In his victory speech, Virginia’s new governor-elect Bob McDonnell spoke of his pride at holding the same post as so many awe-inspiring political figures and symbols of American Freedom and Rights of Man such as Thomas Jefferson. As a non-Virginian who happens to live here, I am constantly amused by the mythology that white and…

Now that Bacon’s Rebellion Blog has resolved the ‘Collapse of Agencies (aka, governments going broke’ problem) and solved the liberal vs conservative conundrum (as reflected in the off-year elections) let us return to the REAL determinant of the economic, social and physical future of civilization – functional and dysfunctional human settlement patterns. THERE IS A…

THERE IS A LOT OF TALK ABOUT WARREN BUFFETT’S BIG BET ON BNSF AND THE FUTURE OF THE US OF A. What is MUCH more important is what he DID NOT bet on: Warren DID NOT bet on Autonomobiles – and there are a lot of them for sale. Warren DID NOT bet on Airlines…

Years from now, in the midst of the worst financial meltdown ever, Jim Bacon must want to know that somewhere, somehow, a graduate student poring over old tomes came across his articles about the fiscal sky falling. You heard it here first! Jim is right about a few things in his latest missive about America…

That’s the question that Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson asks in today’s column. The very idea of the likes of the United States, Japan or Great Britain defaulting on their sovereign debt once seemed preposterous, he writes. It still seems far fetched. But it’s not so far fetched that people haven’t begun asking whether it’s…

Want to know the cost of dysfunctional human settlement patterns and the Agency costs of creating them? For Tysons Corner try $20 Billion over the next two decades. And that does not include the direct and indirect costs of citizens living and working in Greater Tysons Corner. Not to worry, it will never happen because…

Although it’s not a dead certainty, it sure seems that Bob McDonnell will be Virginia’s next governor. Despite the revelation of a graduate master’s thesis that makes him look Cro-Magnon, McDonnell has run a virtually error-free campaign while his opponent, Creigh Deeds, has had disconnect after disconnect. Personally, little of what McDonnell stands for or…

Bob McDonnell and Creigh Deeds would think twice about wanting to win the race for governor if they’d read the latest edition of The Virginia Newsletter, written by public finance expert Jim Regimbald. The headline of his essay says it all: “Virginia’s State Budget—A Train Wreck About to Happen.” The recession may be ending, writes…

Who Will Gather and Disseminate the News. Volume 100, Number 1,000 The same old story. Today’s WaPo features their new format and two must read articles for those who are concerned with the how citizens will get the information they need to make intelligent decisions in the market place and in the voting booth. Howard…

One of the thought leaders in the arena of health care reform today is a Darden School professor, Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg. She is virtually unknown in her home state of Virginia, but political leaders ought to make her acquaintance. She teamed up with Michael Porter, Harvard Business School’s competitiveness guru, to write a critically important…

Despite all the hype put out by the state’s universities, the fact remains that Virginia is distinctly an “also ran” when it comes to research and development. In fact, its leading R&D institution, Virginia Tech, is losing ground. It fell from 42nd to 46th place in the Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities…

On the A QUESTION FOR VDOT string Groveton said: “Long recession / depression? “Do any of you guys watch any of the stock market indices? ….. “All US stock indices have been surging since March. They have been rocking for 6 ½ months.” EMR thought that it was uniformly agreed that stock and commodity markets…

The world’s largest shopping mall/entertainment complex, in Guongzhou, China, is China’s version of “too big to fail.” The developer poured $365 million into this showcase project. It’s beautiful in an extravagant, Las Vegas kind of way. But the developers, inexperienced in running malls, gave little thought to who would shop there, and how they would…

EMR has sent VDOT the following question: Why does VDOT ‘assume’ there will be more Large, Private vehicles using the US Route 29 Corridor in 2017 than there were in 2007? We have provided below, based on the recent work at SYNERGY, some of the reasons citizens should question ANY assumption of growth in Large,…

In Virginia, it is always surprising that the talking heads, lobbyists, politicians and others always regard the “Business Community” as a monolith that thinks and speaks with one voice and must be protected because of the Old Dominion’s coveted status as being “business friendly.” Gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, for instance, is running a campaign that…