By TomL
I attended a Marion County Builders Association lunch meeting. Met some old friends and met some new business associates. Very friendly group of Business people.
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Michael Cassidy was charged after destroying a Satanic display statue. Apparently he is charged with a class D felony for destroying the display at the Iowa State capital building. He is accused of beheading the Statue on the display and throwing into the garbage can. The veteran of the navy apparently did this just before Christmas. How many people out there think Michael should be prosecuted??? NOT ME! tloury@att.net
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I was reading a comprehensive informational story the DA Fani Willis who is prosecuting Donald Trump. The story list all the people who donated to her election that have made money from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office. Continue reading
How much does government cost? That is a powerful question and the answer is: nobody really knows. The government has no money of its own. All they have is tax money extracted from the citizens and so many taxes are hidden that no one can say for sure just how much the government costs. Each year we spend money, time and energy to fill out income tax forms to find out how much it costs us individually to keep government running and fulfill our national and international obligations. The Income Tax is so convoluted that most individuals need to spend money on tax preparers or tax software to complete these forms. An entire industry has arisen to help people combat the I.R.S. if they get audited. In my opinion, any law that spawns such an industry to get around it, is a bad law to begin with and should be repealed. However, if you repeal the Income Tax you need to replace it with something better and that is the FAIRtax. Continue reading
One of the best and most significant measures of the strength of the local economy is the housing market. 2023 was a record-year on several fronts. It marked the highest ever number of new single-family homes completed, and the 2nd highest number of permits issued. Additionally, it was the 2nd best year on record for the sale of existing homes. The Ocala Metro was one of only 3 Florida metros and one of only a handful nationwide that saw an increase in year-over-year sales of existing homes. Finally, 2023 saw the largest number of new Multi-Family developments to come online with the addition of approximately 2,000 units.
This growth is being fueled by the continuing large number of new residents relocating to the area. The Ocala Metro again ranked in the top 2 in U-Haul’s annual Top Cities for Growth. This is significant because it highlights the strong growth of younger residents to the community and reinforces the growth in both traditional single-family and multi-family developments. Further attesting to this growth is the record enrollment at Marion County Public Schools which surpassed 45,600 students in the fall of 2023. This reflects a 10% increase in the last two years. Continue reading
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