I will admit this is not one of the most shocking headlines to find its way out of the media in the last week:

New Jersey isn’t ‘tax friendly’ for retirees, study shows

In other news, nobody has built a shrine to Alex Rodriguez in Monument Park in Yankee Stadium, either. There’s an awfully good reason why seniors move elsewhere – the weather’s nicer, the taxes are lower (especially the property taxes), and the home values aren’t as oppressive. Plenty of seniors stay in New Jersey, but if the choice is New Jersey or Florida, it really wasn’t much of a choice for the hundreds of thousands of seniors who moved to Florida in the past few years from NJ. Although I guess the one thing about the article I didn’t understand is that ALASKA is the most favorable state for seniors in the US – I wouldn’t move there unless Alaska started paying me taxes. And brought in a second sun for a backup.

You may be wondering at this point why this article on taxes found its way on to my blog (or why an avowed Mets fan dared speak the name of He Who Shall Not Be Named). Simple: seniors need to be able to support themselves, with or without extra medical expenses. Taxes make that difficult. If taxes are making someone contemplate a major life change such as a move, perhaps that someone should talk to a lawyer first.