The Charleston Post and Courier is reporting: The federal spending plan approved by the U.S. House today includes some money for the Port of Charleston, under a provision proposed earlier in the Senate by S.C. Republican Lindsey Graham. The $4.2…
From the emailed press release from city of Savannah spokesperson Bret Bell: For Immediate Release Date: December 15, 2011 City Council approves Sunday sale of alcohol Savannah City Council today approved changes to the Savannah Alcohol Ordinance to allow for…
The Georgia Department of Labor releases monthly unemployment data in phases, so we don’t yet know if the unemployment rate in the state fell because more people reported having jobs or because more Georgians simply gave up looking for work.…
The first part of my City Talk column today is about the support in Georgia generally, and in south and east Georgia specifically, for the Transportation Investment Act (the so-called TSPLOST that will add 1% to regional sales taxes if…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
The black middle class has grown dramatically in America over the last couple of decades. Non-discrimination laws and political clout in cities meant that blacks were hired in large numbers for solid government jobs at the state and local level.…
Well, I have to say that I’m not heartened by the news from the summit in Europe today. The European Central Bank has not made the bold moves that seem required, and the political brinksmanship between Europe’s wealthiest countries and…
The Obama administration’s Housing Scorecard for November spotlights Atlanta, which recently saw the worst ever monthly price decline in the history of the S&P/Case-Shiller indices. The scorecard includes a number of graphics showing the Atlanta metro area’s relative weakness, like…
