10.2 Quadrillion

10.2 Quadrillion is the current estimated annual inflation rate in Zimbabwe. (Price doubling every 7 days 20 hours)

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #13

#13 Finding the lowest gas price.

Normally on trips, I advocate not worrying about the price of gas, much. Most times gas prices are within 10 cents a gallon or so. It's not worth $2.00 a tank to hunt down the lowest price.

But today I was able to get gas for the lowest price in the area. $2.119 a gallon. Here are a few websites to help you find the lowest gas prices.

• DaytonGasPrices.com Internet user report the price of gas per staton. Also has great historical graphs and maps. GasBuddy.com is their national web site
• GasPriceWatch.com is also user reported prices. This site let you know the highest and lowest prices in the country.
• Speedway.com has a section that lets you know the street prices at Speedway stations. The site also gives directions and will plot the speedway stations on your route with their price.

JD's Voter Guide

The following is my personal recommendation for how to vote for all offices and issues on the ballot in Xenia, OH. Feel free to leave your opinion, perhaps you can educate me and I'll change my mind. I did my best to include the web sites of each candidate, but I was unable in every case to find their site. I did not include the races where a person was running unopposed.

President (Very Important)

• JD's Pick -> Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party) or Bob Bar (Libertarian Party)
• Richard Duncan
  
• John McCain (Republican Party)
  
• Cynthia McKinney (Green Party)
  
• Brian Moore
• Ralph Nader
• Barack Obama (Democratic Party)
  
• Write In_________

• I'm advocating voting for anyone other than McCain or Obama. Both continue to play Santa Clause trying to buy votes for promises they cannot keep. Both voted for the bailout and both are for an interventionist foreign policy. Both will sink our county into debt and allow the Fed to create money out of thin air. I feel we need to take a stand and vote no to more of the same. Voting for the lesser of two evils in still evil.
  

Attorney General (Very Important)

• Richard Cordray (D)
• Mike Crites (R)
• JD's Pick -> Robert M. Owens
  

• Robert Ownes in endorsed by the Constitution and Libertarian Parties. I think this position should not be held by a partisan person. Robert Owens would protect our civil liberties and our economic freedom.
  

Ohio Secretary State Information on the State Ballot issues.
State Issue #1 (yawn) To provide for earlier filing deadlines for statewide ballot issues

• JD's Pick - Yes
• Earlier deadlines make it harder for dumb laws to be voted on? If anyone has another reason to vote yes or no let me know. I'm open to changing my mind on this issue.
  

State Issue #2 (Important) To authorize the state to issue bonds to continue the clean Ohio program for environmental revitalization and conservation

• JD's Pick - No

• Since this is not an emergency, I'll vote no to more debt.
  

State Issue #3 (Why are we voting on this) To amend the constitution to protect private property rights in ground water lakes and other watercourses.

• JD's Pick - Yes

• I'll always vote yes to protect private property rights.
  

State Issue #4 Withdrawn by the petitioners' committee

State Issue #5 (Very Important) Referendum on legislation make changes to check cashing lending sometimes known as "Payday lending," Fees interest rates and practices.

• JD's Pick - NO
  

• The government should never set interest rates, or keep a database of who borrows what.
  

State Issue #6 (Very Important) To amend the constitution by initiative petition for a casino near Wilmington in southwest Ohio and distribute to all Ohio Counties a tax on the Casino

• JD's Pick - NO

• Ohio constitution should not dictate a monopoly for a casino. This amendment also dictates the location. The amendment would preempt local zoning laws. May also increase crime.
  

Representative to Congress 7th District (Important).

• JD's Pick -> Steve Austria (R)
  
• Sharen Swartz (D)

• I hate to say this but I'm voting for Austria because he is a republican. We need as many republicans in office to fight with the Democrats. This is a vote for gridlock. He is Endorsed by National Rifle Association (NRA) - "A" rating And Ohio Right to Life

State Senate 10th District

• Roger Tackett (D)
  
• JD's Pick -> Chris Widener (R)

• Chris is Endorsed by Buckeye Firearms Association.He appears to be a great tax cutter.
  

2nd District Court of Appeals (Not sure how important)

• Jeffrey E. Froelich
• JD's Pick -> George B. Reynolds

• I liked his speech at Cedarville more than the other guy's.
  

Commissioner (Somewhat important)

• JD's Pick -> Eddie K. Baumann (D)
  
• Rick Perales (R)

• Eddie Baumann is a professor at Cedarville University. I read his website and I like his ideas for the commissioner position. I think the local government needs new people and new ideas.
  

Commissioner (Somewhat important)

• JD's Pick -> Marilyn J. Reid (R)
  
• Jerry Sutton (D)

• I like the idea of having a fiscal conservative at the commissioner position. I also think have a Democratic and a Republican commissioner is a good balance of power. Her Cedarville speech.
  

Recorder (Needed Position)

• Eric C Sears (R)
  
• Mary Taylor (D)

• Why do we vote on this position? Maybe we should vote on custodians? I not no clue who is better or worse. Just make sure the properties or recorded on time. Anyone got an opinion on this?
  

Treasurer (Important)

• Corinna Grooms (D)
  
• JD's Pick-> James W. Schmidt (R)

• James is the current treasurer, as far as I can tell he is doing a fine job.
  

State Board of Education 10th District (Important)

• Jane Sonenshein
• JD's Pick -> Jeffrey A. Hardin
• John McHenry

• Jeffrey is a fiscal conversation who thinks school should be controlled locally. He had good things to say about private and home schools. He also did not seam excited about no child left behind.
  

Xenia Issues

(Very Important)
#20 Xenia Community City School District Income Tax- Bond Issue
4.2 Mills
$132 per year on a 100K house
1/2 % Income Tax Increase
$194 per year on the average family income of 43K

JD's Pick -> NO

• This is a hard one. Clearly Xenia schools need physical help. If this passes we get about half of the money *free* from the state of Ohio. However, I don't like the location of the new school. I think we should negotiate with the state for a *cheaper* school that we can afford. This is a large tax increase during hard economic times. We need to be careful that the Xenia tax rates do not force people to move out. We don't want to build a school that is half empty.
  

(Not sure how important)
Greene County Children Services Board Replacement/Increase- Operating
1.5 mills
$48 per year on a 100K house

JD's Pick -> No

• I don't know how important this service is. If in doubt I'll vote no on a tax increase. If it is important, I'm sure we will get a chance to vote on this tax again.
  

(I do not really care)
Greene County Greene Memorial Hospital Renewal- Operating
0.5 mills
$16 per year on a 100K house

JD's Pick -> No

• I think hospitals should not be funded by the government. This is only $16 a year so not a big deal if it passes.
  

Greene County Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Board Renewal- Operating
3.5 mills
$111 per year on a 100K house

JD's Pick -> NO

• Again this is not a something that should not be funded by the government.
  

Greene County Mental Health and Recovery Board Replacement/Increase- Operating
2 mills
$63 per year on a 100K house

JD's Pick -> NO

• Mental Health needs two taxes?

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #12

#12 Zenni Optical
Lily ended up finding and breaking my old glasses from many years ago. So I was in need of new glasses. A friend recommended that I check out zennioptical.com. They have glasses that you can order online starting at $8.00. All you have to do is enter your prescription information. I only use my glasses when I don't feel like wearing my contacts. I didn't care all that much how they look. I was able to find glasses for $8 that looked fairly close to what I had before. I did add Anti-Reflection Coating for $4.95 and shipping was $4.95 per oder. Danielle also got glasses for reading and driving at night. She got nicer glasses for a total of $28.90 Making the grand total for two complete prescription eyes glasses: $46.80. It took two weeks to receive the glasses in the mail.


Total Savings: $38.31 (At Eye Mart glasses are 2 for $85.12 with tax)
Extra Hassle: Knowing how to read my prescription. Zenni Optical was less than helpful helping me, but Eye Mart where I got my eye exam was very helpful.
Catch: Waiting 2 weeks for glasses verses one hour and not being able to try them on.

BJ Lawson

I want a guy like this to run for Congress in my district.

50,000 for the 3rd time.

Zimbabwe is out with a New-New-New $50,000 banknote. There are 14 hidden Zero's behind the 4 that are visible. Inflation is running at two 5.77 188 Trillion 10.2 Quadrillion percent per year. (Price doubling about every 9 days) I'm guessing that the 100K note will come out in about a week and a half.

New Links

• LJ's Territory Jud is an excellent writer. He is also our Awana Commander
• The View from my perch Danielle's cousin. She is spending a year in Côte d'Ivoire
• EBCX Awana Blog The official blog for Awana at Emmanuel Baptist Xenia
  

How much is that new property tax going to cost me?

Here is Xenia, Oh there are 5 tax renewals or increases on the November ballot. Each are measured in mills. So what is a mill? A mill is one thousandth of assessed value of your property. Here in Ohio the assessed value is 35% of your appraised value. There is also a 10% rollback and other mysterious "any [other] reimbursements". If you live in Greene County Ohio, you can look this up here. Most other counties in Ohio have similar sites. You can find then using Google by searching [Your County's Name] County GIS.

Here are the issues in Xenia:
#20 Xenia Community City School District Income Tax- Bond Issue
4.2 Mills
$132 per year on a 100K house
1/2 % Income Tax Increase
$194 per year on the average family income of 43K

Greene County Children Services Board Replacement/Increase- Operating
1.5 mills
$48 per year on a 100K house

Greene County Greene Memorial Hospital Renewal- Operating
0.5 mills
$16 per year on a 100K house

Greene County Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Board Renewal- Operating
3.5 mills
$111 per year on a 100K house

Greene County Mental Health and Recovery Board Replacement/Increase- Operating
2 mills
$63 per year on a 100K house

I'm voting no all the tax issues. I'll lay out my reasons in a another post.

Here is a calculator I came up with so you can figure out what a tax issue would cost.

Ohio Millage Property Tax Calculator.

Appraised Value of your House:

Mill Rate:

Yearly Tax Increase:

This is only an estimate and includes the 10% rollback, but not the mysterious other deductions. If you live in your property you may be eligible for a 2.5% decrease. Also if you are 65 or older you maybe eligible for a Homestead deduction.

Lily Master of the Playground

Here is a break from all the political posts. A new video of Lily mastering the playground.

Who is the Liberal Now?

Are you upside down on your home mortgage? Don't worry John McCain and the government will take care of you. Here is what McCain said last night in the debate:

You know that home values of retirees continues to decline and people are no longer able to afford their mortgage payments. As president of the United States, Alan, I would order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes -- at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those -- be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.

Is it expensive? Yes. But we all know, my friends, until we stabilize home values in America, we're never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy. And we've got to give some trust and confidence back to America.

This is non-sense and completely crazy. Maybe I should fall behind on my mortgage so the government will take care of me. Never mind the fact that the Fed will have the print the money out of thin air to pay for this. Hold on the your hats, we are going to be in for a wild economic ride as long as the government keeps interfering. Between this proposal and Bomb Bomb, Bomb Iran, there is no way I can vote for McCain. (or Obama.) I honestly, do not know which will do more harm to our county. I encourage you to vote 3rd party. I'll have more on this in a later post.

Living Life Richly on the Cheap #11

#11 Free GPS.

Danielle found a great offer from Discover Credit Card. Sign up for a Discover Miles Card, make one purchase and they will send you a free Garmin Nuvi 200 GPS. I signed up for the card online and made one purchase to buy gas. About 6 weeks after signing up for the card, I received my free GPS as advertised shipped from Amazon.com. The GPS works great. Even if I had to pay the $160 or so dollars for it, it would be worth it. It not only gives you directions, it also knows where all the good places to eat are. The offer is still valid here.

I must warn you, I have no clue what it does to your credit rating, so if you are going to buy a house or something on credit, I wold skip this offer. Also, credit cards can easily turn into monsters, so if you have trouble paying your bills on time, or are carrying a balance, or spend to much with a credit card, I would also pass on this offer as well. I'll save my theory on credit cards for another post.

Those of you interested in the features of the GPS feel free to contact me.

I see an Empire Falling...

The National Debt Clock has run out of digits. The most fascinating part of the whole clip to me was when a New Yorker said near the end "I see an Empire falling".

Maybe we should just knock off ten zeros. They tried that in Zimbabwe.

1/2 Trillion percent inflation

$20,000 is the newest note from Zimbabwe. This is after knocking off 10 Zero's two months ago. They are burning through 2 zero's a month. Maybe by the new year they will knock 10 more off.

The Cato institute has estimated the annual inflation rate of the Zimbabwe dollar at 1/2 of trillion percent. This is price doubling every 11 days. Here is an example of what it is to live in Zimbabwe economy.

Pictures.

Here are a few pictures of our adventures in the past few weeks.

Early Fall 2008

Full House

This last weekend Danielle's cousin, Nate married Ivy in Greenville, OH. We set a new record for people sleeping over in our house: 19. Now, that is a lot of in-laws! We did have fun and I would do it again. I'm having trouble connecting my camera to my computer and the hour is getting late. I'll post pictures later.