All her other income went to zero for 4 months, and $5000 is only a little more than $1200 a month, far, far less than she was making.  New Jersey where we live has the highest property taxes in the country, and hers were about $800 a month on a small 3 bedroom house, which is what ours are too.  So yes, in the big governmnent state of NJ $5000 is chcken feed.  She can’t leave because her ex-lives here and he has rights.  New Jersey is also dead last on the Small Business Survival Index for it’s love of high taxes, and massive regulations.  She’s caught.  And so per your observation, governmet would rather see this young boy essentially stressed and traumatized because he’s homeless, rather then touch a dime of his $100,000.

 That defies common sense. It’s government cruelty due to unintended consequences.

I have my friend Jule sand and her two children living with us.  That makes a total of 10 of us in a 2500sq foot, 4 bedroom home.  It’s been 3 months and she’s trying to save money for a deposit on an apartment.

 The irony is that her son, 11, has close to 100,000 dollars in his bank account, because of an injury lawsuit that was settled when his hand was crushed 3 years ago.  But government regulations say she can’t touch that money.  He gets it when he turns 18.  She is in this situation because she fell behind on her house payments while caring for him for his 4 months of daily physical therapy and multiple surgeries.  She was only compensated $5000 by the court for those 4 months.  

Government over-regulation and interference has made them homeless.  Government defies common sense.

Stacey, I enjoyed visiting your website.  We have our kids earning almost all their own money, and then be responsible for almost all of their "wants" outside of presents and special ocassions.

 I remember that our daughter asked me to buy her something in the store.  I responded by saying, "Don’t you have money?"  She replied: "I don’t want to waste my money on that crap."

I looked at her astounded, "Oh, but you want me to waste my money on that crap?"  And I laughed.  She got the message.

My bigger concern in that most adults don’t understand that money doesn’t magically appear for government to spend. The math is irrational, and originate in the lack of critical thinking and economic skills in the young.   

I temporarily broke my rule for having my hand in all our finances.  My husband wanted to start a business, and the finances freaked me out.  It was way to risky for my sense of security.  It’s been 5 years, and during this time, he and I made an agreement that he would handle the finances to spare me the stress, and that he promised to not jeapordize our family.

I would check in with him regularly to make sure we were on track, and he’d tell me we were making progress, but not necessarily financially.  I’d have nightmares.  It’s only been in the last 6 months that we’ve hit the tipping point and the money is starting to flow, and he’s become busier and more caught up with other aspects of the business so it is the perfect time for me to be re-involving myself.  

It’s no wonder that people get divorced over these things.  It’s been a roller coaster, but I think we are through the worst of things, at least in the short term. 

I was 20 and working for an OB/GYN office.  I had to explain to the infertility couples that they needed to have sex one hour before their appointment time, and I would schedule them for their next appointment accordingly.  I would have to tell the women that they also had to spend at least 10 minutes lying flat with something under their rumps so as to maximize the flow of semen in the right direction.  

I remember thinking to myself, looking into the faces of these older men and women, "I can’t believe I’m saying this."  At the time, I was not married and had never had sex.

I’m wearing my hair short for the first time in many years, and my husband really likes it.  The problem is I think I look subtle and professional which is fine, but with long thick hair, I can look amazing.  I’d like to be able to have long hair on occassion and I don’t think I’m brave enough for a wig.

As for Christie Brinkley all I can say is how magnificent she looks and what a curse it can be for beautiful women who attract all the wrong men for the wrong reasons.   

The Mayo Clinic has come out very strongly AGAINST the bills in Congress. 

  "Although there are some positive provisions in the current House Tri-Committee bill – including insurance for all and payment reform demonstration projects – the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher-quality, more affordable health care for patients. In fact, it will do the opposite.                                                                                  In general, the proposals under discussion are not patient focused or results oriented. Lawmakers have failed to use a fundamental lever – a change in Medicare payment policy – to help drive necessary improvements in American health care. Unless legislators create payment systems that pay for good patient results at reasonable costs, the promise of transformation in American health care will wither. The real losers will be the citizens of the United States."

http://healthpolicyblog.mayoclinic.org/2009/07/16/mayo-clinic’s-reaction-to-house-tri-committee-bill/

Wouldn’t it make sense to let the geniuses who put together the best systems help create better systems for all of us?  But politics doesn’t work that way; instead there are pay-off and bribes and beholdings to unions.  It’s hopeless to involve politicians in creating a healthy functional system.  Politicians are rewarded for creating tenacled bureaucracies by votes from those bureaucracies.   

A government program will never ever work becuase it eliminates market forces that allow people to "swarm" to the best options.  I just read in today’s paper that 17 of Detroit’s 22 high schools are being turned over to a private company.  Government programs fail repeatedly.  Why isn’t Obama holding up Medicare as the model for the change?  Because medicare is bankrupt and failing.

People in government run programs make political decisions not based on efficiency and the needs of the people.

Why do we have such great supermarkets, the best in the world?  Why do we have so many cell phone options?

We have armies of lawyers in washington who are driving up the cost of health care.  Tort reform MUST happen first.

As I’ve written before, I have state health care, because my alumni insurance was "crowded out" by NJ state regulations.  This means that regulators in 48 states allow this insurance, but NJ is so restrictive demanding too much from each insurance company that many aren’t allowed to compete in NJ.  Consequently any of the other insurances are very, very expensive.  So we are on the state health insurance.

I spent my younger years billing insurances for a large OB/GYN office, so I assumed I could navigate this state system.  I was wrong.   Currently, I am contending with a ruptured or torn cervical disk from an injury.  First it was going to take me weeks to get an appointment, but they had a cancellation, then the doctor ordered an MRI because my symptom are so severe and consistent with a disk problem.  The MRI was denied. The doctor appealed and it was denied again by the rationing board called Med Solutions.  They said I had to be under treatment for 8 weeks before I can get a diagnosis.

I was pretty astounded.  Really?  Treatment before a diagnosis?  Earlier on I was so frustrated that I asked a state rep how poor people deal with such a disfunctional system.  She told me:  They have social workers.  So with this latest situation when i complained they told me to talk to my social worker.  I don’t have a social worker, I have a college degree and my choices have been taken away by the state. 

So, now I’m in limbo, on pian pills, can’t get an appointment for "treatment" for several more weeks.  It’s a nightmare.  I’ve never been treated this way by a private company.  When a state monopoly tells you no, it’s NO, and there’s no true appeal.

An economist can best explain how health care works and how it’s DIFFERENT from medical care.  And until we reign in the lawyers, costs will never go down because malpractice insurance is the largest expense for any doctor.

 http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/07/21/medical_care_confusion

We currently have offers to do some TV shows and a documentary.  Mr BellaMia would be the "star."  I told him that this is a pandora’s box and he needs to be very, very careful, because film and youtube are forever.

I like my privacy. 

I love the idea of starting a website to do research for a book!  I’m working on a big project dealing with child supervision - especially of toddlers -and you know that men do it differently than women - or think they do.  That’s why we have all those hilarious "men taking care of small children" movies.  I’d like to get input from both men and women on my research questions.

But I recognize myself in the fact that I have a few very intimate friends including my oldest daughter.  My husband happens to be a very right-brained male, and the youngest brother of sisters, while I am the oldest sister of brothers - which happens to be the most successful match.  So I find that when he’s away I am lonely, and that I do need a much larger circle of friends and acquaintences.  

I’m amazed by my husband large and diverse array of networking contacts: from movie stars to a sociopath to writers, to undercover agents, bounty hunters, a midwife and even a young handsome billionaire (-and that’s quite a story!) 

Most of my friends are people like me - although there are very few people like me, and so it’s now time to branch out and re-engage the world after 23 years of raising little ones - although I did recently do an internship for my masters degree - but I did it at an elementary school and spent most of my time - with children.