KEY WEST KILLING THE GOOSE THAT LAYS THE GOLDEN EGGS

I was out on the town again last night. Dinner with Fran and Tom Dixon at one of Key West’s finest restaurants. I am intentionally not naming the restaurant.

The food and service outstanding! The best.

Prices likewise outstanding. Off the wall! Expensive beyond belief! Most entries $60.

I should have known. If hotel rooms, homes to purchase, and rental apartments are expensive, why not dining out food?

Everyone likes to make money. Bothers me the level charged is gluttonous. Key West is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

The restaurant had a good crowd. Several families with little children. How they could afford the bill, I cannot understand.

I read in one of the travel magazines a couple of weeks ago that Key West was the most expensive place to vacation in the U.S. What an achievement! Wondered then and wonder now whether such a distinction is a good one.

Many first timers may not visit Key West again. An equally fine vacation can be found in other places in Florida and the United States. Second homes equally as nice, if not better in many instances, available for purchase other than Key West. Rentals a joke. Working staff pay most of their salaries for rent. The result not uncommon to find 3-4 people sharing a 2 bedroom apartment.

Hotels and restaurants have staffing problems. Many left because of the pandemic. Many not returning because of the astronomical cost to live here.

When you call for a restaurant reservation and are told tables only available too early or too late, it is not because the restaurants are doing a bang up business. They do not have the staff to operate their businesses! Tables must intentionally be left empty.

I give it 2-3 years at the most. The gluttony will come to an end. The number of people coming will decrease dramatically. It is nature’s way of balancing things out.

Surfside a disaster. Only 9 persons found thus far. Each dead. One hundred fifty two still under the wreckage. No one knows if any are alive.

A national tragedy.

Beginning in 2018, there were two engineering reports. The first reported “major structural damage.” It was followed one month later by a report from another engineering group. This one directly to the condo board. Reported the building had serious problems.

In between somewhere, a third entity reported the building was “in very good shape.”

Heads are going to roll! Misfeasance, malfeasance, whatever. Accountability required. Absolutely no question in view of the reports involved.

Do not be surprised if along the way, investigation reveals “money may have changed hands” It has been reported the cost of repair prior to the building’s fall was in the area of $9 million.

College taught me how to think. To question, to challenge. Understandable. The purpose of a college education is for students to learn “how to think.” Note not “what” to think. But, “how.”

Leonard Petts on 6/25 in the Miami Herald wrote an excellent Opinion piece on the subject. His motivation as well as mine in writing this piece is how to think will not continue if Republicans like Florida’s Governor DeSantis have their way.

Last week, DeSantis signed a bill requiring the State’s public colleges and universities to survey students and faculty concerning “indoctrinating students.” DeSantis hinted those failing to show “intellectual diversity” would face budget cuts.

Petts suggests “today’s Republicans are terrified of educated, curious, open minds. You know, people who can think.”

DeSantis uses simple understanding terms. He makes people think the State will control what college kids learn. Not the faculties or the students themselves. Somewhat like Hitler did in the late 1930s.

DeSantis’ questionably activity came 2 weeks after he pushed to ban teaching of the “critical race theory.” The academic framework which “originated” with legal scholars over 40 years ago.

The purpose of what DeSantis and his cohorts are trying to do “is not further intellectual diversity, but to prevent it.”

Petts believes Conservatives find education dangerous.

Pew Research Center in a recent study found “the better educated tend to be liberals.” Their conclusion based on the premise that once a person learns to think, the less susceptible “thin reasoning and easy answers.”

Petts added “perpetual resentment” is on daily display. He wrote, “I mean is anyone overawed by the profundity of Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene? How about Louie Gohmert? Or, even Ron DeSantis?”

An interesting line from Pett’s writing: Conservatives work “to make the world safe for ignorance.”

It was announced yesterday that the Trump corporation/business was going to be arrested this week.

Sounds strange, I know. However this is how it works.

The corporation is first arrested. Some time following, the officers. The officers can be arrested at the same time as the corporation. However, it appears prosecutors are only going to arrest the corporation first.

The Trump corporation in this instance is Trump, his children, son in law, other titled officers, and principals.

My gut feeling is the government needs more Michael Cohens. Which means the government may not have sufficient wrongdoers willing to “blow” some other “person or persons” in.

It comes as the officers sweat more, feel the noose tightening. Then it is a race to see who will talk first. Cooperation leads to no sentence or a shorter one.

Enjoy your day!

 

6 comments on “KEY WEST KILLING THE GOOSE THAT LAYS THE GOLDEN EGGS

  1. Back in the latter 90’s, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting some local complaining about all those snowbirds buying up property in the keys, especially Key West, driving up property values and making it impossible to for them to afford to live there anymore. You know Lou, people like you!

    Expensive restaurants and hotels? Won’t make a difference either. Try and get a table any weekend night in any decent city in Paris, London, New York, Chicago, Miami or Detroit.

  2. We had dinner at Hot Tin, just before the Pandemic. We’d made the reservations two months earlier, specifically asking for a table over looking Mallory Square. When we got there (early) we were given a table in the back with a decidedly poor view, even though no other people were there quite yet. We complained and were basically told “too bad” and then ignored most of the rest of the time we were there. At those prices and that attitude, we won’t go back.

      • That used to be part of the charm of Key West. Nowadays, it’s a different crowd living there and visitors too. It used to be charming and whimsical, full of free spirits. Mow it is a lot more a “get off my lawn” crowd.

  3. Key West– a cool place, but not the only cool place.
    No one can take advantage of you without your permission- Ann Landers

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