Blogs

New weekly unemployment insurance claims continue to moderate, but remain at levels unseen before the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition, new claims filed since March 1st are now above 20 percent of pre-outbreak employment in some states.  read more »

New weekly unemployment insurance claims have come down slightly from last week's record-setting levels. Looking at the unemployment insurance data and data on confirmed COVID-19 cases, Louisiana is being severely impacted from both a health and economic perspective.  read more »

More than 100 years ago, a worldwide pandemic moved from China to the entire Western World through in-sourced low wage labor, according to the research of one historian. As the Allies fought WWI, farmers were going to war, and as Napoleon said, “An army marches on its stomach.”  read more »

Pandemics have always been the enemy of dense, urban life. Cities, where people live in close quarters and mix with people from other places, are ideal breeding grounds for contagions. So far, by contrast, there have been comparatively few coronavirus infections in the vast middle of the United States, particularly in the rural reaches.  read more »

Various internet sites are now providing up to date information on the coronavirus at the international level. Two sources are described below:  read more »

Referring to HS2, the under-construction high speed rail line from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “in a hole the size of HS2, the only thing to do is keep digging." He was replying to Brayton Brent, a 10-year old interviewer on a Skynews kid’s program.

HS2 is under review for possible cancellation and the current thinking is that the Johnson government will decide to go ahead with the project.  read more »

A January 5, 2020 Wall Street Journal editorial examines Oregon’s housing affordability crisis. The editorial, “The Housing Shortage in Profile: Construction in Oregon dropped to the lowest level since World War II” not only describes the immediate consequences of Oregon’s recently enacted land use regulations but also provides the four decade context that has done so much damage to its middle-class.  read more »

The Memphis Commercial Appeal has reported that Google will open its first US operations center in the northeast Mississippi. This area includes the suburbs and exurbs of the Memphis, TN-MS-AR metropolitan area.  read more »

Choose Energy tracks energy rates by state. Find your state on the interactive map below to see the latest average rate, its rank among other states and the percentage change from the previous month. Learn more at ChooseEnergy.com.  read more »

A new study released by WPC, authored by national transportation expert and urban policy analyst Wendell Cox, puts Seattle transit hype into perspective.

Cox evaluated population, employment, and commute trip data for the Puget Sound and found that automobiles are used by more than two-thirds of commuters to get to work throughout the Puget Sound.  read more »