[UPDATE, 5/31: Case-Shiller: National Home Prices Hit New Low in 2011 Q1] About three weeks ago, I wrote a post asking How far will home prices fall? Today the NYT is reporting Housing Index Is Expected to Show a New…
Category: Economics
More evidence of severe farm labor shortage in wake of signing of strict immigration bill
A couple of days ago I wrote a post titled “Early signs of trouble for harvests in wake of Georgia’s stringent new immigration law”. That post cited an AJC article with credible claims of severe labor shortages at farms that…
Savannah metro area unemployment rate up slightly in April compared to year ago
Another bit of dreary news for the Savannah economy, although the Georgia Department of Labor is once again trying to put a positive spin on it. The Savannah metro area’s unemployment rate “decreased” from 8.6% in March to 8.5% in…
Early signs of trouble for harvests in wake of Georgia’s stringent new immigration law
I’ve written numerous times (including here and here) about my reasons for disagreeing with the passage of HB 87, Georgia’s new law that threatens draconian punishments for undocumented workers in the state while providing for very weak penalties for employers…
Leading state economist sees slow growth, high unemployment through 2013
Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, has been one of the most sobering — and most accurate — guides to the Georgia economy in recent years. While all…
Georgia governor, Atlanta mayor headed to DC to lobby for port dredging, passenger rail funding
Well some very interesting news this morning from Jim Galloway at the AJC’s Political Insider. According to Galloway, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed are headed next week to Washington “for a strategy session on Port of…
What a severe recession and a weak recovery look like in just one graph
The Chicago Fed releases a monthly index for national economic activity. Their latest release: Index shows economic activity weakened in April. Now, that’s not to say that activity contracted as it would during a recession, but the pace of growth…
Savannah area gas prices down about 20 cents per gallon in recent weeks
In one of my columns a couple of weeks ago about some cautionary economic data, I mentioned a bright side: the probability of falling gas prices. According to GasBuddy, gas prices per gallon have fallen about 20 cents since their…
Here we go again: Two more Georgia banks shut down
First Georgia Banking Company of Franklin and Atlantic Southern Bank of were shut down by regulators this evening. From the FDIC press release: CertusBank, National Association, Easley, South Carolina, acquired the banking operations, including all the deposits, of Atlantic Southern…
Where Georgia ranks in terms of foreclosures and unemployment
I hear a lot of spin about Georgia’s relative economic health compared to other states, so I’ll just post these two charts with minimal commentary. These both appeared in the last day on Calculated Risk, an indispensable source for those…
Extreme cuts to public education: the wrong path for Georgia’s future
Last week, Savannah-Chatham County schools announced that a net of about 90 teaching positions would probably be cut for next year. Younger teachers — those who often have the most enthusiasm, are quite literally the building blocks for the future…
Carlos Santana: “The people of Arizona, the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.â€
I don’t know how much will be made of Carlos Santana’s political remarks at Turner Field as he received the Beacon of Change award at today’s Civil Rights Game in Atlanta, but there’s already an article in the AJC and…
Governor Deal signs Georgia’s new immigration law — a curious mix of draconian and toothless
Well Governor Deal finally signed HB 87 into law today. There’s a good write up and summary of the bill here. I’m opposed to the new law for a mix of Constitutional, economic, and basic human rights reasons. I talked…
Georgia’s April revenue figures suggest decent income growth but very sluggish retail sales statewide
The pdf of Georgia’s state revenues for April can be found here. The headline number of a 2.6% year-over-year increase is weak. That’s barely more than the increase needed to make up for core inflation. Personal income tax revenue was…