Don’t forget about the middle class
In response to Marian Head’s letter about Coco Palms: Marian, I would love to join you as a resident of the Coco Palms assisted living facility! I visualize a pedestrian bridge over the highway allowing us beach access and lunch at the mysterious round restaurant, which I am told was a part of Coco Palms.
The population that I find needs affordability in retirement is those between the two financial extremes. Kauai has affordable retirement communities for low income and high income, but the rest of us don’t qualify for either.
So let’s build a retirement community for middle-income folks, surrounded by a Kauai cultural center with roots in the sacred history of Coco Palms.
Ruta Jordans, Kapaa
Wisdom can come from trees
I have recently written “Look to the Trees” and thought perhaps you might be able to use it to bring attention to Arbor Day later this month.
Look to the trees,
for long have they dwelt upon the Earth,
and they shall teach you
of the comings and goings
and the patterns of Life.
They know intimately
the Powers that Be here,
the Earth and the Air,
the Water and the Sun,
and how to deal with each of them.
The trees understand the turning of the day,
and the turning of the seasons.
They know how to live peacefully
with a variety of neighbors,
and how to give shelter to those small and delicate.
Trees know patience,
and how to be at peace.
Look to the trees,
if you would find beauty and comfort,
and wisdom and wonder.
In all of these things,
they are truly masters,
and we can surely learn from them.
Kapua Janai, Waimea
Ruta…move over, I’d like to join you there too!
Great idea.
That is lovely. Thank you, Kapua.
“So let’s build a retirement community for middle-income folks, surrounded by a Kauai cultural center with roots in the sacred history of Coco Palms”
Ruta…just who is the “us” in let’s? Are you going to actually invest? Or, as I suspect you would lobby for the taxpayers to subsidize “us”?
For people like you using “us”, “we” etc. usually means “let someone else pay.”
RG DeSoto
Isn’t ‘us’ usually inclusive? What’s the problem with that?
You’ve completely missed the point…read the post again and Jake’s reply below–he gets it.
RG DeSoto
It sounds to me as though you both make a lot of assumptions while reading into that letter. There should be nothing wrong with suggesting civil projects – nowhere did I read it has to be 100% publicly financed. The public sector portion might only be recognizing a need and approving land use for that purpose.
I guess you’ll never get it…..you’re still missing the key point: PEOPLE WHO USE PHRASES SUCH AS “WE SHOULD, ETC.”….ALWAYS MEAN LET SOMEONE ELSE PAY FOR SOMETHING I WANT.
RG DeSoto
RG- You sure like putting words in other people’s mouths. When I say ‘we’ I mean we. And I certainly ‘get’ what you’re saying. I disagree. And that is based on my personal actions. Given your tendency for CAPS and beating horses, may I recommend a nice beach somewhere to take a quiet stroll? it’s usually good for calming people.
She makes it plainly obvious that there needs to be “affordability in retirement” for “us”, as in between the two extremes (rich and poor)……so yes, she wants a handout…..your tax dollars that could go for the betterment of all on this island, but instead should go to supplement her affordable retirement, which she had a LIFETIME…….a LIFETIME……. to plan, save, and sacrifice. Always easier to be 65, and ask for handouts, then to make sacrifices and save, starting in your early 20’s….over some 45-50 years! SMH.
Aloha Kakou,
Where have the teachers gone from decades and a few generations ago. Parents are teachers.
It is said that time is money…but really it is the other way around.
Money can be interpreted as time spent…work comes in hours days weeks months years and if you worked hard from your youthful time you would have earned money…that which you could have banked to save the time you worked.
Accumulating Money is Saving Your Time.
Or did you not see this, or did you not see or understand that at some point in time you would need to rely on your earlier time as a bank account to protect yourself later in life. Think housing.
At each particular moment in time we all have the same thing…time…!
What did or do you do with yours? Did you while your time away. Lounge endlessly at the beach…too much sports, chat, eating, phone, computer, shopping for no real value, wasting spending your own time lost forever…? You never get an old minute back…but you do get that saved dollar.
Teachers today, a teacher is a physician in many uses of the word, but the doctor physicians don’t teach anymore they only prescribe drugs, school teachers waste precious time on worthless classes, wasting precious mind learning time of keiki, minds that will later need to be used for their lives and their Health.
From early on children should be taught the value of work that will support and protect them when they are elderly, not lazily growing year after year with no thought to self preservation but only to community housing and HUD…and MEN ON HUD…WHAT A JOKE…! That means no education…but that is the No Teacher problem, the parent or classroom.
Parents and children should be taught to Hui not Hud their future by saving for that down payment on land or housing one day. Pay off one house and leverage another, endlessly by Hui effort, for their mutual needs.
But who is teaching that…? Even sports teams, youth in classrooms with shared interests can hui for aina, make it their own community housing. Or use it for rental income. Pay it off get another till everybody has one,
A dollar doubled 20 times equals a million $Dollars. Start now today. The banks will love you.
No waste time and money on alcohol, tobacco, drugs, sodas, and candy, and junk food, trinkets, unnecessary doctor visits, and toys and more gadgets..think of that inevitable roof over your head…eventually everyone needs one.
All the junk anything you buy you are wasting your time and your future. Where’s the teachers?
As you age you are going to depend on your time already spent or saved…and your Health…but the medical system prefers to keep actual Health a secret so you are dependent on their drug dispensers and pharmacies which is about Disease not Health. Health needs to be done every day, but how you going to know Health if no one teaches you. When you lose your Health you get sick or Diseased and you go to the Disease Doctor and get drugs which has nothing to do with actual Health but is all about Disease. Since physicians are supposed to be teachers they are failing us…we deserve better. Physicians need to be in the classroom, educating people to stay well, not in a hospital cubicle in secret privacy…and for what…the little paper with the secret drug words…?
Besides, without a hale how you going get out of the rain, make kau kau and make keiki.
When you pass your Alina to your children one day…you make your time last forever…if you taught your keiki the value of time and they to you and your parents next generation. Love your parents and love your children save your time forever in aina.
Save now, later comes by itself.
Mahalo,
Charles
Aloha Charles
While I basically agree with you, it’s unfair that you’re characterizing physicians and teachers so poorly. The ones I know here on Kauai DO teach the importance of hard work and DO teach kids responsibility and respect. Furthermore the physicians I know certainly don’t work for or with any drug companies- they work very long hard hours healing the people who live here. The fact that people live 20 years longer on average than 75 years ago is completely due to improved healthcare- so put down the conspiracy theory books- doctors don’t wanna keep people sick to make money. That’s not even how they get paid: they get paid by the hospital based on how well they treat the patient and the outcome. So maybe kids spend too much time on their phones but it’s wrong to place blame on our hardworking teachers and doctors.
I’m with you part of the way. I like the idea of a retirement home and cultural center but “let’s” do it without using any tax dollars. Let the capitalistic system sort out what type of retirement facility works there. If it a high-end one, so be it. Our tax dollars need to used on road repairs, infrastructure upgrades and other uses that benefit the vast majority of residents, not just a select few.
James…I’m with you. Problem is the market (private sector) cannot supply affordable housing when the government stacks one obstacle after another against them. Check out Houston, TX. There are no zoning or other restrictive land-use laws. Consequently housing is really affordable.
Thomas Sowell, a noted Stanford economist, in his great book “Discrimination and Disparities” exposes this in a devastating attack on the obstructionists.
Government pretends to care about the poor and purports to “help” them…the truth is that state interference makes things worse instead.
RG DeSoto
Look to Houston?
No zoning or restrictive use, so build on a swamp or flood plain. Then enjoy your Homestead until the rains come and flood your neighborhood.
When the waters recede, move all your furniture and belongings to the curb.
And wait for Congress to send you a check to restore your life.
I wish we could trust corporations and businesses to do the right thing so regulations would not be required, but the reality is we can’t. Greed always wins. Without regulations, companies would dump toxic waste into the ocean, rivers or the ground without a care in the world. Insurance companies would refuse to pay claims. Corporations would collude to raise prices. Etc. Houston, which you mention, is a perfect example of why regulations are necessary. Because there were no zoning or land use restrictions, large builders built huge subdivisions in flood plains, without telling prospective buyers. A flood came and folks lost everything. The builders contend they did nothing wrong because the city allowed them to build there since there were no regulations governing building residences in a known flood plain. So, unfortunately, we need some reasonable regulations to curb corporate greed.
Ginger…take government out of the equation and people would learn to take responsibility for their own actions. All your drivel aside, housing is simply magnitudes cheaper in Houston because of the absence of fascist land use laws. Laws that strip individuals of their life, liberty and property.
James…nonsense. The old played “corporate greed & pollution” thing just doesn’t get it. Again take government out of the equation and there isn’t a corporation, business or individual that can force you to spend your hard-earned income with them. Only government reserves the power to force you to spend in ways you would rather not.
RG DeSoto
Oh, yeah, Jake again, with, “Anyone who doesn’t have money like I do is (or was) lazy for a lifetime.”
That’s right, Jake, nobody got stuck working hard jobs for a lifetime while real estate developers and speculators continually drove prices up out of pace with their wages, living and retirement means.
Just go on believing that ordinary workers are lazy and that retirees don’t have enough because they didn’t try, or that they were foolish, not because land prices, health care and insurance prices, fuel prices, taxes and a host of other costs inflated around them far beyond anything they could match.
Working stiff just like everyone else. My apologies if being held accountable for your actions and inactions hurts your feelings and emotions. “Hard Jobs”? Really? There are easy jobs?
This is going to sting…it is called Supply-and-Demand. It’s not developers or speculators. This place is no different then any other place on the planet where people “want” to live, like London, New York, San Francisco, etc. This is not some self imposed, blessed, holy land, that you must remain on. You move where things are less expensive if you cannot afford to live here.
Social Security was created because ordinary workers were lazy, and had no income during their nonworking years. It was supposed to be one pillar, of many, to support your retirement/non-working years. Instead, seniors use SS as their ONLY source of income during their nonworking years, and then complain they cannot afford “assisted living” facilities. Yes, I have a problem subsidizing “affordable assisted living” for people that could live elsewhere for much cheaper, or failed to plan 45 years for their non-working years. Gee, instead of using tax dollars to fund affordable housing, the county could use the money for EVERYONE via better roads, parks, bathrooms, better schools. It’s really not that hard.
Jake, where did you get your degree in Economics? I really want to make sure I raise awareness to all other citizens to avoid that school as much as possible. It’s my civic duty.
Hey Soto- Are you really that naive? You really seem like an old grouch in this comment section. Like a guy who has his and wants to enjoy the benefits of a society with no longer contributing to it at all.