From the AJC this evening: Habitat for Humanity International is now the nation’s 6th largest homebuilder, according to Builder magazine, as its sales of homes in the United States grew from 4,993 in 2005 to 6,032 in 2010, a 17…
Category: Economics
I was wrong: no change in 2012 TSPLOST referendum date, failure seems likely statewide
I had been working under the assumption that Governor Deal would successfully persuade some reluctant Georgia lawmakers to move the date of next year’s referendums on regional transportation sales taxes (the so-called TSPLOST) from the summer primary to the November…
Household debt as a percentage of GDP ballooned until 2009
Amidst all the discussion of the ratio of national debt to GDP, there has been little discussion of the ratio of Americans’ household debt as a percentage of GDP. Using a graph generated at Economagic.com, here’s the total household debt…
Should a $50,000 salary be taxed an additional $1,000 in 2012?
I don’t think that tax cuts are the best way to stimulate more economic activity. Instead of including $288 billion in abandoned tax revenue, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA or “The Stimulus”) would have been more effective if…
Americans drove less in June; trucking down in July
I love good graphs and straightforward data. And that’s what Calculated Risk served up today with a post about the June decline in total vehicle miles driven in the U.S. and with a post about the decline in a key…
New data shows economy shrinking in Georgia, much of southeast U.S.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve released the monthly index of economic activity for each state today, and the numbers aren’t very good for this point in a recovery. And the numbers are terrible for Georgia and some other states in the…
AJC: Federal lawsuit filed against insiders of state’s largest failed bank
I’ve written a lot about Georgia’s banking crisis, and here’s another post on it. According to the AJC this morning: Federal bank regulators sued 17 former directors and officers of Silverton Bank on Monday, accusing the officials of gross negligence…
SMN takes a look at Savannah’s water ferries’ $266,000 deficit
Well this is a highly recommended piece for those who care about the functioning of the trade center, the prospects of a new hotel on Hutchinson Island, future development of the island, the pressures on local spending as federal subsidies…
Seasonality in labor markets — and political manipulation of the results
At the end of my Savannah Morning News column today, I talk about the “absurd” characterizations in the Georgia Department of Labor’s press release about employment in the state. Here I’m going to expand on some of those thoughts. As…
Looking at regional disparities in unemployment rates (or: why are things so bad in the South?)
Unemployment data is really slippery, and I’ll post something on Sunday as a follow up to a portion of my SMN column in which I mention some of the political sleight of hand of blaming seasonal factors for numbers that…
Federal government, immigration among key drivers of job growth in Texas
I already posted about some of the less than stellar data regarding job growth in Texas. That’s a subject that has been — and will be — much in the news as long as Rick Perry’s run for the Republican…
Savannah housing market showing improvement in year-over-year sales; long recovery still ahead
There literally isn’t anything in the latest Savannah area MLS data that jumps out at me. (The numbers are typically available on the 9th of each month but I’m just now looking closely at them.) The total number of sales…
Statesboro bank closed by the FDIC
It’s been more than a month since a Georgia bank was closed, but that changed today with the failure of First Southern National Bank of Statesboro. From the FDIC press release: First Southern National Bank, Statesboro, Georgia, was closed today…
Gas prices should continue downward slide
I predicted over a week ago that we should see average gas prices in the Savannah area fall eventually to $3.30 per gallon or less. But the price of crude has been bouncing around a bit, which could make that…