Rick Perry vs World

31 March 2010

Kotkin on Texas cities

Joel Kotkin on the strength of Texas' urban areas.

... Americans continue to vote with their feet for the adopted hometown of widely disdained former President George W. Bush. According to the most recent Census estimates, the Dallas and Ft. Worth, Texas, region added 146,000 people between 2008 and 2009--the most of any region in the country--a healthy 2.3% increase.

Other Texas cities also did well. Longtime rival Houston sat in second, with an additional 140,000 residents. Smaller Austin added 50,000--representing a remarkable 3% growth--while San Antonio grew by some 41,000 people.

In contrast, most blue state mega cities--with the exception of Washington, D.C.--grew much more slowly. The New York City region's rate of growth was just one-fifth that of Dallas or Houston, while Los Angeles barely reached one-third the level of the Texas cities.

This leads me to believe that the most dynamic future for America urbanism--and I believe there is one--lies in Texas' growing urban centers.

You might also note a Tory Gattis mention in there.

Posted by Evan @ 03/31/10 07:16 PM | Comments (0)

Shun your friends, woo your enemies in Honduras

O'Grady:

Washington's bullying [in Honduras] is two-pronged. First is a maniacal determination to punish those involved in removing Mr. Zelaya. Second is an attempt to force Honduras to allow Mr. Zelaya, who now lives in the Dominican Republic, to return without facing any repercussions for the illegal actions that provoked his removal. Both goals are damaging the bilateral relationship, polarizing the nation and raising the risk of a resurgence of political violence.

The U.S., as represented by Mr. Llorens, has been at the center of the Zelaya crisis all along. People familiar with events leading up to Mr. Zelaya's arrest on June 28 say that had the U.S. ambassador not worked behind the scenes to block a congressional vote to remove the president a few days earlier, the dramatic deportation would never have happened.

Sigh. Elections have consequences. It would be nice if we didn't punish our neighbors who want to be our friends.

Posted by Evan @ 03/31/10 07:12 PM | Comments (0)

Why I don't like Romney

Politico's story on Mitt Romney's Iowa dilemma:

Not only did Romney campaign aggressively here the last time around, but he held up his all-out effort in a bid to distinguish himself from those rivals who downplayed or altogether bypassed Iowa.

"I believe in the Iowa process," Romney said in a 2007 appearance on "Iowa Press," the Hawkeye State's version of "Meet the Press." "I think that people who are planning on running for president should really subject themselves to the process of getting known by voters in Iowa."

Now, though, Romney isn't willing to make any commitments to compete in the state again.

There's a long history of him doing this. But apparently some people don't care, because he just sounds so sincere when he says something.

Posted by Evan @ 03/31/10 07:07 PM | Comments (0)

Alyssa Katz writes in Slate "How Texas avoided the worst of the real estate meltdown."

A cash-out refinance is a mortgage taken out for a higher balance than the one on an existing loan, net of fees. Across the nation, cash-outs became ubiquitous during the mortgage boom, as skyrocketing house prices made it possible for homeowners, even those with bad credit, to use their home equity like an ATM. But not in Texas. There, cash-outs and home-equity loans can't total more than 80 percent of a home's appraised value. There's a 12-day cooling-off period after an application, during which the borrower can pull out. And when a borrower refinances a mortgage, it's illegal to get even $1 back. Texas really means it: All these protections, and more, are in the state constitution. The Texas restrictions on mortgage borrowing date back to the first days of statehood in 1845, when the constitution banned home loans entirely.

...the fact that fewer Texans took cash out of their home equity than did borrowers in any other state -- and took out less when they did. The more prevalent cash-out refinances are in a state, the more likely it is that mortgage borrowers there will run into trouble. For every 1 percentage point increase in its share of subprime mortgages that are cash-out refinances, the likelihood of foreclosure in that state goes up by one-third of a percent.

Until 1998, Texans couldn't take out home-equity loans at all. The roots of this fierce resistance to debt's temptations go deep in Texas history. Seven years before the republic joined the union in 1845, a bank panic and resulting foreclosures lost many homesteaders their property.

I cherry-picked these three paragraphs*, but you should go read the whole thing. I'm no expert on the subject, but Katz made a pretty good case.

*Generally speaking, I think too many bloggers abuse the fair use exception to copyright. From the beginning, I've generally tried to keep my excerpting low.

Posted by Evan @ 03/31/10 06:47 PM | Comments (0)

Kay to serve the rest of her Senate term

That's what everyone is reporting, and as I predicted last night.

Posted by Evan @ 03/31/10 09:55 AM | Comments (0)

30 March 2010

Kay Bailey Hutchison press conference: serve out her term?

Kay Bailey Hutchison has announced a press conference 10am tomorrow with the subject to be her political future. John Cornyn and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will accompany her.

Rumor is that she will serve out her term, but we will see.

Posted by Evan @ 03/30/10 10:39 PM | Comments (0)

27 March 2010

Word of wisdom from Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker:

Capitalism has produced the highest standard of living in history, and yet markets are hard to appreciate? Mr. Becker explains: "People tend to impute good motives to government. And if you assume that government officials are well meaning, then you also tend to assume that government officials always act on behalf of the greater good. People understand that entrepreneurs and investors by contrast just try to make money, not act on behalf of the greater good. And they have trouble seeing how this pursuit of profits can lift the general standard of living. The idea is too counterintuitive. So we're always up against a kind of in-built suspicion of markets. There's always a temptation to believe that markets succeed by looting the unfortunate."

Posted by Evan @ 03/27/10 06:39 PM | Comments (0)

26 March 2010

Gramm on ObamaCare

Phil Gramm op-ed in WSJ on ObamaCare.

For every dollar's worth of health care that Americans received last year, they paid a dime and somebody else paid 90 cents. If you bought food the way you buy health care—where 90% of everything you put in your basket was paid for by your grocery insurance policy—you would eat differently and so would your dog. We have the best health-care system in the world, but as rich as America is we can't afford it.

Any real debate about health-care reform has to be centered on solving the problem of cost. Ultimately, there are only two ways of doing it. The first approach is to have government control costs through some form of rationing. The alternative is to empower families to make their own health-care decisions in a system where costs matter. The fundamental question is about who is going to do the controlling: the family or the government.

Posted by Evan @ 03/26/10 01:44 PM | Comments (0)

Pounder joining Rubio campaign

Kay Bailey Hutchison flak Joe Pounder is joining the Marco Rubio campaign.

Posted by Evan @ 03/26/10 01:14 PM | Comments (0)

They don't even pretend to endorse Republicans in high-profile races anymore

The Houston Chronicle headlines its op-ed reaction to health care regulation's passage:

Wrong side of history: Unanimous opposition to health care reform could haunt GOP

You have to love an op-ed board in a right-leaning region who automatically assumes that more government is the right side of history, even when the bill is unpopular in the country at large.

I've never quite figured out why a corporation would let its brands (in declining industries!) be run by people who have a habit of chasing away potential customers.

Posted by Evan @ 03/26/10 12:22 PM | Comments (2)

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