Some of you may remember Steven Bradbury, the Australian short-track speed skater, in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The unlikely finalist – he’d snuck through the semi-final after the defending champion fell three bends from the end and two other rivals collided – found himself up against the best of the sport […]
The state of New York is an economic disaster area. New York is ranked #50 in the Economic Freedom of North America. New York is ranked #48 in the State Business Tax Climate Index. New York is ranked #50 in the Freedom in the 50 States. New York is next-to-last in measures of inbound migration. New York is ranked #50 in the State Soft Tyranny Index. The good news is […]
Imagine a grocery store of the future, located in your average middle-class suburb, somewhere in America. On the way to picking up the children from soccer practice, a mother quickly realises she forgot to get the ingredients for that night’s chicken parmesan. Fortunately for Mom, just before making the turn to the soccer fields is […]
The late Everett Dirksen, a long-serving Minority Leader of the Republicans in the US Senate, is famously quoted as saying a billion here, a billion there, and soon we’re talking real money. That was back in 1969. At the time, a billion dollars was about one-tenth of 1% of GDP. What about today? During 2020, the […]
Despite the pandemic, restrictive government policies, and the worst economic contraction in history, US household net worth rose again in the fourth quarter to a new record. Household net worth rose to $130.155tn, up 5.6% from the previous record of $123.229tn in the third quarter, and 10.1% from $118.220tn at the end of 2019 (see […]
Who’s right about the best way to reduce child poverty? Reading through the recent intellectual proxy fight between NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof and Fox News panelist John Tamny (Property Chronicle, 22 March), I couldn’t help but recall a discussion I had with an old US-based friend of mine around last year’s presidential election. He commented […]
Although the covid pandemic has had a major impact on the Pacific Rim office markets, Real Capital Analytics reports show that considerable regional real estate investment attention has focused on the traditional office sector in recent years. Within a Pacific Rim office REIT-based portfolio, Australia has played a more prominent role than Japan, the US […]
Abandoned golf courses are ripe for redevelopment and offer ideal locations for distribution. E-commerce fulfilment does not usually trigger an image of grassy meadows and gently rolling landscapes, but there’s a growing convergence as industrial developers search for available land on which to build. Up against tight market conditions, along with increased values for land […]
This article was originally published in August 2020. There is no doubt that California is in a big fiscal hole. It relies heavily on income taxes from wealthy taxpayers making tax receipts volatile. Even before the covid crisis struck, commentators were predicting problems for the state which has some of the highest taxes in the […]
The state of Massachusetts has now entered Phase III Step 2 of a reopening, which means all sorts of amazing nonsense cobbled together by people with power who imagine that their high-end credentials grant them the intelligence to outsmart a virus. Not that many citizens of the state really believe this is true but they […]
