americans. Except maybe they shouldn’t hate American Muslims, many of whom are running around saying they’re good Americans and shouldn’t be treated as potential terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. I’ve been confused about all of this since I attended an Interfaith Interracial Council event in Sarasota, Florida, shortly after the 9/11 attack.