Blogs

The second part in the series on East St. Louis gives views of downtown today, shows how its history can be seen in the city, and explains why the city could still be a good place for new development.  read more »

Democratic lawmakers from California recently took a break in the midst of “intense state budget negotiations” to travel up to a wine-country lodge complete with gourmet food, rooms, and cocktails with a trio of interests footing the $14,000 bill.  read more »

Over the past year, transit ridership has risen and that is a good thing. At the same time, driving has declined, due to both higher gasoline prices and the economic downturn. Some analysts have implied that people are giving up driving and using transit instead. An analysis of just released transit and urban roadway usage indicates no such thing. During the fourth quarter, the transit increase from a year earlier represented just 0.7 percent of the driving decline. This is even lower than the 2 to 3 percent figures registered in the first through third quarters.  read more »

A reader forwarded along this video of a bustling recent weekend at La Gran Plaza, a shopping center serving the Latino market in Fort Worth, TX. Just a few years ago, La Gran Plaza was a failing conventional shopping center before developers purchased it and completely redesigned and repurposed the mall to cater to Latinos. Partly because it serves a more insular, cash based clientele and largely because of brilliant design and programming choices, this mall seems to be thriving during a very tough period for retailers.  read more »

The days of the nu-cu-ler presidency may be over, but nuclear energy continues to be a hot-button issue, even if pronunciation isn’t the problem.

As it stands, President Obama plans to “slash the budgets of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the national nuclear waste facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada,” reports eco-watcher Paul Taylor.  read more »

In a potentially ominous development, Television New Zealand reports that the Obama government has postponed free trade agreement discussions under the proposed Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (P4) with New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei and Chile. Along with the United States, Australia, Peru and Vietnam were to have been involved in the expanded free trade area. It is reported that the postponement is related to an assessment of trade policy by the Obama administration.  read more »

Imagine the following scenario. John, Paul, Ringo and George are the only members of a society and each has amassed a pile of currency over his lifetime. John and Paul each have 100 utils, Ringo has 300 utils and George has 500 utils. All told, the size of the entire system is 1000 utils.  read more »

I hate to say “I told you so” but… I told you so. The holders of the credit default swaps (CDS) have more to gain from the failure of the borrower than from accepting payments.  read more »

Since October 2008 I’ve been writing here about problems in mortgage backed securities (MBS). There is more evidence surfacing in bankruptcy courts that the paperwork for the underlying mortgages wasn’t provided correctly for the new bond holders, leading to delayed or denied foreclosure proceedings.  read more »

How far can the totals go? Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before the Senate Budget Committee on March 3, 2009. He believes that the markets will be “quite able” to absorb the debt issued by the US government over the next couple of years to cover all the bailout and stimulus payments  read more »