Category: Economics

A wonky look at Savannah metro area housing market in April

I’ve been writing a lot less about the housing market in my City Talk columns since Adam Van Brimmer made the jump from sports writing to business writing. It’s been sort of a relief not to feel obligated to wade…

How far will home prices fall?

I wrote a post already this week about home price declines that can be read here. Today it’s CoreLogic’s turn to report on the precipitous declines in home prices nationally. All the major indices are showing significant declines, and the…

Home price declines accelerating

No surprises here for those who have followed my writings over the last few years about the housing market. Today, Zillow released data about home prices in the first quarter and in March. They estimate that 55% of Atlanta metro…

The Ryan plan’s strange assumptions for another housing boom, beginning next year

This is another in occasional posts about the federal deficit and debt. Congressman Ryan’s plan to slash federal spending, which drew the votes of almost every House Republican, doesn’t just rely on dramatic spending cuts. The math behind the plan…

Savannah Town Hall meeting to deal with business issues — but will the business owners show up?

My column in the Savannah Morning News has for the last decade dealt with small business issues — from endless profiles of new enterprises to the larger challenges of business in our diverse market. For today’s column (“Will Savannah small…

Two more Georgia banks shut down by the FDIC

Georgia has had more bank failures than any other state during this economic downturn, and we’re leading the rest of the country for 2011. The FDIC has closed five banks tonight, two in Georgia: The Park Avenue Bank of Valdosta…

Governor Deal signs Sunday sales bill

During the recent Georgia legislative session, I made a number of posts about the proposed bill to allow local municipalities to hold referendums on Sunday package sales of beer, wine, and liquor. Just a quick note here to say that…

The most boring post ever: Bernanke’s entire press conference today

And if that title didn’t scare you, please be aware that the embedded video, which is nearly an hour long, begins with almost exactly 10 minutes of dead air. So do yourself a favor and skip ahead. This is an…

Stockman, Samuelson attack lack of candor in federal budget debate

This is another in occasional posts regarding the ongoing national debate about the federal debt and deficit. I’ve already written about the incredible ignorance shown in polls asking the public about the growing problems. By large margins, Americans see the…

The biggest obstacle to eliminating federal deficits and reducing the debt: Americans’ ignorance of the numbers

I’m going to be making some posts in the coming months about various options for reducing the deficit and whittling down the federal debt. As beautifully and succinctly outlined by Calculated Risk, we can view the problem as having four…

More on Savannah entrepreneurship, the “brain drain”, and The Creative Coast

In my Savannah Morning News column today — Creative Coast and three ideas for regional prosperity — I follow up on Jake Hodesh’s recent call for “a list of three issues that we should seek to improve upon or change…

Will metro Atlanta spend more on transit than road-building in the next decade??

Atlanta has long been synonymous with cars, with traffic, with sprawl. But local governments in the metro area appear to be embracing a vision for transit unlike ever before. This isn’t just some pie in the sky vision on my…

Latest data shows employment still weak in Georgia, Savannah

Just-released data from the Georgia Department of Labor is being spun positively because the state’s official unemployment rate has slipped to 10.0% for March; it was 10.2% last month after peaking at 10.4% late in 2010. Don’t be fooled by…

Two more Georgia banks shut down by the FDIC

Two more banks in Georgia have been shut down this evening by the FDIC, Bartow Bank in Cartersville and New Horizons Bank in East Ellijay. From the press release regarding Bartow Bank: As of December 31, 2010, Bartow County Bank…