CUBA!

Let’s talk Cuba! 

It is strange, this came up during one of Rick Scott’s many publicity tours seeking reelection. He was at a car dealership, touting some tax cuts in the fees for auto registration (which would be excellent by the way), and for some reason saw this as a good time to bash competitor Charlie Christ for his views on Cuba. This might have been in response to Christ appearing on Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday. There Christ said he thought that the Cuba embargo should be lifted, a very different view than he had in 2010 as a Republican. He thinks it will help the Florida economy, increase jobs and trade. Scott took the opposite view, that the embargo is the right thing to do since it is not free or democratic. Specifically the embargo “is part of standing up for the Cuban individuals, Cuban families’ freedom” The funny thing about all this, regardless of which side you are on, is that the Governor of Florida has absolutely no power or authority on this issue. It is something that is decided by Congress and can be tweaked slightly by the President. Just political nonsense really, but let’s talk about it anyway for a minute. Living in South Florida, we all have friends or acquaintances who are Cuban and from other South American countries. It is a very painful situation for many of the Cubans living here as they are cutoff from their families and cannot get them out of there. Tales of people who were tortured by the Cuban Gov’t. and or who had friends or family members disappear are rampant. Thousands of Cubans have died trying to get to the US by boat, and this has been going on for 50 years. I think that after all that time the embargo has not succeeded in making the government of Cuba change. So clearly it is time to try something different here. Lifting the embargo will make the lives of normal Cubans better, giving them more opportunities and certainly creating jobs. The tourism industry would immediately take off, and families could be reunited (assuming that Cuba responded in kind to some extent. People cannot leave there freely now of course but people would be able to come back). They are so close to us, only 90 miles, and yet so far away. I really would love to visit there and see something good happen here with this situation. Nothing is on the table for Cuban policy to change at this point but you can visit on a cultural mission, and I might just do that.

The Cuban embargo emerges as a political issue in Florida

http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/10/3926318/the-cuban-embargo-emerges-as-a.html

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

ROSENFELD Restaurant Reviews!!! Josef's Table

We haven’t had one of these for a while! Josef’s Table caught my eye with a good looking ad in one of the local papers last week for a 5 course meal for $100 on Valentine’s Day. While they were already sold out for that (hopefully I earned some points by suggesting it?), we were able to get in there on Friday. I have seen this place a ton of times since I love the Thai place where it is, in the Polo Club Shoppes on Military Trail in Boca Raton. The menu always looked good but for some reason I never thought of giving it a try. I am glad I did!

There is an old school feel to this place, not just because the clientele is elderly, but there is a real emphasis on service which I really like. There are lots of employees, managers and even the owner all running around making sure the guests are happy. Before even getting to the food, it must be noted that they offer flights of wine. For those not familiar with this, it is basically like getting one glass of wine split into 3 parts with different wines served in separate glasses at the same time. I love it as it allows one to try a lot of wines. They had a large variety of Italian white wines which were really great. I would strongly recommend this. I started out with a French onion soup that was great. My wife had a salad which she enjoyed. I then had the blackened grouper special (after a very close call with the duck, which really looked good). While it was not blackened at all, it was perfectly cooked and was served with a red pepper sauce and some parmesan polenta. Awesome. My wife had the lobster special, which she loved. Desert was somewhat disappointing after all this for me. I had the apfel strudel, which was full of apples and a crispy hard shell that was not what I was expecting. I was thinking and hoping for puff pastry, or some kind of tart but it wasn’t to be. The wife went with a sugar free key lime tart which she enjoyed. To make up for this, they did have an impressive selection of desert wines and ports. I got a glass of the moscato d’asti, which was so good even the wife had one. I would strongly recommend this place and look forward to returning. I would love to hear about your favorite places or one you have just tried that you loved.

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

FLORIDA 2ND IN NATION IN LONG TERM UNEMPLOYMENT

Howdy folks! This one is bad news and very inconsistent with the other info we have talked about recently. It deserves some discussion. In the past weeks we have written about how Florida is much further along economically than many parts of the country in recovering from the recession. Our retail, tourism and other service related industries are doing very well and growing at a faster pace than the rest of the nation. Now there is this statistic: Florida is 2^nd in the nation in long term unemployment. There are certain statistics, like insurance premiums, that you don’t want to be a nation leader. This is a really bad one, and I think it really reflects negatively on the state’s leadership as they are responsible for this. To that end, it looks back at the recent history on this issue to reveal that Florida had the longest average unemployment in the nation in 2011 and 2012. The article highlights a 57 year old man who lost his job as a television executive. He has been looking for work for 8 months. It highlights another, out of work for 20 months, who was a software specialist. A quick word on these stories, needs to be brought up. There are many jobs/positions, even entire industries, that have simply been eliminated by the recession and will never come back. Companies have figured out ways to reduce the amount of highly paid middle managers or employees and can get by with lower paid younger employees doing these jobs. Workers over 45 without high school degrees have been hit the hardest with an average of being unemployed for 50 weeks, and I really think the lack of construction has fueled this. Clearly the older generation is being impacted and there is little relief on the horizon. Long-term unemployment decreased 5% from 51% in 2012 to 46% in 2013. While that is some progress, it is not going to get the job done. But what can be done to create more jobs?? That is the million dollar question and it is coming to a head in the November election. Not that there are any clear answers there, but the candidates have a different perspective on this issue and how to deal with it and we will see what the voters decide. The track record of Rick Scott on this issue certainly won’t help him but this is certainly not the only issue out there and there are many who do not consider it that important at all. They would like to ignore these long term unemployed, and hope that the issue goes away. It won’t, and you will be hearing about it for as long as the employment crisis continues, so dig in. We are in for a long ride I am afraid.

Florida 2nd in nation for long-term unemployment

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/os-florida-long-term-unemployed-20140208,0,1075160,full.story

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

2ND MONTH IN A ROW FOR BAD JOB NUMBERS

This is the report everyone has been waiting for, because we know any economic recovery is based on jobs. And because we all hoped that the December report was just a blip, a mistake that could be blamed on colder weather, holidays, really on anything. 

Sadly, it is not the case and this months’ report confirms that there is a slowdown here. Only 113,000 jobs were added last month, way below the average monthly gain of 194,000 a year ago. They have been down 50,000 for the past 3 months. While there has been good news in some areas, the jobs news really trumps all other statistics. Different industries were looked at here in terms of growth, with some reporting good news and bad for others. Is this all a factor of what is happening in the rest of the world? It could be and probably is a part of this but that doesn’t explain the entire story. I think this is due to many factors, the most important of which is the uncertainty in the world right now. Everywhere it seems things are starting to be the same. 

A few days ago it looked like we were still growing, things looked bright, now it seems like the same thing is happening in China, Europe and here. High unemployment, falling wages and jobs, and plenty of Gov’t. stimulus type of efforts. If you really think about it and get caught up in everything it would be very tough to get up every day! I think we all have to keep it in perspective, life is an ebb and flow, it goes up and goes down like the stock market. You can’t get too excited when it goes up or down. We all have to do our own part every day the best we can and the small differences we make as individuals adds up collectively.

US employers add 113K jobs; rate dips to 6.6 pct.

http://www.ocala.com/article/20140207/WIRE/140209757/1009/NEWS?Title=US-employers-add-113K-jobs-rate-dips-to-6-6-pct-#gsc.tab=0

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

BANK OF AMERICA TO CLOSE BOCA RATON BRANCH

Good morning everyone! We just talked about how TD Bank was expanding and opening lots of bank branches in South Florida. This is about the rest of the banking world, and not a little guy either. Bank of America has announced it is closing a bank branch in West Boca Raton. This branch was located in the Somerset Shoppes, which is located at the Northeast corner of Glades Road and Lyons Road, a major intersection. This is a very good area and the bank had $68.1 million in deposits as of June 30th, nothing to sneeze at. This is part of the 189 bank branch closures BOA is doing this year across the nation. This is more than any other bank. Nevertheless, they still have 10 locations open in Boca Raton after this closure so you will still be able to find one around town but this is surely a sign of cutting back. And this is from a bank that ranked first in amount of branches and 2nd in deposits. They have 203 branches in South Florida and $27.2 billion in deposits. I think we will be hearing about many more branch closures by not just BOA but many other banks in the coming months. I guess they had their run, and no one is crying for them, but it is still taking some getting used to with banks hurting. Before the 80’s it seemed like it could never happen but now they are more like other companies when it comes to financial difficulties.

Bank of America to close South Florida branch

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/blog/morning-edition/2014/02/bank-of-america-to-close-boca-raton.html?ana=e_sflo_rdup&s=newsletter&ed=2014-02-07

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

JOB CUTS DOWN 72% IN FLORIDA!

Happy Friday to you all. Here is something to brighten your day, which hopefully is not needed because you are already having a great day but this can be some icing on the top of the cake perhaps. What is almost as good as creating jobs? Not losing the ones people already had. There is a lot in this one. We talked in earlier blogs how January is a bad month for retailers because they get their holiday numbers and for many they are disappointing or worse. This leads them to either shut down entirely or reduce costs. This is what we see here, with mainly retail companies laying people off now. But here in Florida, where the recovery is further along than many places and tourism is surging, and retail is very strong. These numbers support that in a big way: in January 2013 2,892 people were laid off but only 812 in January 2014. In South Florida in December 2013 Broward and Palm Beach counties added 6,300 and 5,300 retail jobs, increases of 5.9% and 7.3% from a year ago, respectively. But the rest of the country seems to be going in the other direction from Florida. January saw 40,430 planned layoffs recorded, a 12% increase from one year ago. US employers will reduce payrolls 45,107 in January, up from 30,623 in December. Retailers cut 11,394 jobs in January 2014, almost double the 6,676 cuts from a year ago. Specific retailers are mentioned: Macys, Sam’s Club, JC Penney, Sears, Best Buy and Target. It is not surprising since these companies are fighting for their lives out there and they are losing. They will keep cutting prices and jobs until they reach profitability, which might not happen in any case. What happened to the rosy 2014 we all expected and needed? Stock market is down sharply, job market anemic and rates are moving up. So many mixed messages out there with the economy but these are numbers that are solid and true. They don’t spell good news for the rest of the country.

Florida's January job cuts down 72 percent from last year

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/careers/ask-marcia/sfl-florida-job-cuts-january,0,2685093.story

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com

FLOOD INSURANCE PROBLEMS FIXED? NOT SO FAST

I really thought this one was behind us, a victory for the people of Florida in our battle to escape insurance premium hell. Last week we talked about how this looked like a done deal because the Senate had approved the measure handily but it still needed to be brought to the House to be formally voted on and the Republicans had the ability to prevent it from being voted on in the House. That is exactly what they did, so no good news on flood insurance I am afraid. Governor Scott, after calling on Obama to take action last week despite knowing that the Senate and House would decide the issue, now is calling for John Boehner, House Speaker and Republican like Scott, to allow the vote. So not only did Scott not provide relief to Floridians (not his decision to make but his lobbying efforts to make it happen failed and were very misleading at times) he also knows that nearly every House Republican acted to block the vote. 

This is terrible timing as they all face important elections in November. It is also strange since Republicans are historically on the side of the rich and this is something that would help a lot of them (and those people are very rich and big supporters of the party and they give them lots of money in donations) but instead they are taking the stance that bailing the National Flood Insurance Program is more important (remember it is $24 billion dollars in debt). While this seems fiscally responsible, it is going to piss off a lot of people at election time which won’t help them any. So now this issue, along with immigration, mire away in limbo because they cannot be voted on. Politics at work again, and the people suffer. Our best hope right now is for them to redraw the flood zone map which will provide relief for people living far from the water in heavy flood zones. That is something that can be done without Gov’t. approval since it would be a local decision. So in the meantime we just keep getting screwed on insurance of all kinds here in Florida. I am not moving anytime soon but I am not happy in any way about this. How do you feel about it?

Florida Gov. Scott urges Boehner to take up flood insurance fix

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/state-regional/florida-gov-scott-urges-boehner-to-take-up-flood-i/ndC3F/

Orin Rosenfeld

President

Rosenfeld Realty Advisors

9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209

Boca Raton, FL 33434

Phone: 561-756-1665

Fax: 561-470-0707

Web: www.rosenfeldrealtyadvisors.com