In a sad follow up to my November 14, 2008 blog post entitled “Welliver’s to remain open,” I am now reading in the Richmond Palladium-Item that Welliver’s will close June 28.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the restaurant holds fond memories for me due to its epic smorgasbord, where every so often, my family would trek from Richmond to Hagerstown to feast.

According to the most recent article:

Welliver’s Smorgasbord Restaurant, a fixture in downtown Hagerstown, will end operations later this month, its owners confirmed Monday.

Employees were informed Saturday and the phone answering machine tells about the impending closing June 28. A sign announcing the closing also is posted at the entrance.

Owners Janie Welliver and Mary Welliver can’t keep it open without help, said spokeswoman Aimee Foust, who is Janie’s daughter.

“We’re in debt everywhere,” Foust said. “It’s not anything we want to happen.”

That’s unfortunate.

The Economist has a State Watch article on Indiana. (h/t Michael Ausbrook). The article focuses on Indiana’s economic health. I think its praise for Governor Daniels is overstated, but it’s undeniable that we are doing better than Michigan. For his part, Governor Daniels is quoted with a (to me) bizarre metaphor about Indiana and the recent economic troubles.

The recent downturn, he says, “is like being the best-looking girl in school, then they called off the prom. But the music will start again.”

Looks fade and the prom is a brief event which is why I wouldn’t have used this as a metaphor for Indiana’s long term economic prospects. On the other hand, I very much enjoy Indiana economist, Morton Marcus’s metaphor:

Less powerful unions and ample foreign investment make the state what Morton Marcus, a prominent local economist, calls “the middle finger of the South thrust into the North.”

The article suggests that Indiana has one foot in the past and one tentative, wobbly toe in the future. We have been very dependent on manufacturing and this latest round of GM pull backs is going to take its toll. But, not all is lost. We have a promising position in the life sciences with Lilly and medical device manufacturers like Zimmer. And, Indianapolis is having its troubles, but it’s in much better shape than Detroit (not exactly high praise).

Definitely worth reading the article.

Strange Maps has an interesting map, showing the migration of the the mean center of the the United States’ population over the years. From 1880 or 1890 through 1940 that center was in southern Indiana. Since then, it’s been moving westward and a bit southward. Now it’s in south-central Missouri.

This migration of population centers, incidentally, has been used as an argument for why Indiana should be on Central Time. Since most of the population is west of us, it makes sense to keep more of our business hours overlapping population centers to the west. On the other hand, I suppose political and economic power hasn’t necessarily moved westward in lockstep with the country’s population.

The Indianapolis Star has a nice bit of reporting on the lottery. The short version: it’s played mainly by low-income individuals, the payout is something like 60%, and the benefits are distributed mainly upward along the socio-economic scale. One of the main mechanisms of this upward distribution is the fact that a lot of lottery money is distributed based on a formula associated with excise taxes — in other words, if you live in an area with more expensive boat and auto registrations, your area gets more lottery money.

This strikes at a fundamental precept in some political circles: that individuals make better spending decisions with their money than government would. The lottery phenomenon goes a long way toward demonstrating that this simply is not so in a great many cases. Leaving aside, for the moment, the issue of whether it is fair for the government to tax and take your money, the lottery is a miserable spending decision, and a lot of people make it — a lot of people, I would bet, who can be found protesting vigorously that another nickel in taxes would absolutely kill them. In effect, they are making a spending choice that they are better off with a shitty chance at riches than they are at having their sidewalks built or fixed or living in a neighborhood without lead in the soil or whatever.

I know I’m coming dangerously close (if I’m not already there) to throwing out the “everybody but me is stupid” political argument. But, it’s awfully frustrating to engage in political discourse where one fundamental premise is that the citizenry is informed and making rational decisions and then be confronted with the lottery as evidence that the foundation might be a bit shaky if not completely illusory.

Maybe lottery players are buying more than a crappy chance at a lot of money. Maybe they’re buying hopes and dreams which they lack on account of the daily heaping of abuse the world is delivering. (After all, I’ve been known to throw away money at the craps table — not because I view it as a good way to make money — but for the fun I have while playing.) But, somehow there has to be a better way of seeing their resources devoted to obtaining their aspirations.

And, maybe I’m just in a bit of a mood right now. I have visions of a guy bitching about the government while using his disability money to buy a pack of smokes and a lottery ticket.

Above the Law has more on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to let the bankruptcy court’s decision stand in the Chrysler bankruptcy over the challenges of Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock and the Indiana funds.

A key piece of information I don’t think has been made too clear in most news reporting is that Indiana bought the debt it now holds for $0.43 per dollar in July 2008. Under the plan it is challenging, it will be paid $0.29 per dollar. Given what happened economically in this country between July 2008 and the present, it’s hard to view that decline in value as somehow unconscionable. I know a lot of people with reasonably safe investments who would have been thrilled to see a decline of only 14 cents on the dollar for their investments over the past year.

The sale will remain stayed until 4 p.m. on Monday to give the Indiana funds a chance to try to get the Supreme Court to look at the case.

Mike Kole has some great thoughts about Andy Horning on the occasion of his departure to Texas.

Even though, party politics being what it is, Andy never had a great shot at winning the offices for which he ran, he was always worth listening to. Mike expresses that thought better than I can, and elaborates on Andy’s significance to the Libertarian Party of Indiana. His departure is Indiana’s loss. Even if he wasn’t elected to office, we were all better off being educated by his thoughts.

Farewell Mr. Horning.

That was fast. The New York Times is reporting that the Second Circuit is rejecting Indiana’s Appeal of the bankruptcy court’s decision to allow the sale of Chrysler. The sale will be stayed until Monday afternoon to allow the funds to attempt to get the Supreme Court to take up the matter.

Maybe he had concrete solutions to offer, but from this Maureen Groppe piece, during a speech to the right-wing Hudson Institute think tank, Gov. Daniels mostly had platitudes to offer as conservatives’ way back to power. His recommendations:

#Forward-looking;
#Constructive
#Friendly
#Patient
#Espouse Freedom
#Anti-mass transit, small cars, or “homogenized” health care
#Stress deficits when analyzing plans
#Don’t be negative, backward looking, or bereft of new ideas
#Have big ideas on the table and major changes underway
#Talk to people as adults and take risks
#Feel average Americans’ hopes, dreams, concerns, and fears

He also suggested that people chose Obama as a fashion statement. Which is funny considering Daniels’ admonition against being negative, backward looking, and bereft of new ideas; and for having big ideas for major changes. The Republicans in 2008 were a litany of old ideas. If we had a nickel for every time a Republican candidate longingly looked back to Ronald Reagan, we probably could have paid back the debt Reagan exploded. But probably not the debt generated during Daniels’ tenure in charge of the budget. I guess there was always “Drill Baby, Drill” — that was certainly a big idea delivered to people as if they were adults.