Tag: Economics

We are lucky to live in a state that is urban and urbane, but still celebrates the rural traditions that make Texas what it is.
In this issue of Fiscal Notes, you will learn that hunting is big bucks to the state’s economy – $2.2 billion annually. And deer are the most popular quarry. But to me, deer hunting has a more personal connection.

When I was a young girl, Thanksgiving meant going to my grandparents’ East Texas farm near Magnolia. Early on Thanksgiving morning, the men would go hunting. Invariably, my grandfather would return with a deer, dressed and freezer-bound. To my child’s mind, deer hunting and the holiday were synonymous. I thought families everywhere were hunting!

I know better now. But it’s hard to live in Texas and not be touched by hunting. It is not just a sport for rural Texans. Six in 10 hunters live in urban areas. Eight percent are women. I didn’t grow up to be a hunter. I prefer to bait a hook and try my luck. But Texas is a better place because of our great outdoors and the hunting it affords.

Enjoy this issue and please share with others.
Delane Caesar
Director
Public Outreach & Strategies

Read Fiscal Notes.

New York Times Book Review, Liaquat Ahamed

The build-up of dollars abroad transformed the United States into a gigantic bank, and like any bank, it was vulnerable to a run.

reports Richard Sandomir in the September 5, 2009, edition of the New York Times.  NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell refuses to back down from his position of not waiving the blackout policy for the people of Detroit where the unemployment rate approaches 30%.  Goodell is quoted as saying that the 36-year-old blackout policy has been very good for the game, for the fans, and for the teams.

But if enough people can’t afford the tickets, why penalize a team’s hometown fan base with the blackout hammer — making them drive 75 miles outside the market or searching for a pirated TV or Internet signal to catch the game?

Journalist Gillian Tett warned about the problems in the financial industry long before many of her colleagues. In her new book, Fool’s Gold, Tett examines the role J.P. Morgan played in creating and marketing risky and complex financial products.  Interestingly, in her interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, Tett responded that her training as an anthropologist allowed her observe what the financial industry was not talking about.  This is how she spotted the problems in the derivatives market.  Listen to the interview here.

John Kozy, a frequent contributor to Global Research,  is a retired professor of philosophy and logic who blogs on social, political, and economic issues. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he spent 20 years as a university professor and another 20 years working as a writer. He has published a textbook in formal logic commercially, in academic journals and a small number of commercial magazines, and has written a number of guest editorials for newspapers. His on-line pieces can be found on http://www.jkozy.com/ and he can be emailed from that site’s homepage.  His essay on bankers,   A Banker’s Economy, is disturbing in that it was published in August 2008, before most of the  worst news about our banks had been disclosed.

Biographical information from Global Research.

 

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-15-2009/elizabeth-warren-pt–1