Phase 1: The Screen Porch Remodel

Rudy's Chance to save America

Petco Park

This was the year of Ale's high school reunion at Hilltop high in Chula Vista (San Diego) California. Flying in on Thursday her first stop was Mission Beach for some ocean time then on to Petco Park for the Padres - Rockies game.

This photo was taken from the top of the Marriott Hotel looking over the park where things started with Wendy and Jeff and a pitcher of margaritas. Great view and good times.

More photos to follow.

Long time ago

Cork Floors

Adrienne Lee DeGiulio

Congratulations DeGiulio Family

Kitchen Options

Democratic YouTube Debate: David Brooks

To hear the candidates talk, you'd think the rich were eating the poor. They're not.

By David Brooks, New York Times

Published: July 27, 2007

If you've paid attention to the presidential campaign, you've heard the neopopulist story line. CEOs are seeing their incomes skyrocket while the middle class gets squeezed. The tides of globalization work against average Americans while most of the benefits go to the top 1 percent.

This story is not entirely wrong, but it is simple-minded. To believe it, you have to suppress a string of complicating facts.

The first complicating fact is that after a lag, average wages are rising sharply. Real average wages rose by 2 percent in 2006, the second-fastest rise in 30 years.

The second complicating fact is that according to the Congressional Budget Office, earnings for the poorest fifth of Americans are also on the increase. As Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution noted recently in the Washington Post, between 1991 and 2005, "the bottom fifth increased its earnings by 80 percent, compared with around 50 percent for the highest-income group and around 20 percent for each of the other three groups."

The third complicating fact is that despite years of scare stories, income volatility is probably not trending upward. A study by the CBO has found that incomes are no more unstable now than they were in the 1980s and 1990s.

The fourth complicating fact is that recent rises in inequality have less to do with the grinding unfairness of globalization than with the reality that the market increasingly rewards education and hard work.

A few years ago, the rewards for people earning college degrees seemed to flatten out. But more recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that the education premium is again on the rise.

Fifth, companies are getting more efficient at singling out and rewarding productive workers. A study by the economists Thomas Lemieux, Daniel Parent and W. Bentley MacLeod suggests that as much as 24 percent of the increase in male wage inequality is due to performance pay.

Sixth, inequality is also rising in part because people up the income scale work longer hours. In 1965, less educated Americans and more educated Americans worked the same number of hours a week. But today, many highly educated people work like dogs while those down the income scale have seen their leisure time increase by a phenomenal 14 hours a week.

Seventh, it's not at all clear that the big winners in this economy are self-dealing corporate greedheads who are bilking shareholders. A study by Steven N. Kaplan and Joshua Rauh finds that it's not corporate honchos who are filling up the ranks of the filthy rich. It's hedge fund managers. Or, as Kaplan and Rauh put it, "the top 25 hedge fund managers combined appear to have earned more than all 500 S&P 500 CEOs combined." The hedge fund guys are profiting not because there's been a shift in social norms favoring the megarich. It's just that a few superstars are now handling so much capital.

Eighth, to the extent that CEO pay packets have thickened (and they have), there may be good economic reasons. The bigger a company gets, the more a talented CEO can do to increase earnings. Over the past 2½ decades, the value of top U.S. companies has increased 500 percent, according to Xavier Gabaix and Augustin Landier. The compensation for the CEOs of those companies has also increased 500 percent.

Ninth, we're in the middle of one of the greatest economic eras ever. Global poverty has declined at astounding rates. Globalization boosts each U.S. household's income by about $10,000 a year. The U.S. economy, despite all the bad-mouthing, is chugging along. Thanks to all the growth, tax revenues are at 18.8 percent of GDP, higher than the historical average. The deficit is down to about 1.5 percent of GDP, below the historical average.

This is not to say everything is good. Inequality is obviously increasing. There's evidence that global trade is producing more losers.

Instead, the main point is that the Democratic campaign rhetoric is taking on a life of its own, and drifting further away from reality. Feeding off pessimism about the war and anger at Washington, candidates now compete to tell dark, angry and conspiratorial stories about the economy.

I doubt there's much Republicans can do to salvage their fortunes by 2008. But over the long term a GOP rebound can be built by capturing the Bill Clinton/Democratic Leadership Council ground that the Democrats are now abandoning. Whoever gets globalization right will have a bright future. In the long run, facts matter.

SE Asia plan of Attack

Marble Mountains near Danang, Vietnam

This November I will be heading to Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia for 2 weeks with buddy Brian. Lots of shots, fish, rice, the expected travel challenges, daily blogs and great vistas. It will be a great adventure!

Here is the breakdown day by day.

Day -1 Leave Msp – 1:00 PM
Day 0 Arrive Tokyo (4:40 pm); Fly to Bangkok (6:30pm - 11:45 pm)

Day 1 Bangkok (rest and city tour)

Day 2 Bangkok (River Kwai tour)

Day 3 Bangkok tour (possible canal tour); Fly to Angkor Wat

Day 4 Angkor Wat tour

Day 5 Morning in Siem Reap; Fly to Da Nang; drive to Hoi An

Day 6 Hoi An & My Son

Day 7 Drive to Hue in morning; City tour of Hue in pm

Day 8 (DMZ tour), return to Hue

Day 9 Drive from Hue to Da Nang in late morning; Fly to Saigon

Day 10 Saigon (Chu Chi Tour)

Day 11 Saigon (City tour)

Day 12 Fly to Bangkok

Day 13 Bangkok to Minneapolis (9:00 am – 2:19 pm)

Article: A Culture of Uncommon Strength

This demonstrates a slightly different attitude than what was witnessed in New Orleans.

From An Editorial: A culture of uncommon strength takes a blow

Minnesotans, who've given so much to so many, will be characteristically self-sufficient in their hour of need.

By From An Editorial, in the Chicago Tribune :
Published: August 04, 2007

Whatever the calamity and wherever its locale -- a hurricane in New Orleans, an earthquake in Central America, a famine in Africa -- this much is certain: The people, communities and congregations of Minnesota won't be outdone in their generosity of supplies, money and time at the scene. Helping others in need is part of the Minnesota ethos, a culture constitutionally incapable of proclaiming, "Me first."

So when a major bridge collapsed Wednesday evening in Minneapolis, one psychic reflex was to ask how the rest of us might help.

The early answer: The modern inheritors of a tough prairie culture's stoicism and self-sufficiency will handle their losses by themselves. If we can generalize: Asking for sympathy isn't in the emotional repertoire of the typical Minnesotan.

The fall of a high and wide bridge, and the resulting tumble of cars into the Mississippi River that flows from an upstate Minnesota lake, is a common phobia come horrifically to life. Commuters headed home after work, baseball fans bound for a Twins game -- all of them trusting in the tidy rituals of urban travel: We believe in the integrity of our bridges and roads, to the extent that we think about them at all, because few among us have ever seen one fail.

As residents of the Twin Cities metropolitan area mourn their casualties, there may be little tangible that those of us elsewhere can do to assist. If that is so, we at least can halt our own routines to acknowledge a troubling paradox: People who've given so much to so many now will bolster one another in their own hour of need. So it is when Minnesota weeps.