Paul, your new employer is lucky to have you, just as TPM has been lucky to have you. I really enjoyed your writing style and believe you are an excellent journalist. Best wishes.

Posted at May 17, 2008 12:01 PM in response to Thank you, Paul Kiel, and good luck!

It's about time one of the candidates promised to do something useful!

Posted at March 5, 2008 5:57 PM in response to Obama and Clinton Supporters Must Drop Out of the Race

I can't knit. How dare you be so biased against me, cscs? What about those of us out there making kiddie crafts with our safety scissors??? What about the quilters, the bakers, the dreamers of dreams? Give me an Etsy shop or give me death!

Posted at March 5, 2008 3:14 PM in response to Obama and Clinton Supporters Must Drop Out of the Race

Anyone interested in more information about doulas can find it at www.dona.org.

While I'm at it, anyone looking for more information about midwives and or birth centers can visit www.birthcenters.org, www.midwife.org or www.midwifeinfo.com.

Non potty trained picketers would have to be a whole new form of non-violent protesting! Maybe my potty training resistant three year old would like to volunteer.

Posted at August 20, 2007 3:17 PM in response to Our Bizarro-Completely Normal Birth Experience

Nathan,

Congratulations to you and your wife! I wish for you a happy, healthy and well rested baby.

I delivered my first child with a midwife in a hospital and am currently planning to deliver my second with the same midwife in a free standing birth center (very close to the hospital in the event of complications). Assuming all goes to plan (because babies are super cooperative that way), we'll be able to go home anywhere from 4-12 hours after he or she is born, depending on how we feel and when we're ready to go.

The good news is that in our area (suburban Philadelphia), there are several birth centers, both free standing and hospital affiliated. My care and delivery will be covered by my health insurance (maybe they've realized how much cheaper it is!).

I didn't go into my first pregnancy thinking that I'd do it drug free (I wanted to see how things went and make the decision to use pain medication if I needed it), but I'm fairly committed to it this round. Not that I'm opposed to the pain meds, but it definitely was good to be able to walk around, etc. etc. I too was able to hold my baby immediately (other than the weighing and measuring) and that was just amazing.

Congratulations again.

Oh, and make sure to always ask your wife if she wants a drink when she's nursing. I speak from the experience of one who ALWAYS forgot to get a drink before sitting down with the baby for an extended period of time!

Posted at August 19, 2007 7:09 PM in response to Our Bizarro-Completely Normal Birth Experience

Don't get me wrong, pushing is not a whole lot of laughs, but a c-section is major abdominal surgery. Once the pushing is over, the worst of it is over in natural childbirth, but I think with a c-section, it's just starting!

Posted at August 19, 2007 6:48 PM in response to Our Bizarro-Completely Normal Birth Experience

While it is certainly true that teenage and obese mothers face increased risks for certain conditions, it is still the case that most of these women can have healthy and normal childbirth experiences. Additionally, midwives can help to mitigate these risks with the additional time that they spend with patients.

My mother worked for a midwife (my mother is a nurse) for a long time at a free standing birth center where the midwives also had hospital privileges. They were the only private practice providers (that is, other than the hospital clinic) that accepted medical assistance patients.

That meant that women on medical assistance could choose to obtain their care either at the clinic (where all patients turn up in the morning and wait their turn, often for several hours, and where they are unlikely to see the same practitioner repeatedly) or they could come to the birth center, see the same staff and midwives and be treated like more than a number. Not surprisingly, many women chose the birth center.

This meant that the midwives essentially split their practice between the medical assistance patients (who almost exclusively deliver in hospital) and the patients who sought out care from a midwife and likely desired a birth center birth, even if they ended up at the hospital for one reason or another (they also deliver a lot of Mennonite babies, but that's another story altogether).

For the medical assistance patients, the midwives definitely focus their care on improving nutrition, both pre and post natal. At the clinic, they simply don't have the time to spend an hour with each patient, so there isn't as much emphasis on any one thing or follow up one what was discussed at a previous appointment.

C-sections definitely save lives, when they are needed. However, even in higher risk mothers, c-section rates are too high and there are many, many reasons for this (doctors legitimately concerned about malpractice cases, for one).

I think it is very easy to blame teenage pregnancy and obese mothers for the increased rate of high risk pregnancy, but that just doesn't tell the whole story. So many women now are told they are high risk, when that is not medically the case, whether it is because they suffered a previous miscarriage (I am absolutely not referring to women with fertility issues here), because they are over 35 ("advanced maternal age" brings loads of additional testing and additional expense), because they are at increased risk for complications due to being young or obese (until a complication occurs, they shouldn't be treated as high risk), etc.

Access to quality health care would benefit everyone, especially if coupled with patient education as a matter of course.

Posted at August 19, 2007 6:44 PM in response to Our Bizarro-Completely Normal Birth Experience

Sure, it's possible that people just buy something, "feel like they did some marginal good" and move on, but if they are going to buy something anyway, why not give them the option of buying something that helps someone else.

I happened to be at the mall on Saturday with my daughter (it was hot and there's an indoor playground). We stopped in the Gap Kids store and I very nearly bought a (RED) t-shirt for her. It was cute and she would probably wear it all the time. She saved me $20 by needing to use the bathroom, but we may get it or something like it another time.

I donate money to various organizations throughout the year, but things like the Project (RED) products (I don't know why it's written like that) are available, I figure there's no reason not to buy them if I'm buying stuff anyway.

It is all very well and good to want people to deepen their concern, but most people just aren't that committed to anything, so pragmatically, if someone chooses to buy a product that is going to donate money to a good cause, then maybe that's found money for said good cause, because the person wouldn't have donated it otherwise.

Posted at July 16, 2007 1:47 PM in response to Young, Idealistic, and Oh So Corporate

I work for a property management company and we do tell our people that being aggressive about collections is a good thing for everyone involved. (When I say aggressive, I mean that we don't wait to pursue late rents, not that we call people over and over or threaten them or anything like that.)

The reason that it is good for our residents is that if we chase them for their late rent payment right away, hopefully they pay, avoiding eviction most importantly, but also avoiding additional court costs, ongoing late charges, etc.

The reason it is good for our business is that we are in the business of collecting rent on occupied units, not in evicting people and creating vacancy for ourselves. Although late fees do create additional revenues, there are significant costs related to collecting past due balances, so we'd much rather just have our people pay on time.

If people come to us with special circumstances, we try to be accommodating (for example, someone who needs to pay by the 15th rather than the 10th due to their pay schedule or someone who has an unexpected expense like a medical bill or car repair and needs to pay their rent in installments for a month or two), but the key is communication. If the resident contacts us, we can help. If the rent is late, and we contact them, we can help. If there's no communication, they incur late charges, court costs, etc., and may ultimately end up being evicted. That, as I said above, isn't good for anyone.

As I tell my people, having a lot of excitement in your life is overrated.

I am not in any way saying that all aggressive debt collection is good, but it isn't all bad either.

Posted at July 22, 2006 9:44 AM in response to Thank You, Debt Collectors!

I happen to work for a commercial real estate company and I also happen to live near one of the largest malls in the country (the Court and Plaza at King of Prussia).

For the record, Kravco, which owns the mall, is a local company with offices in King of Prussia (although, by default, they are not local to their other properties). Additionally, they pay enough in property taxes that the municipality where the mall is located has no local income tax at all. In contrast, most other municipalities in southeastern PA have local income taxes in the 1-2% range, while Philadelphia's local income tax hovers around 5%.

While many malls are owned by REITs, that is not necessarily a bad thing. REIT ownership is not limited to malls. They own office buildings, apartment buildings, manufactured home communities, strip shopping centers, etc. No matter what the use or type of ownership, they still pay property taxes for the value of the real estate and the building (that is, on the fair market appraised value of the site and the buildings), at least in PA. Speaking from experience, property taxes are probably one of their biggest annual expenses. (As rental income is not earned income, it generally does not generate income taxes.)

Likewise, whether a landlord is local or absentee, there are routine maintenance and improvement costs that get spent either way. I think you are imagining much higher profit margins than are the norm in commercial real estate. Vacancy loss alone is enough to erode profit margins, let alone unexpected problems (a sinkhole in a parking lot caused by a water main break, for example) that can erase profits for months in the blink of an eye.

Perhaps the tax structure is significantly different where you live. From my experience, I would guess that far more of the individual stores are taking their profits (which are more immediately recognized than real estate investment profits) out of the area, since they are mainly national chain stores.

All that said, I definitely agree that we would all be better off if we didn't go into debt every December.

Posted at April 23, 2006 3:26 PM in response to Tax Time