Economy
From GoLocalWorcester. Mass. residents spent close to $1 billion last year at New England casinos, continuing in a trend of increased spending over the past several years that beat out every other state in the area. This year was the first time that the Bay State outspent its neighbors, totaling a cool $909 million on…
President Obama’s teleprompter style has been the subject of substantial (often mocking) critical commentary, and with some justification, as this nearly parodic 2010 video from a Virginia classroom proves: Given recent political events, one can sympathize with the desire of public officials to avoid extemporaneous speech. In a world in which one’s every public utterance…
About a month ago, I presented a comparison of estimates for the nation’s public-sector pension problem. While none of the results were encouraging, there was huge variation in the degree of frightfulness — the difference mainly being in the way in which they calculate liabilities. One of the economists, Andrew Biggs, of the American Enterprise…
I’ve been following taxpayer migration data for years, but in a haphazard way. A new study that I’ve coauthored for the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity finally gave me the opportunity to review all fifteen years of available data from the IRS. The picture — from the 2003 beginning of what can only be…
Remember when the local PolitiFact took the Ocean State Policy Research Institute (OSPRI) to task for claiming that the estate tax was driving Rhode Islanders out, especially down to America’s retirement peninsula? One statement from that article has stuck with me, over the year and a half since: One expert was Kail Padquitt, staff economist…
Yesterday we learned that the economy created 80,000 jobs and was at 8.2%, which President Obama called “a step in the right direction”. Back in 2004, coming out of a recession, the economy created 310,000 new jobs and unemployment was at 5.6%. But that wasn’t good enough–wasn’t the real story–for a little-known state legislator running…
So, the town of Barrington is well on its way to banning the use of plastic shopping bags among the commercial establishments within its borders: … the town conservation commission has already voted to ban the use of plastic grocery bags at retail stores. The proposal now goes before the Town Council for review. If…
One meme that some are attempting to make take hold (including the President; “the public sector isn’t fine”) is that the high unemployment we’re seeing is in large part because of the loss of public-sector jobs and especially at the local level:See that little dip in public sector employment? That right there’s you’re problem. But,…
One thing has stuck out to me recently in a couple articles I’ve read. One article is a couple years old and the other appeared just this past weekend and I think they both make logical mistakes. They both talk about getting Rhode Islanders back to work, yet both are also in fields that I…
For those who are seemingly dancing on the grave of 38 Studios already, keep in mind the reasons for things like the EDC’s $75M loan guaranty. I’m hearing and seeing various people crowing with their “I told you so” and explaining that the state should not be in the business of picking winners and losers.…
