USA Today (November 12)
An extreme “Arctic blast is affecting 200 million people from Chicago to Texas, and it isn’t over yet.”
Tags: Arctic blast, Chicago, Extreme, Texas, U.S.
The Economist (June 22)
Already “one in five Americans calls Texas or California home.” The behemoths are now “the biggest, brashest, most important states in the union, each equally convinced that it is the future.” But their vision is “heading in opposite directions, creating an experiment that reveals whether America works better as a low-tax, low-regulation place” or a “high-tax, highly regulated one.” Given Washington dysfunction, “the results will determine what sort of country America becomes almost as much as the victor of the next presidential election will.”
Tags: Biggest, Brashest, California, Dysfunction, Election, Experiment, Future, Regulation, Tax, Texas, U.S., Washington
Reuters (September 15)
“Business owners who are trying to get back on track after hurricanes Harvey and Irma now face a different sort of challenge: trying to recoup lost income from their insurers.” Some experts predict approximately $70 billion in property losses from flooding in Texas alone. But recouping insured property loses is much easier than lost income. “Exclusions in the fine print of policies, along with waiting periods and disagreements over how to measure a company’s lost income, make business interruption claims among the trickiest in an industry renowned for complexity”
Tags: Business, Business interruption, Claims, Complexity, Exclusions, Flooding, Harvey, Hurricanes, Insurers, Irma, Lost income, Owners, Policies, Property losses, Texas
Chicago Tribune (September 7)
“Homeowners located in areas that are expected to flood every 100 years are required to buy flood insurance…. But they pay rates far lower than the risks warrant. That gap deprives builders of incentives to stay out of low-lying areas that are vulnerable to flooding — or to elevate structures to keep them dry when the waters rise. It also promotes the destruction of wetlands that could reduce flooding. Oh, and it helps to tilt migration toward vulnerable coastal regions like those of Texas and Florida.”
Tags: Builders, Coastal regions, Destruction, Flood, Florida, Homeowners, Insurance, Rates, Texas, Vulnerable, Wetlands
Chicago Tribune (August 29)
“The scale of flooding in the Houston area as a result of Hurricane Harvey is hard to imagine, and the images of suffering are horrifying to behold. In central and south Texas, an area the size of Michigan is now a storm-tossed lake.”
Tags: Flooding, Horrifying, Houston, Hurricane Harvey, Michigan, Scale, Storm, Suffering, Texas
Houston Chronicle (August 26)
“Once again, a hurricane has slammed ashore on our coastline and all too many Texans will now face the daunting task of cleaning up and starting over.” Current Texans can take solace by remembering “that generations of Texans have survived storms as bad and even worse than Harvey. At the same time, let’s also remember a lesson we’ve learned through bitter experience: We can’t prevent hurricanes from hitting us, but we have to do everything we can to prepare for them.”
Tags: Cleaning up, Coastline, Hurricane, Prepare, Starting over, Storms, Survive, Texas
The Economist (July 4)
“Shale matters. The industry has become huge—listed firms have invested over half a trillion dollars of capital…. Shale firms owe almost as much debt as Greece. After drilling beneath much of Texas and North Dakota, they account for 5% of global oil output. The health of shale firms affects people around the world, from Western drivers and Saudi Arabia’s sheikhs to Asia’s consumers.”
Tags: Asia, Capital, Consumers, Debt, Drilling, Greece, North Dakota, Oil, Output, Saudi Arabia, Shale, Texas
Los Angeles Times (May 1)
California “continues to attract more manufacturers and create more jobs than almost any other. The numbers don’t lie.” Toyota and Occidental Petroleum both announced plans to move their headquarters from California to Texas. Nevertheless, California’s business environment remains vibrant given the state’s unique “ability to incubate new companies and tech innovators, putting its businesses in the vanguard of new industries.”
Tags: Business, California, Environment, Innovators, Jobs, Manufacturers, Occidental Petroleum, Texas, Toyota, Vanguard
Bloomberg (April 22, 2013)
“Last week we were reminded both of the dangers posed by chemical plants and of the threat of terrorism in the U.S., and the conclusion that chemical plants could be a lot safer is unsettling. But such a conclusion is also inescapable.” The Texas blast, which killed 14, took place at a fertilizer plant storing highly combustible and toxic substances. The plant “was clearly too dangerous to be located a few blocks from a middle school, a nursing home and a 50-unit apartment building.” The Government needs to institute rules to keep the public safe.
Tags: Blasts, Chemical plants, Fertilizer plant, Government, Terrorism, Texas
