The Business Side of Living in Paradise

Florida has over 1300 miles of coastline with beaches and a semi-tropical to tropical climate.  This is the draw for much of America and the globe when they want a vacation break from snow and ice.  This is where you can golf, swim, and play tennis year round. (Except many of the days we were here were cold and wet!) And this is where snow birds and frogs descend to escape the winter weather up north.  Snow birds come just for the winter and then return back home each summer.  Frogs come to stay until they croak.  Demographically in Florida, 18.2% of people are over 66, which is not as large a segment as one might think although it is higher than the national average.  Mean household salary is about $47,000.00.  I wonder if this is a typical working salary or a retiree's salary?  (All photos taken at Marco Island, some blurred -  taken from a canoe.)

Got beach??

Paddling off into the mangroves.

My husband was raised in southern Florida, so he is familiar with the entire state and can really see the changes that have happened over the decades.   He remembers hunting on vast acres of pine woods and palmetto scrub as a teenager.  Those acres are pretty much what the city of Orlando is today.  Back then Orlando was a small cattle town with a few orange groves and large cattle ranches and undeveloped land.  Today Orlando is theme parks, time-shares and anything else that caters to the tourist industry.  We spent a few days on Marco Island to the southwest and the geography from their to Naples above which used to be mosquito heaven is now the land of the very wealthy.  Castles that are homes on the beach and condos that cost a million dollars and hotel rooms over $300.00 a night are available, unless you want a water view and those hotel rooms are twice as much.  Further inland, as is the theme in most of  Florida, are less expensive condos, retirement homes and finally trailer communities on small lakes.  There are  more than 30,000 lakes that cover a little more than 3 million acres of land in the state, most natural but some are rock pits created from development and phosphate mining. The lakes range from very small to the nation's fourth-largest natural lake, 448,000-acre Lake Okeechobee. The temperature difference can be more than 10 degress warmer when you leave the beach areas and head inland during the summer and 10 degrees colder in winter.  Toward the Southeast lies Miami which is much like any city except that there are more flamboyant colorful types walking the streets.  Above Miami is Fort Lauderdale which struggles to survive as an old florida town now city.  They have built a riverwalk and culture area that is rather nice in downtown.

There were lots of people not in as good shape as this dude.

The very center of the state still has horse farms, cattles ranches, and orange groves (although I was told 80% of the citrus industry has collapsed due to "green disease.")  I actually received a gift of clementine oranges in a bag...that came from California!  This part of the state along with suburbs outside the above mentioned cities have communities struggling with poverty, drugs and illegal immigation.  Not unlike much of the rest of parts of the U.S.

Rick Scott, the current governor, has been against the Affordable Health Care act from the beginning, but that does not stop him from taking advantage of its Federal dollars.  Prior to his becoming governor his company was involved in a nasty health care lawsuit.  He took the 5th amendment over 70 times during the lawsuit.  He now has awarded his largest campaign donor a huge medicare/medicaid contract which most believe will result in much higher health care costs for those using it since it promotes for-profit health care which means a shaving of services to make a profit although much of this will be in the health care system in prisons paid for by tax dollars to profit this company.  His HCA company was reported on in a Wall Street (August 15, 2012)  article which reported that it used the profit profile to increase certain private hospitals' bottom lines while slashing medical care to many.  My advice is to not retire in Florida unless you are a millionare.

Yes, if the weather had been better, we would have had a great vacation, but we did have a nice time and staying indoors on a rainy day gave me time to blog.