The View from Florida | WBUR and NPR - On Point with Tom Ashbrook

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2010

The View from Florida

Posted by Wen Stephenson on Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Update (2/9/08): The New York Times ran a big front-page story on Sunday about Florida’s housing collapse, focused on Lehigh Acres. The piece notes that President Obama is scheduled to visit Fort Myers on Tuesday to promote the stimulus plan.

We’ve had lots of calls and comments from Florida listeners during today’s second hour with George Packer. Some are right in the thick of the foreclosure crisis, like Yves Tony from Lehigh Acres, near Fort Myers:

I live in foreclosure ground zero, Lehigh Acres. I got caught right in the middle of the mess, having bought a house in mid-2006. I am fighting really hard to keep my house, but I am several months late on my mortgage yet.

If the bank does not negotiate with me, I am just gonna have to let it go. I have no hard feelings against anybody, because nobody is really winning in this situation. Everybody is partly to blame; I accept my responsability and will move on. The banks, the developers and any other party to this mess need to do the same.

Others got out when they saw it coming. Check out their comments and join the conversation.

Listener comments

I listened to a portion of the show on Florida real estate. Many of the guest’s and caller’s conclusions are that greed is at the root of the current Florida situation. I’m a “snow bird” from Upstate NY, so I’m and observer here in Sarasota on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

I can’t help but compare what’s happening here to what’s happening in the urban centers of the north. Here’s a link to a Buffalo News site http://www.buffalonews.com/433 that has a few articles about the real estate disaster there. The reasons for Buffalo’s demise are also rooted in greed–moving jobs– and benign neglect of business leaders who have lost their sense of community as one of the key stakeholders of their business. A community is a faberic that unravels subtly.

Is this America or a war-torn county?

BobNRochester
Posted by Bob Volpe, on February 6th, 2009 at 9:35 AM
The podcast for Friday’s “week in the news” has not been made available. Can someone fix this?

thanks.
Posted by Molly, on February 7th, 2009 at 3:25 PM
Molly: that was fixed on Saturday. So sorry for the inconvenience.
Posted by Wen Stephenson, on February 9th, 2009 at 10:07 AM
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Posted by rreqtn, on March 5th, 2009 at 10:25 PM
My family and I lost our house 7 months ago. We moved into a house with rent that we can afford. I was just served with papers that the house we are renting is going into forclosure. We have no idea of our rights and how to save for another place and hope this does not happen again. please any advice would be grateful.
Posted by Kelly Marinacci, on March 10th, 2009 at 6:28 PM

Jazz Great Sonny Rollins
Wednesday, March 17, 2010

We’ll talk with tenor saxophone great Sonny Rollins about his six decades at the pinnacle of jazz.

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Ireland’s Epic Boom and Bust
Wednesday, March 17, 2010

For more than a decade Ireland boomed. It was Europe’s Celtic Tiger. Then it came crashing down. We’ll look at Ireland’s wild rise, and what went wrong.

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Ben Zimmer on Language
Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Blogger and lexicographer Ben Zimmer takes over William Safire’s language column. We’ll catch the new wave of American language.

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Will the Dodd Bill Do the Job?
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Senator Chris Dodd finally unveils his bill to rewrite the nation’s Wall Street regulation. Is it tough enough to do the job?

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IED’s in Afghanistan: Hard Numbers

The Department of Defense provided On Point with some statistics about IED attacks in Afghanistan, where there has been an increase in the use of such weapons over the past 14 months. It’s striking to see the spike in numbers — from 2,677 IED incidents in 2007 to 8,159 last year.

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Christopher Hill: U.S. Troop Withdrawal ‘On Schedule’

U.S. Ambassaor to Iraq Christopher Hill spoke with On Point live from Baghdad today as early voting gets underway, part of the run-up to Sunday’s elections. “So far so good,” Hill said, despite scattered violence. Hill said that the plan to withdraw U.S. combat troops by Sept. 1, and to leave only a residual advisory force of 50,000 or fewer, remains “very much on schedule.” Observers worry that a spike in violence could derail that timeline.

The Supreme Court’s Radio Silence

For radio listeners, a key element of our conversation about the Supreme Court gun-rights case was conspicuously absent: the audio recording of the oral arguments. Here’s why.

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