Blogs

There are many factors and issues that go into winning a political campaign, and the ones swirling about the Texas Republican Primary were numerous. Incumbent governor Rick Perry cruised to an easy victory over sitting U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and activist Debra Medina on Tuesday to set up a general election showdown with former Houston mayor Bill White, a Democrat.  read more »

Thursday a man flew an airplane into the Austin, Texas, IRS Building. The Left claimed he was a “Tea bagger,” their vulgar term for Tea Partiers, apparently because he was anti-government. The Right claimed he was a whacky leftist, apparently because he was critical of Bush. A Muslim group claimed he was a terrorist, apparently because he wasn’t a Muslim.

They all miss the point, and quite frankly, the attempt to make political points out of personal tragedy is pretty disgusting.  read more »

President Obama has announced a special program of assistance for home owners in the five states that have been hit hardest by the housing crisis. The proposed program is targeted at California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada and Michigan, where house price declines are more than 20% from the peak of the bubble.  read more »

The Virginian Pilot reports that the cost of the Hampton Roads (Virginia Beach-Norfolk metropolitan area) “Tide” light rail line has now escalated to nearly $340 million. This is up nearly one-half from the estimates made when the project was approved by the Federal Transit Administration. According to federal documentation, the line will carry 7,100 daily passengers in 2030.  read more »

Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK), and owner and investor of some very large financial firms including insurance companies, is paying favors backward and forward among the political appointees and politicians that have helped him through the financial crisis. This week, he brought Treasury Secretary Henry “Hank” Paulson to Omaha recently to help tout Paulson’s new book.  read more »

Just in time for the winter Olympics, The Economist has rated Vancouver as the world’s most livable city. The Economist rates cities (presumably metropolitan areas or urban areas) “over 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.” There is no doubt that Vancouver is in a setting that is among the most attractive in the world.  read more »

While Houston is not a Silicon Valley, or even an Austin, it has come a long way in cultivating a small but vibrant entrepreneurial scene in the last decade. But there's always room for improvement, and we might be able to learn some lessons from Israel, of all places. First, there is this conclusion from an Economist article on the mostly-sad story of government strategies for cultivating entrepreneurship:  read more »

Australia’s Treasurer Wayne Swan called for reducing restrictions on building houses, to improve housing affordability.  read more »

Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, and Henry “Hank” Paulson, former Treasury Secretary, were guests of honor at the annual meeting of the Omaha Chamber of Commerce this week.  read more »

Darwin, capital of Australia’s Northern Territory is located next to the sea, across from the Indonesian archipelago. Darwin is also located next to a sea of developable land in one of the world’s least developed nations. Only 0.3% of Australia’s land is developed, approximately 1/10th the rate of the United States or Canada (in the agricultural belt) and even less compared to European nations.  read more »