American City Business Journals has analyzed numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and determined the biggest job winners and job losers over the last 10 years.
Texas in particular come off looking compartively great. Dallas-Fort Worth has the second-biggest gain in jobs during the last year (among the nation’s 100 biggest markets), the fourth-most gain in the last five years, and the fifth-most in the last 10 years. (Houston finishes No. 1 on all three lists.) Of course, the picture is slightly different if you rank cities by their percentage gains in jobs, with DFW ranked 10th, 8th, and 27th looked at that way.
Only 13 of the top 100 U.S. metropolitan areas have showed a gain over the last five years. Six of them are in Texas.
Portlandia is ranked No. 52.
Why Did Police Officer Not Turn on Lights When Speeding? The police officer who struck and killed Beverly Kirk early Sunday morning was speeding, but the cruiser’s lights or sirens were not on. They should have been, because when another officer killed a 10-year-old boy in 2008 under similar circumstances, then-Chief David Kunkle made it policy that officers must turn on their lights and sirens when they are breaking traffic laws.
Dallas Economy Underperforms State Average: This story about the Dallas Fed’s report on the Texas economy is behind the paywall, but this scribd.com link should get you to the meat. The takeaway, Houston boasts the state’s strongest economy, thanks to a healthy energy market, while DFW (Dallas/ Fort Worth-Arlington) has underperformed the state average over the past five years.
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Second Best: That’s right, according to some guy at CNBC, the Super Bowl-bound Patriots have better cheerleaders than the team that introduced the sideline gimmick. What’s wrong with our ladies? Well, not allowing the cheerleaders to have their own social media accounts doesn’t help.
An annual income of $425,000, according to the NYTimes. If you’re in Fort Worth, $399,000. If you’re in Jamestown, NY, only $176,000 (somehow, I don’ t think I’d want to live in Jamestown, NY, thankyouverymuch). In Stamford, Connecticut, $908,000 (highest in the country, thanks to Wall Street).
Here’s a handy interactive map the Times provided to figure out how you place.
Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher had some scary things to say while addressing the Dallas/Fort Worth Minority Supplier Development Council today. Fisher ”has been among the most vocal critics of the central bank’s policy, dissenting this year against moves to push down long-term rates and to keep the benchmark U.S. interest rate near zero until at least mid-2013. He voted five times in 2008 in favor of tighter policy,” according to Bloomberg.
Today he spoke of a recent conversation with a European Central Bank official, who pointed out that the U.S. debt burden is even bigger than Europe’s:
“We don’t want to be in a situation like Greece. We are headed that way, if we are not careful,” Fisher said. ”We are headed in the wrong direction, and if we don’t bring it under control, we are going to have social unrest.”
Translation? Despite those slightly-maybe improving unemployment numbers today, hold on to your effin’ hat?
With Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.), Dallas Congressman Hensarling co-chaired the supercommittee, that extra-legislative Hail Mary pass that failed to connect with a receiver. Blame is, of course, flying back and forth in both directions. Several groups have come up with ways to fix the deficit — Simpson-Bowles, the Group of Six, etc. But Congress cannot. The Senate has failed to pass a budget for the last three years. The House has passed budgets which resemble nothing more than ideological talking points for Republican members running for re-election in heavily right-wing districts.
The market’s reaction was predictable. Say what you will about Italy and Greece, but their parliaments have faced the music and acted.
What’s to be done? Nothing.
Absent Congress, the automatic cuts will go into effect. The Bush tax cuts will disappear. The combined fiscal result will be a huge reduction in the deficit.
Now we get the pure enjoyment of watching both sides scramble to undo the consequences of their intransigence. It is America’s Zen moment. Inaction equals action, whether either side likes it or not. We may come to thank Jeb Hensarling after all.
Intern Jessica Melton covered this morning’s announcement from the museum.
The Museum of Nature & Science hosted a special event this morning to announce a $6 million donation from the Moody Foundation, marking the last amount needed to reach the museum’s $185-million goal.
The Perot Museum of Nature & Science is being built on a 4.7-acre at 1155 Broom St. It will now feature a Moody Family Children’s Museum and Robert and Anne Moody forum for children to come together and reflect upon what they learned in their time at the museum.
Franci Moody Dahlberg, trustee and executive director for the Moody Foundation, presented the donation and said she was “delighted” to be a part of the project.
After the donation was announced, a banner was let down saying the Perot Museum of Nature & Science: $185 million and counting.
“We didn’t really know we were going to get that ($185 million),” Forrest Hoglund says. “We’re going to build on this.”
The latter part of the sentence proved to be important as Hoglund noted the $185 million will allow the museum to be built, but to reach a world-class level they will still be seeking donations.
Federal Stimulus Money Targeting Family Homelessness Running Out: In 2008, the federal government awarded $7 million in two year grants to help stave off homelessness brought on by increased foreclosures and evictions. Now as those grants expire, homeless advocates can no longer offer the assistance, even though Tarrant County, at least, has seen a 9 percent increase in evictions this year.
Serial Rapist Targets Alumnae of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority: A serial rapist is acting out a real life horror movie script, targeting middle aged former members of the DFW chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. His four victims all belonged to said sorority, and they say the perpetrator had “personal knowledge about them.”
Michael Irvin Ejected From Celina ISD Football Game: Ivin’s son was playing for Prestonwood Christian Academy, and Irvin was playing the role of the obnoxious sports dad, tossing about enough f-bombs to get himself ejected from the stadium.
Fan Tosses Pujols’ Third Home Run Ball Back To Field: This story makes me proud of Texas Rangers fans: Season ticket holder Jordan Hartsell caught the ball that Albert Pujols’ smacked into the stands for his third home run Saturday night. Hartsell picked up the historic artifact and tossed it back out onto the field. The baseball gods will be pleased.
So the Dallas Morning News notes that the permit that was granted to the Occupy Dallas group to remain encamped at Pioneer Plaza through Friday requires that they provide proof of having $1 million in liability insurance by 5 p.m. today.
Odds that this will happen?
This Week’s Perry Controversy: You have to question the judgment of any politician who willingly stands within 200 yards of the ever-controversial Dallas First Baptist pastor (and our neighbor!) Robert Jeffress. Last Friday, Jeffress introduced Perry at a “Values Voter Summit,” and then proceeded to dismiss Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mormonism as “false religions” (which, I suppose, means they don’t have “values?”). Never mind that GOP front-runner Mitt Romney is Mormon. Oh wait, yes, mind it a lot, as the rest of the GOP pool spent the weekend tangled in Jeffress’ comments. Perry? No comment, but his campaign did say that the Texas governor doesn’t think Mormonism is cult. Well, that’s nice of him.
What’s The Most Important Thing to Happen to the Texas Economy: Economist Ray Perryman runs down the top ten things that impacted the growth of Texas’ economy, including some obvious factors, like DFW Airport and the high tech industry, and some not as much, such as the oil embargo and air conditioning.
Rangers Rained Out, First Pitch Today at 3:19 p.m.: Game two of the American League Championship Series was postponed yesterday due to rain, even though Arlington didn’t actually see a drop Sunday night, prompting some to question whether or not The X-Factor had anything to do with the dubious decision to push off the game. The postponement screws Rangers fans who can’t skip work today to catch the game, which was a boon to quick-actors on the secondary ticket market, but those wild deals seem to have dried up. As for today’s weather? Looks like a 10 percent chance, but better yet, Rangers baseball can stand up ratings-wise to the double feature of Judge Joe Brown and Judge Judy, the shows which normally occupy the Monday afternoon slot.
Art West, Inventor of Doritos, Dies: Art West was a marketing executive at Frito-Lay when he invented Doritos, the first national tortilla chip brand. He died this weekend at 97. A statement from West’s family says that they plan on “tossing Doritos chips in before they put the dirt over the urn.”
Is AMR Going Bankrupt? American Airlines’ parent company has only posted two profitable years in the last decade, its stock is at a one-year low, and Moody’s has just downgraded AMR’s stock outlook to “negative,” according to this report in the Star-Telegram. Some industry watchers believe the company is running out of cash, and when the “b-word” was raised during an investor conference, AMR’s treasurer “didn’t completely dismiss the possibility.”
Finally It’s Official: A&M Joins S.E.C: Yesterday, Texas A&M University announced that it will join NCAA’s Southeastern Conference beginning on July 1, 2012. Teams like Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Arkansas and others will begin massacring the Aggies on the football field beginning in the 2012-2013 season.
Summer intern Kelsy McCraw attended a Back on My Feet run one morning in July. She thought she’d go out, do one run with them, and then do a quick report. But after that initial run, McCraw, a former soccer player at Washington and Lee University, was hooked. She spent five weeks running with the BoMF group. Below is her report.
Sheretta Bodem is shy—not bashfully shy like a child, but hesitantly shy like somebody who’s never been able to depend on anyone. This tough-skinned 25-year-old is about 5 feet 2 inches tall with a curvy figure that is usually hidden in t-shirts, pants, and sneakers. A baseball hat sits atop her braided black hair, slung so low that it just shades her dark brown eyes, as if to reiterate her don’t-mind-me timidity. She sits across the table from me in a back storage room at Dallas LIFE, as she tells me why she walked into the shelter’s doors last November.
She’s a woman of few words, most of Bodem’s answers to my questions are succinct and to the point, but the tall wall she’s built was how she learned to survive.
Bodem says she was spoiled growing up—she always did and got what she wanted. Her mother was a truck driver, so circumstance may have edited the scope of those desires. Nevertheless, her mostly absent parent gave her little in the form of life direction. When her mom would go on her three-month driving stints, Bodem and her younger brother would stay at their less-than-attentive aunt’s home in Richland.
With no discipline, Bodem dropped out of high school at 17 because, as she explains it, it just didn’t seem that important. So, she settled at her aunt’s house with no job, no schooling, and no desire for either. Bodem describes this time in her life as “nothing,” just doing nothing and no plans to change it. At 21, she had her daughter, and at 23, her son. Bodem ruled out living with either of her children’s fathers. “I didn’t want my children to grow up in that kind of environment,” she says. Her “nothing” life at her aunt’s lingered on for a few years until her aunt began clearly favoring one of her children. Bodem wouldn’t elaborate about what happened other than “some other stuff happened…just bad stuff.” She says she really had no choice but to move out. At this point, she had lost contact with her mother and brother. So, with no other place to turn, she sought out Dallas LIFE.
And here they are, courtesy of the DBJ
UPDATE: Forbes says we’ve got the second-most of any city in the U.S. By state, Texas has the third-most.
What a 1976 Trial Tells Us About John Wiley Price: The latest investigative brouhaha surrounding County Commissioner John Wiley Price isn’t the first time the politician has been backed into a legal corner. But what does an acquittal in 1976 tell us about how Price will handle the latest trouble? In short, don’t expect him to be eager to cooperate with the prosecution.
North Texas Economy Strengthens Guanajuato Ties: Most urban areas in the United States tend to draw migrants from specific regions of Mexico, and in the case of Dallas, it is the mountainous Guanajuato (which is one reason why someone needs to launch a new MLS team, Club León USA, and stick them in the Cotton Bowl, but that’s besides the point). In the current economy, in which the North Texas economy is outpacing other parts of the country, the labor-pool network remains entrenched and stronger than ever (sub req).
Bush Raises More Than $300 Million for Library: George W. Bush still has some serious fundraising swagger.
Ryan Avent looks at Perry’s “Texas Miracle” and finds that it is a product of our four major cities. Dallas was second to New York in creating jobs in the last year. Dallas and Houston alone accounted for 10 percent of all new jobs in the U.S. One reason is energy, of course. Another reason is our tight government regulation of home financing (yes, government regulation!). But the third is our availability of housing and our openness to newcomers, wherever they come from:
Yet the big secret to success is Texan cities’ willingness to capitalize on their advantages through an extraordinary openness to growth. Relative friendliness to immigration is one source of strength. Between them, Dallas and Houston welcomed over 600,000 new residents from abroad over the past decade. That welcoming spirit extends to other Americans attracted by low housing costs.
That may explain Dallas, Ryan, but what about New York, which beat even Dallas in job creation? Top cities for job growth after the break.
A 50 percent increase in the price of bread, among others. Maybe somebody other than Rick Perry should have prayed for rain back in April? I’m not saying God doesn’t pay him much heed, but after four months I’m beginning to wonder if he’s as close to the Almighty as he claims to be.