San Francisco’s Lincoln Ford Mercury, the last domestic car dealership within the city’s 47.6 square mile area, abruptly shut its doors on May 1, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s a tough market. Imports have a much bigger share in San Francisco,” Dennis Fitzpatrick, owner of Concord Chevrolet and regional vice president of the California New Car Dealers Association told the paper. “When you can sell 100 imports a month as opposed to 25 domestic, and what with the rents and real estate, it’s tough to make a U.S. car dealership pencil.” Read the rest of this entry »
With the death of Osama Bin Laden, many believe that Al Quaeda was dealt a mortal blow. Time will tell, but as we learned from the Oklahoma City bombing and Nidal Malik Hasan’s rampage at Fort Hood, we have much to fear from our own home grown extremists. And not just from “lone nuts” acting on their own.
Since 2000, the number of organized hate groups – from white nationalists, neo-Nazis and racist skinheads to border vigilantes and black separatist organizations – has climbed by more than 50 percent, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Their rise has been fuelled by growing anxiety over jobs, immigration, racial and ethnic diversity, the election of Barack Obama as America’s first black president, and the lingering economic crisis. Most of them merely espouse violent theories; some of them are stock-piling weapons and actively planning attacks.
But not all people and places hate equally; some regions of the United States—at least within some sectors of their populations—are virtual hate hatcheries. What is the geography of hate groups and organizations? Why are some regions more susceptible to them?
With the U.S. economic recovery apparently stalling and perhaps headed for a double dip, the debate among economic policy makers about what to do is heating up. The right says it’s time to embrace fiscal prudence, to cut spending and pay off debt. On the left, there are calls for continued spending to offset reduced private investment.
A new study by Tulane’s James Alm and Janet Rogers of Nevada’s Department of Budget and Planning (h/t Ryan Avent, whose deadpan tweet noted that it was likely to spark a “lively discussion”) takes a close look at the effects of tax and spending policies at the state level. Entitled “Do State Fiscal Policies Affect State Economic Growth?”, it examines fifty years of data (from 1947 to 1997), tracking the effects of state tax policies, spending policies, and political orientation on economic growth. Looking at the different policy approaches and strategies that have been pursued at the level of states and cities and comparing their results provides a useful lens through which to examine pressing national issues. Alm’s and Rogers’ main findings are certainly interesting; “lively” is quite likely an understatement for the sort of debate their findings should inspire.
My oped in today’s Financial Times makes a case for a radical approach to solving America’s jobs problem—upgrading low wage service jobs. Here’s a longer, original version of that piece, including the critical chart (immediately below) compiled by my colleagues at the Martin Prosperity Institute. The chart tracks the rise and fall of four broad classes of work – agricultural work (farm), industrial work (manuf), knowledge-based and creative work (CC), and routine low-wage service work (LWS) – from 1800 through 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxer Manny Pacquiao and baseball star Alex Rodriguez top the list of the world’s highest paid athletes, according to new data compiled by ESPN.
ESPN tracked annual salaries—the base pay the players received for their most recent season or calendar year (endorsements and other sources of income were excluded) across 182 nations and 17 sports, from baseball and basketball to badminton and cricket. Salary data was collected from “multiple sources, including leagues, agents, consulates, embassies, sports federations, cultural centers and the U.N.”
Wake up America: It’s not football, baseball, basketball, or even NASCAR that accounts for the lion’s share of sports superstars: 114 of the 184 best-paid athletes in the world play soccer—almost seven times more than the next runner up (basketball, with 18 uber-rich players). For the rest, there are 12 baseball players, six auto-racers, five golfers, five football players, four cricketeers, three boxers, and three track and field contestants. Rugby and tennis each contribute two competitors and there is one representative each from badminton, cycling, motorcycle racing, sumo wrestling, and yachting. Read the rest of this entry »
The map above, from Ford via greenautoblog.com, shows the 25 American cities that are the most ready for electric vehicles (EVs).
Denmark, Sweden and Canada lead the world in high-well being – the percent of people who say they are “thriving” in life, according to a newly released survey by the Gallup Organization. The U.S. ranked 12th, behind Panama and Venezuela. Nineteen countries registered high rates of well-being, with more than half of their populations reporting that they are thriving in their day to day lives.
Whether they see immigration as a good thing or a scourge, Americans like to think of their country as an immigrant-friendly place, with borders that are among the most open in the world.
But that’s not the case, according to a new comprehensive measure developed by the British Council and the Brussels-based Migration Policy Group. The Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) rates the EU nations’ (plus Norway, Switzerland, Canada, and the U.S.—31 countries in all) efforts to integrate immigrants according to 148 policy indicators, which range from opportunities for education and political participation to levels of protection against discrimination, from prospects for reuniting with family to the likelihood of achieving permanent residence status and citizenship.
From the usual suspects in the Tea Party to the newly populist billionaire Donald Trump, Americans have been registering their frustration with the federal government. But it isn’t just government that has used up their patience. According to new polling data from the Gallup Organization, Americans are suffering a crisis of confidence with most big political, financial, business, labor and government institutions (see chart below).
Richard’s new article, “The creative class, post industrialism and the happiness of nations” written with Charlotta Mellander and Jason Rentfrow has recently been published by the Cambridge Journal on Regions, Economy and Society. Below is the abstract.
“Our research examines the role of post-industrial structures and values on happiness across the nations of the world. We argue that these structures and values shape happiness in ways that go beyond the previously examined effects of income. Our analysis explores whether income has different effects on countries at different stages of economic development. Our results indicate that post-industrial structures and values have a stronger effect on happiness in higher income countries, where the standard of living has surpassed a certain level. Income, on the other hand, has a stronger impact on happiness in low-income countries.”
Read the full article here