Economics

In Netflix’s must-see new series, Maid, Alex (Margaret Qualley) flees a violent boyfriend with her two-year-old in tow, only to discover the gordian knot of being an impoverished, unhoused, single mom. Affordable child care is at the knot’s center. Alex must have a pay stub to qualify for subsidized housing, but first she must have child care to earn that paycheck. While she scrubs wealthy people’s floors, Alex depends on babysitting from her mentally unstable mother (played by Qualley’s real-life mom, Andie McDowell).  read more »

When Matt Crisp rang the bell a couple of weeks ago opening trading on the New York Stock Exchange because his St. Louis-based company, Benson Hill, had just completed an initial public offering, it ranked as a happy but unfortunately uncommon occurrence.  read more »

I spend entirely too much time listening to experts in business, government, and academia explain the economy in general and the property market in particular. Looking back, very few people who are purported to know how the economy works, based on empirical evidence, have successfully predicted the wild spikes and crashes over the years.  read more »

There is an expectation in some quarters that densification of existing urban areas will lead to improved housing affordability. This argument is used to justify densification policies around the world.  read more »

Cambria and Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafes are among smaller companies in Flyover Country that have joined some of our largest corporate citizens, including Walmart and Target, in recognizing a truth that is becoming increasingly important to our economy: The more that legal immigrants can be assimilated by learning English, the more valuable they will be as employees – and the more fulfilled as Americans.  read more »

For a generation, the Long Beach and Los Angeles harbors in California handled more than 40 percent of all container cargo headed into the US and epitomized the power of a globalizing economy.  read more »

Joe Biden may present himself as a ‘working-class hero’, a claim reiterated recently in the leftist American Prospect, but increasingly America’s workers are showing signs not of common cause but disquiet.  read more »

Back in 2008 was I one of the first people to start talking about how corporate headquarters were moving back to the global city in the form of the “executive headquarters.” An executive headquarters is one with just the top executives in the firm - from a handful of people up through 500 or so.  read more »

The pandemic has cut a swath through our sense of normalcy, but as has been the case throughout history, a disastrous plague also brings opportunities to reshape and even improve society. COVID-19 provides the threat of greater economic concentration, but also a unique chance to recast our geography, expand the realm of the middle class, boost social equity, and develop better ways to create sustainable communities.  read more »

Out on the dusty prairie west of Houston, the construction crews have been busy. Gone are the rice fields, cattle ranches and pine forests that once dominated this part of the South. In their place sit new homes and communities. But they are not an eyesore; the homes are affordable and close to attractive town centres, large parks and lakes. These are communities rooted in the individual, the family and a belief in self-governance.  read more »