Though anticipated, the news last weekend of the arrival of the coronavirus in Knox County nonetheless came as a shock, as if, somehow, we’d be spared from exposure to it.
No individual human life is possessed of infinite value. At least, none of us actually behave as if it does. No matter how fully each of us wish to live, we inevitably take risks. We ride in automobiles, eat food prepared by unknown hands, trust in medicines and home appliances tested by sci…
This recent offer by the Barmeses may be the last hope for the old county poor farm — not the last best hope (to borrow from Lincoln), but the last hope, period.
This is the third column I’ve written this week. The first two were overcome by fast-changing events. So, I will surrender to the deadline and pen a few words about how to think about COVID-19 over the longer term. This should help us formulate and accept the challenges of the coming months.
Maybe that day will come in fall.
By passing Senate Bill 340, the Indiana legislature sided with landlords, tipping state law in their favor and against the interests of tenants.
The unfolding response to the COVID-19 disease is helpful in clarifying both the limits to government and the wisdom of our federal system. What most of us are now learning is that our most useful governments are local. The farther away government gets from us, the less useful it becomes in …
The coronavirus is a world tragedy. Millions will get sick and too many will die. All of us will worry about family and friends. All of us will miss important events in our lives.
The world economy has been decelerating since 2018, and without stimulus we would probably be in a modest global downturn. That is changing for the worse.
City council members are spending the two weeks between regular meetings reviewing proposed changes to the landscape ordinance, and if readers are getting a déjà vu feeling about all this that's perfectly understandable.
Trash is something that all of us have in common regardless of our race, heritage, earned income, intelligence level or political leanings. It’s our common denominator, routinely dragged to the curb of our concerns each week for tidy disposal.
Leaving the city council meeting Monday evening we spoke with a taxpayer who admitted to confusion about what he'd just heard.
NIMBY is the acronym for “not in my back yard,” a phrase that arose back in the early 1980s to describe landowners' opposition to the siting of a nuclear-waste dump near their neighborhood.
INDIANAPOLIS — The tweet to The Indianapolis Star from someone with the handle “VelociraptorOfLove” was full of outrage.
This week’s volatility in capital markets captures some of the growing concern over Covid-19, or coronavirus. Stock markets are very poor guides to the overall economy, but that does not mean they are wrong this time. In fact, I think they are late to the game.
A full eight weeks have passed since the unveiling of New Year’s resolutions. Like most of us, mine lie abandoned, which means I will not receive that free YMCA attendance shirt again this year.
What is most curious to us about the Pantheon-whatever-it's-called is that among those driving this monument to foolishness are people who, in almost every other similar scenario we could imagine, would be shouting the loudest about the project's lack of “transparency” and the absence of “in…
Sometimes, you just need to step back.
It is election season, so we face several more months of claims about the U.S. economy. Predictably, the economy is neither as good as the incumbents profess it to be, nor bad as those running to unseat them assert. The real truth is somewhere in between.
Members of the city council have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of Vincennes to see that tax dollars are being spent in the best way, that the money isn't being frittered away.
Life is short.
Indiana’s economic future will be primarily determined by the share of Hoosier adults who graduated from college. If that share remains low, our economy will languish, our incomes will continue to fall further behind the national average and our best-educated residents will relocate elsewhere.
Life is short.
When he was just a young teenage schoolboy, George Washington sat down and copied out 110 “Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior.” Many of these had to do with simple manners. “Cleanse not your teeth with the tablecloth, napkin, fork or knife,” reads Rule 100. Good advice at any time.
For the past several decades, the only significant wage growth in the United States has accrued to college graduates. Indeed, since I entered high school in the late 1970s, the college wage premium doubled from 40% to 80%. By comparison the wage premium for college attendees who didn’t gradu…
Indiana legislators aren't supposed to be able to move straight out of lawmaking and into lobbying. The law spelling that out, though, needs another look.
Tucked into an education bill in this year’s session of the Indiana legislature is a provision that ignores the self-evident, the obvious.
Just after the new year the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance announced the new base rate for farmland assessment. It was $1,280 per acre. The base rate is the starting point for setting the taxable value of farmland for the property tax, to be used for tax bills next year. The …
I am writing in regards to the Jan. 19 article, "Health Dept. records reveal a time that could return." In it, Dr. Alan Stewart is quoted as saying, “Historically, many of (the records) were stored at the Daughters of the American Revolution," and the article continues, "Though it’s unclear …
Facing a ticking clock for changing how Indiana draws its congressional and legislative districts, activists recently turned out at the Statehouse to advocate for redistricting reform.
Important issues tend to be difficult, with deeply entrenched opinions and interests. They also attract the attention of media, political leaders, citizens and especially lobbyists. Recently, while explaining the results of two very contentious studies, I was asked who paid for them. That is…
The outcome of a six-year-old case regarding lethal injections drugs in Indiana could jeopardize the public’s access to information.
If you vote in Indiana’s primary elections, well, I’ve got some bad news for you.
Gideon John Tucker, a lawyer, politician and newspaper editor, offered his assessment of state legislatures in a New York legal proceeding more than 150 years ago.
As the new year begins, the one enduring bright spot of the domestic economy is consumer spending. Over the past decade, consumer spending accounted for between 67 and 69% of our total economy or gross domestic product (GDP). Consumers are a large and stable share of total demand for goods a…
Here’s a basic truth about people who make decisions on public policy: they rarely have all the facts they want.
With the clock ticking rapidly toward midnight for the reform of how Indiana undertakes redistricting for legislative and congressional districts, no change is likely to take place.
We just received the most wonderful gift from the U.S.
I released my 2020 economist forecast last week, projecting the U.S. economy to slow significantly next year. The model I use projects that annualized growth rates will slip from 1.9 % in the first quarter of 2020 down to 1.7% by the year’s end. Here in Indiana, my forecasting model has grow…
It doesn’t appear the 15,000 Indiana teachers who spent Nov. 19 demonstrating in Indianapolis on Red for Ed Day can expect much for their efforts.
Not long ago, I was in a meeting to talk about a public policy issue. It was a little complex, and as we considered the various angles I began to think about what it would take to translate talk into change on the ground. I wasn’t analyzing the politics of it — I was focused on the types of …
Legislative leaders are always reluctant to make promises for a short session of the Indiana General Assembly. That's true for the upcoming term, which House Speaker Brian Bosma said Wednesday will wrap up by March 11 — before the NCAA men's basketball Midwest regional tips off in Indianapolis.
Let’s review where we have come as an economy since the end of the Great Recession. The news is far more dismal than I prefer, but it is wise to know where we are coming from before discussing our future.
My wife, Ann, is not easily impressed. You might say she was born without a celebrity-awe gene.
Columbus was one of four Indiana cities that got a big win last week in a fight to protect human rights.
The year 1971 was important for economic development in Indiana. For in that year, the actual number of jobs created in firms attracted directly by government policies declined.
To me, it was a thunderclap. Years ago, when I was in Congress, we were in the midst of a tense, contentious debate. Members had gotten irritated, levying charges back and forth, and tempers were rising. It was starting to look like we might just go off the rails. Then one member stood up, a…
Out for an afternoon stroll with friends on a path next to a river, you're startled by a woman's cries for help and you see her flailing arms in the water.
Over the dozen or so years I’ve penned this column, I’ve allocated considerable space to education issues. That is natural for an economics and business column. Nothing better predicts the income of a region as does the average educational attainment of its residents. And nothing better pred…
I first discovered the reality of symbols as “emotional shorthand” when I raised a Nazi flag over my family home in Hope in 1954. I was 9 years old and was leading American forces against Germany at the time.
There seems to be a great deal of recent romanticizing the 1950s and 1960s. This is particularly the case with a vague vision of a middle class and middle-class neighborhoods.
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