Tim Rogers

More than 400 feet of stream frontage on one of the most famous limestone trout streams in the Eastern United States and only 25 minutes drive to Penn State University.

There is a home with 3/1 and 3.5 acres with the original country store adjacent to the abandoned Pennsylvania Railroad bed. For mountain enthusiasts, Bald Eagle State Park is 1.2 miles up the road. There is hunting, hiking, mountain biking and snow shoeing available on more than 40,000 acres of state park.

You could live here, open a flyfishing shop, or turn it into a B & B. A creative owner could even build several cabins in the woods to rent to Penn State Alumni on all the big Penn State Weekends.

The EPA (not the Department of Agriculture) has decided that it would be in our best interest to start taxing livestock for their flatulent functions. Cattle ruminate and generate flatulence out the other side as part of their regular bodily functions.

The anointed class has decided that every American (no other country has signed on to this) farmer should be penalized for feeding the world and therefore their leading edge production methods should be penalized.

The proposed tax will look like this:

Dairy cow - $175 per year cow

Beef Catle - $85 per year for each cow

Hog - $20 per year hog

This amounts to about a 12.5% tax on dairy farmers and 25% tax on beef cattle and hog farmers as a reward for all their hard work.

Last week food prices were expected to increase 9% next year. If we add this tax, people will start to go hungry in our country and people in other countrues will die. I can assure you that the communist Chinese will not impose the same tax on their farmers because the Communist Chinese are better capitalists than we are in the year 2008.

It's just a matter of time before the EPA comes after Realtors. Look at all the hot air we blow (not to mention flatulence). Imagine if the EPA decided to tax Realtors an additional 12.5 to 25% on our income. It's coming to an agency near you.

The anointed class must be stopped before they completly destroy our country.

The drum beat continues in State College, PA about the lack of affordable housing or work force housing as the new enlightened like to call it. I, of course, march to a different drummer (the Little Drummer Boy in this holiday season) and I'm here to sing you a Christmas Carol about the availability of affordble housing in State College, PA and Centre County, PA.

Well, maybe I won't sing (my music teacher in high school was always happy when I didn't chime in) but I will share the latest CCAR MLS statistics as of December 5, 2008. The reality of affordability housing locally is as follows and is based on the purchase price of $179,900 that reflects the limit placed on most first-time and affordable housing financing programs in Pennsylvania.

705 - Total Active residential homes on the market

315 - Total number of homes under the $179,900 price threshold

Applying sixth grade math we see that 44.7% of all the homes currently being offered for sale qualify as affordable housing in our market.

This is not the politically correct thing to report but what consumers need to understand is that the press can't sell papers or gain listeners/viewers with good news. What the press needs to announce is a NEW (new to them) program that offers people in need of affordable housing (usually called potential buyers) a service that is available to them to help them find the homes and the financing programs that meet their needs.

This NEW to the media program is what I do each and every day in my business. I'm a Realtor and it is my job to understand all of the financial programs available to those in need. I take it a step further by putting those in need into my car and driving them around and allowing them access to those homes that may meet their needs.

While this NEW progam that provides a platform for critical affordable housing interchange is not NEW to me, it apparently has not been discovered by those in the media that need increased circulation or Arbitron ratings.

The headline should read:

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT

TIM ROGERS OF KELLER WILLIAMS REALTY IS AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING EXPERT AND PROVIDES A VALUABLE SERVICE TO REDUCE THE NEED FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN STATE COLLEGE, PA.

Well, maybe the headline is a bit too long but it is accurate. The enlightened class won't like it since it doesn't fit their agenda but the headline is accurate.

So. if you are in need of affordable or work force housing, call the expert and solve your problem.

....but those of us living and working here already knew that. Thanks to USA Today for the free publicity which will create a huge migration of non-students to town thereby selling all of the local real estate inventory and driving up prices. Well, maybe not but it is true that good ole State College, PA and Happy Valley don't ride the same tidal wave of prosperity or lack thereof of many other communities in America.

According to USA Today, there are 27 cities that are recession-proof and only three of the cities are east of the Mississippi and they include Valdosta, Georgia and Morgantown, WV. Valdosta, GA is a great community that is home to a small college and is close to the host town of the Sunbelt Ag Expo. Morgantown is home to the hated heated rivalry that is West Virginia University and a booming local economy.

Penn State University is the engine that drives the local economy in State College and you should see the capital expenditures currently under way on campus. There isn't a multi-million dollar building the Board of Trustee's has turned down possibly ever and the new Law School is set to open in January.

Do I hear tuition increase anybody?

If your garbage isn't picked up next week by the sanitation truck from the city as it has been for as long as you may remember, you may want to point the finger at Detroit. But do you point the finger at the high flying (literally) auto exec's or is the accusatory finger tweaking the blue collar worker and their union rep for the bloated contract they won from the blue-heeled exec's in the last negotiation? I suppose it really doesn't matter to you when the garbage piles up.

Maybe they will cut fire and ambulance services but one thing you can count on and that is more of the Governator's recent Caleee-fornia predication that taxes will need to increase and local services will need to be cut since a large portion of local and state taxes are deposited from the purchasers of automobiles when they buy a new or used car or truck. Since no one is buying and local services are based on consumers buying auto's, something has to give. Notice that the auto dealers didn't pay the tax. It was the consumer that paid the tax and since they aren't consuming dealers are going out of business and the tax dollars aren't going into the local governments accounts to pay for services that the general public demands of its local government.

Sales of new and used cars, as well as parts and service, are the single largest source of sales tax revenue for almost every state, county and local government, ahead of gasoline sales, restaurants and department stores. (Alaska, Delaware, New Hampshire, Oregon and Montana do not collect sales tax, source LA Times).

In the second quarter in California, auto sales tax receipts are down $30 million for the quarter creating chaos in budgets from local to state municipalities.

By the way this is not just a California problem but a nationwide problem.

I ask you--where is the bailout for the car dealers that are going bust and where is the taxpayer bailout? The Governator is calling for an immediate sales tax increase. I'm sure that will stimulate retail sales of cars and trucks.