For the Record: New Home Sales Way Down

August 25, 2010 Leave a comment

Nothing much to add to this.  It’s hard to be an optimistic right now.

Sales of newly built homes dropped to their lowest level since the government started tracking the numbers more than four decades ago, with demand for home purchases down in all four regions of the country.

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that new homes sold in July at an annual rate of 276,000, down 12.4 percent from June and down 32.4 percent compared with the same time last year.

via New home sales hit lowest level.

Filed under Economy

Got Your Property Tax Bill from Miami-Dade and Coral Gables?

August 25, 2010 Leave a comment

The so-called property tax bill (“Notice of Proposed Property Taxes and Proposed or Adopted Non-Ad Valorem Assessments” Miami-Dade County Taxing Authorities) shows that your tax bill may go up by 9.3%.

If you live in Coral Gables, 24% of the increase is from the City of Coral Gables, 37% is from Miami-Dade County, 21% is from the school district, and 14% is from voter-approved debt payments, and the balance in minor items.

These are huge increases in property taxes given that the inflation rate is around 1% or less.  One may wonder if governments can be so insensitive about the consequences of such big increases.

Filed under Coral Gables

Politics as Marketing and Little Substance

August 25, 2010 Leave a comment

The thought of “politics as marketing and little substance” applies to all candidates and parties.  This is a description of modern democracy as practiced across the US, where candidates are branded and government and special interests continue unabated by the process.

In the end, though, Scott’s campaign said he was winning because he successfully branded himself as the “jobs” candidate — the man whose campaign had the slogan “Let’s Get to Work.” They say that message will resonate in the general election just as it did Tuesday night in the primary.

via Rick Scott to face Alex Sink after shocking GOP establishment – Political Currents – MiamiHerald.com.

Filed under Florida, Politics

Impact of the Economic Stimulus Program

August 24, 2010 Leave a comment

The economic stimulus program (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009–ARRA) is estimated to have the following nontrivial impacts by the independent CBO.  Thus it should have been much larger and not smaller, as some have suggested.

…CBO [Congressional Budget Office] estimates that in the second quarter of calendar year 2010, ARRA’s policies:

Raised the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent,

Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points,

Increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million, and

Increased the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by 2.0 million to 4.8 million compared with what those amounts would have been otherwise. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.)

via Director’s Blog » Blog Archive » Estimated Impact of the Stimulus Package on Employment and Economic Output.

Filed under Coral Gables

← Older posts

Newer posts →