Category Archives: economic news

economic news, local news

Data centers deserve close look

Well … the swirling controversy over data centers has entered my North Texas city of Princeton, where the city council is laying the groundwork to begin a series of regulatory measures to ensure the protection of the commnity.

It was a matter of time before we got caught up in the debate that has swallowed up a lot of cities’ attention.

Data centers are those projects that manufacture chips and other electronic power devices. I have read about how they demand lots of energy to produce and lots — and even more — water. I’m still unclear about the need for water, but I do know that this region of Texas is beginning to discuss openly the need to protect its source of fresh water to accommodate the population explosion that is still underway.

I live in a city that continues to grow in giant leaps. Princeton is now home to more than 40,000 people. That number is going to keep growing for the foreseeable future. Princeton’s council met this week in a marathon session; it took no action on any data center proposal, but it did agree to begin applying new rules to welcoming these projects here.

According to the Princeton Herald, the city decided to “move forward with non-zoning amendments and debated how quickly the city could begin the public hearing process.”

The centers have created concerns about noise pollution, visual impact, construction traffic, utlity demands and limited job creation.

The idea of looking strategically ahead seems to be new to Princeton, which didn’t seem to think too much about community impact when it allowed residential and apartment construction to run ahead of the city’s ability to provide service to the new residents. The city imposed a months-long moratorium on new residential development with the hope of allowing infrastructure to catch up.

I am glad to see the city looking ahead to study the impact of data centers. What I’ve read is that the produce a mixed-up of positive and negative impacts. Let’s keep our eyes and ears wide open as we move ahead.

economic news

Waiting for the next fiscal explosion

Kevin Warsh has been approved as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Just like his predecessor, Jerome Powell, Warsh takes office with the highest praise possible from the president who nominated him. Donald Trump calls Warsh the brightest economic mind on the planet. Compared him, rhetorically, to the day they put pockets on shirts. He’s that good, according to the president.

Funny, huh? Trump kinda said the same thing about Powell when he got the job as Fed chair. Then Powell pushed back a bit on Trump’s insistence that he cut interest rates. Powell was concerned about whether such a move would spark an inflation outburst. Trump’s response was to denigrate Powell’s knowledge of fiscal matters.

OK. So … the new Fed chair has the wind at his back. I wish him well and hope — for the sake of my retirement account — he follows his fiscal instincts and makes decisions based on the facts as he considers them in the moment.

I am waiting, though, for the first time he decides something that get under POTUS’s skin. What will happen then? Will the POTUS declare that the most brilliant economist in world history has turned into the biggest chump of all time? Is the POTUS who has driven several business endeavors into bankruptcy declare he knows more about economics than the Fed chair?

Yep. He probably will. Wait for it.

economic news, Joe Biden

Trying to un-boggle my mind

My mind is in a constant state of bogglement as I watch Donald J. Trump try to blunder his way through the maelstrom he keeps creating.

I am left with a question that has no obvious answer: How does this individual look himself in the mirror and pass all this chaos, confusion and catastrophe off as someone else’s problems that he inherited upon being elected to a second term as POTUS?

The economy was rocking along under President Biden’s firm hand. Now it’s on its heels, thanks to Trump.

The nation was at peace (more or less) with the rest of the world. Then Trump goes to war with Iran.

Fuel prices were inching down under Biden. Now they’re spiraling into deep space.

Inflation was in check under Biden. Today, well … enough said about that.

And still, Trump’s delusion continues to dictate what flies forth from his yammering puss. Ah, but good news can be found if we look for it. It rests with a public that is seeing through the lies, the deception, the hypocrisy.

Donald Trump, to quote former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — and one-time Trumpkin — is committing political suicide. Christie’s advice to the rest of us? Leave the POTUS the hell alone!

business news, economic news, entertainment news, local news

Downtown doesn’t exist here

Allow me a moment to vent about something that’s been gnawing at me since just about the time I laid eyes on the city I am proud to call home.

I have lived in Princeton, Texas, for seven years. My wife and I found a lovely, modest home in a newly built subdivision just south of U.S. 380.

We took to life in this Dallas suburban community right away … except for one key element that was missing. Princeton does not have any sort of downtown business, finance or entertainment district. I know where it should be, near the Veterans Park near Second Avenue. But it ain’t there, man.

The city has become the fastest-growing city in America, a label that I love advertising to people I meet. Many of the Dallas-Fort Worth residents know it already. I tell folks we’ve exploded from fewer than 10,000 residents to something north of 40,000 in just the past 15 years. The growth isn’t letting up, not even a little bit.

It’s happening, though, despite the absence of a downtown district that could serve as a magnet for those seeking a place to do business, to shop for goods and gifts, or to enjoy a quality meal with friends and family.

I spoke to Derek Borg, who at the time of our arrival in Princeton served as city manager. He told me of some conceptual plans that the city had approved and assured me downtown development would occur. He offered no timetable, no specific notion of what downtown would include. All he spoke about, as I recall it, was of some vague notion that the City Council had approved. Borg is now gone from City Hall and all the reporting I have read about the city’s future has made next to zero mention of downtown development.

I have noted already on this blog that Princeton is sprouting into a city with no personality, no identity. The place to establish such a trait must be in its downtown district. State demographers tell us the city will be home eventually to more than 100,000 people. Where in the world are they going to go to enjoy city life in this one-time burg?

We aren’t a burg any longer. I am just one resident in a community that needs to build an identity on which it can attract others to come here to enjoy themselves, or just to do business.

Downtown Princeton needs to be conceived and then given a set time for birth and then growth.

economic news

Shut the f*** up about tariffs, Donald

If Donald J. Trump gave a rat’s righteous red-ass damn about ordinary folks — such as, oh, me for example — he would stop yammering about threatening to impose tariffs on countries to get what he wants.

He did so again overnight, threatening yet again to launch a worldwide trade war over EU and NATO opposition to his desire to annex Greenland. I am watching my retirement income fly out the window today as the markets react to Trump’s bellowing, bluster and bloviating over tariffs.

You see, Trump doesn’t give a sh** about those of us who have worked hard, played by the rules, invested money in markets and hope to have it available to enjoy in our retirement years.

Just shut the hell up about tariffs, you delusional piece of mule dookey.

economic news

Fed boss becomes latest Trump target

Jerome Powell is the new man of the hour, designated victim in Donald Trump’s campaign against those who disagree with him on matters that go way over the pointed head of the president of the United States.

Powell is the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, the nation’s central bank that is charged with making fiscal policy based solely on economic evidence and trends. The Justice Department issued subpoenas this week to Powell about remarks he made during testimony before the Senate Banking Committee … except the subpoenas have nothing to do with Powell’s testimony.

Oh, no. They have everything to do with Trump wanting the Fed to reduce interest rates. Powell is pushing back, to which I say, “You go, Mr. Chairman!”

Powell insists that the Fed remain independent and free from political pressure. The Fed was created to be immune from the pressure of the moment. It must act on trends it identifies and helps the board of governors decide when or if to adjust interest rates … up or down!

Trump believes it’s time to reduce interest rates. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Jerome Powell is the fiscal expert here, not Trump, who is nothing more than a tinhorn politician seeking to score points with the hope of staving off what looks like an oncoming wipeout in the midterm election later this year.

Some experienced political hands are suggesting that Trump compiling impeachable offenses at a breathtaking rate. I believe abuse of presidential power fits nicely into what Trump is trying to do with Jerome Powell.

economic news, military news, national news

Trump: RINO in chief

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, the American Republican Party stood for principles the party deemed to be hard and fast … not to be trifled with.

Republicans opposed adding to the national debt. They opposed deficit spending each year on the federal budget. The GOP stood firm against “nation-building” wars overseas. Republicans stood with Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in passing the Voting Rights and Civil Rights acts of 1964 and 1965. The GOP saw the Soviet Union as a national enemy and committed to the destruction of the tyranny preached in the Kremlin.

Hmmm. Those days are gone. Likely forever. Never to be seen again.

Donald Trump is now what I call the Republican In Name Only in chief. He is leading a party that bears no resemblance to the party of Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon.

I am trying to imagine President Reagan allowing the national debt to balloon to trillions of dollars. Or President Lincoln allowing the party to embrace white supremacists. Or President Nixon defending the USSR’s direct descendants, Russia, in disputes involving U.S. intelligence findings.

What we have now in charge in D.C., ladies and gents, is a party that has betrayed all those core values. It’s not just the president. He has GOP members of Congress, who are standing with him.

They all — not just Donald Trump — deserve our everlasting condemnation for the direction they have taken this great country.

economic news

Go big or go home … ya think?

Perhaps you have heard it said that one should “go big or go home,” correct?

Well, gang, the Texas Department of Transportation has taken going big to a whole new level. It is pondering construction of a new interstate highway that would stretch — and get hold of yourself — from Amarillo to Port Arthur. All in the same state! That would be Texas.

The interstate would track the course already traveled by U.S.Highway 287.

I will stipulate that there is no way on this good Earth that I will live to see this project completed. I don’t know that TxDOT even has a strategic completion date in mind. I also must stipulate that I cannot quite wrap my arms around the scope of this project.

Expensive? Yeah … it is. TxDOT is projecting 670-mile-long project to cost something exceeding $24 billion. It would employ 40,000 people to work on it. I venture to suggest that a huge portion of the cost would be in the purhase of private land. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution stipulates that the government must provide “just compensation” to property owners who have to surrender their land to the government. Given that more than 90% of all land in Texas is under private ownership, TxDOT would have to fork over a ton of dough to complete that transition from private property to land converted for “public use.”

To be candid, this scope of this idea — and that’s all it is! — is too much for my feeble noggin to ponder. It took TxDOT, for example, more than two years to complete an Interstate 40 expansion just through Amarillo. U.S. 287 begins just east of the Panhandle city and courses through many cities and towns on its way south and east through the Metroplex and into Deep East Texas. The idea of expanding a four-lane highway into a limited-access freeway through towns such as Chillicothe, Vernon, Claude or Clarendon simply blows my mind. There are more developed communities, such as Decatur and Fort Worth that lie in the path of this enormous project. Then you find yourself in Beaumont, the Mid-County area of Jefferson County until you end up in Port Arthur.

It is way too early to pass any form judgment on this project. I am not even sure TxDOT will pursue it. The highway agency will have to determine if the expense and the enormous disruption will be worth the effort.

When will that occur and what in the world will Texas even look like when they take down the last construction cones?

economic news, local news

Signs portend driving misery

Driving south along Beauchamp Boulevard in Princeton, Texas, a day or so ago, a couple of orange signs jumped out at me as I entered the intersection with US Highway 380.

One sign had an arrow pointing west along 380 that said, “Road Work 2 miles.” The other sign had an arrow pointed east on 380 that said, “Road Work 6 miles.”

That’s when it hit me. The fun I have known would come to those of us who live in the nation’s fastest-growing city is about to commence. Actually, it won’t be fun. It’s going to be a headache, more than likely.

The Texas Department of Transportation is going to widen 380 from four lanes to six lanes. However, to do that I was told by a former Princeton city manager that TxDOT had to narrow the right-of-way from four lanes to two lanes … one lane in each direction. Thus, the “fun” begins for anyone needing to get anywhere along 380.

All of this appears to be the prelim to work on a freeway bypass around Princeton that TxDOT has been pondering since before my bride and I moved here six years ago.

This is the price of progress. I am able to pay it. Not with any great enthusiasm. But I’ll get through it. The alternative? There isn’t any!

To which I only could mutter: Aaaack!

This is one of the costs I am paying by living in a community that is undergoing a growth explosion. It’s no “spurt.” Or any other term that suggests a smallish growth pattern.

economic news

What now, Mr. POTUS, with latest job figures?

Donald J. Trump went utterly ape-dookey over Bureau of Labor Stats figures a month ago that showed the U.S. added 77,000 jobs in July. What did he do? He fired the head of the BLS.

He said the former bean counter couldn’t be trusted to produce good numbers. So he brought in his own guy. What happened in August? The non-farm job payrolls added just 22,000 jobs during the month.

The mercurial charlatan who sits in the Oval Office might offer an excuse for the paltry numbers. Maybe he’ll let this latest guy go and blame him for turning on the guy who gave him a cushy job in DC.

Whatever, the drama just won’t end. It is boring me to tears.