[This post was originally made on June 27th, 2011, but I have comments about the widespread availability of downtown parking in my column today. You’ll find that parking patterns on weekdays during the month of December are very similar to…
WSJ on the sharp decline in illegal immigration from Mexico (video embedded)
More on a theme. I wrote last week about the sharp decline in immigration from Mexico; now the Wall Street Journal is covering the trend: From the accompanying article, Far Fewer Enter U.S. Illegally From Mexico: Arrests of people trying…
Cost to metro Savannah workers in 2012 if payroll tax cut expires: $114,700,000
Thanks to the PBS Newshour’s Patchwork Nation series for providing an interactive graphic that gives a breakdown of the estimated cost to the workers of every county in America if Congress does not extend the payroll tax cut that was…
Data, graphs, and ideas from the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute on the state’s jobs crisis
I’ve been writing a lot lately here on the blog and in my Savannah Morning News columns about the need to focus public policy on job creation and retention. With the 2012 state legislative session looming, I’m going to be…
A few links on Europe: How far can the can be kicked down the road?
I’m not heartened by last week’s agreement among Eurozone countries to commit to stricter austerity packages. At best, things are going to get really, really messy as countries continue to cut budgets, as growth slows, as a variety of treaties…
Will new Savannah leadership meet — or even understand — the needs of younger people?
I’m sure I made a few people angry with my City Talk column today: New city council’s average age is 57; can they relate to younger residents? The gist of it can be summed up in two sentences from the…
OK, it might look a little like 9/11, but The Cloud is pretty cool
The Cloud has been designed by MVRDV; it consists of two luxury residential towers in Seoul, South Korea with a spectacular layer of interconnections. And the proposed buildings have generated considerable controversy over the last day because images of the…
What happened to bank failure Fridays?
There are still 977 banks known to be facing some sort of heightened scrutiny from the FDIC, according to the unofficial problem bank list regularly posted at Calculated Risk. But the odds are looking better and better that the majority…
Newt Gingrich “runs away with the Georgia primary,” according to new poll from SurveyUSA
A new poll from SurveyUSA shows Georgian Newt Gingrich with a huge lead among likely voters in the state’s Republican primary. Of course, the primary isn’t scheduled until March 6th, so lots could obviously happen between now and then. Still,…
“It is the business of the future to be uncertain”
Congratulations to my former students — and to all the students — who just graduated from Armstrong Atlantic State University. I’ve been teaching part-time or full-time at Armstrong since 2000. I just came from the ceremony in the arena —…
Georgia tax revenue for November shows steady growth
Georgia has some lousy trends in terms of jobs right now, but both income taxes and sales taxes suggest increases in average incomes and in consumer spending. Here’s the latest data for November, with comparisons to November of 2010. There…
George Will, Maureen Dowd, and David Brooks really, really don’t like Newt Gingrich
I’ve praised Newt Gingrich on this blog for his sensible stand on immigration policy, but I’m troubled by many, many things that Gingrich says. I’m not the only one. From David Brooks’ The Gingrich Tragedy in the NYT: I’d make…