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How Religious Freedom in America Was Founded on Privatization and Decentralization

  A common myth about American history is the one in which a handful of so-called “founding fathers” in the 1780s declared that America would create a “wall of separation” between religious institutions and government institutions. After that, the First Amendment to the US constitution was instrumental in ensuring that religious institutions would be totally separate from American political institutions. Or so the story goes. Much of this myth is premised on the idea that the spread of religious freedom in America was a top-down process. In this narrative, the process was guided by non-Christian secularists like Thomas Jefferson who were especially influenced by the ideology of the French Enlightenment.  This historical narrative is wrong in nearly every way. For example, it is not at all the case that the First Amendment was central to the process of disestablishment—the process of abolishing the “official” churches who held favored positions within most state governments. Ra...
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CPI Price Inflation Slows as Oil Prices Fall and Rents Flatten

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After a long delay, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics today reported  its price inflation report  for the first time since the September report. According to the report, price inflation, as measured by the CPI slowed in November, both year over year, and from September to November. (Most October CPI data was not collected due to the federal shutdown.)  Measured year over year, CPI inflation in November was up by 2.7 percent, falling from September’s YoY increase of 3.0 percent. During the same period, the CPI rose by 0.20 percent from September to November. By comparison, the CPI rose by 0.31 percent from August to September.  Removing volatile food and energy prices, the so-called core CPI showed similar changes. Year over year, the core CPI also slowed to 2.6 percent in November, falling from September’s YoY increase of 3.0 percent. Core CPI growth also slowed, growing by 0.16 percent from September to November, as compared to 0.23 percent growth from Augus...
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November’s Weak Jobs Report Pushes the Fed Toward More Monetary Stimulus

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Originally published by the Mises Insitute.   The Bureau of Labor Statistics finally released   its November report today —after a nearly ten-day delay—and the latest data shows that the employment situation in America continues to slowly worsen. During November, the unemployment rate increased to a fifty-month high of 4.6 percent even though total payrolls rose by 64,000 from October to November. Overall, November’s report showed lackluster payroll growth fueled by rising numbers in part time employment.  Although the BLS is apparently back on track with its November report, following the partial federal shutdown, some key sections of the October report—especially from the household survey—have not been calculated or published. So, month-to-month comparisons are difficult for the October-November period. Instead, much of what I look at here will be comparisons between September and November, to allow for comparisons between the establishment survey and the payroll survey...
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Rent growth has slowed in Colorado Springs over the past two years

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For the first time in years, I updated the Colorado Springs vacancy and rent graphs. First, let's look at the vacancy rate for the region.  During the third quarter of 2019,  the Colorado Springs vacancy rate fell to 5.0 percent. That's down from 5.4 percent during the second quarter, and it was down from 5.2 percent as recorded during the third quarter of 2018, one year earlier. 2019's third quarter rate was the lowest vacancy rate recorded since the third quarter of 2016, when the rate was 4.0 percent. This suggests vacancies are in a downward trend at the moment, but there rate isn't exactly at historical lows. Five percent suggests mostly full units, but I wouldn't describe it as an especially "tight" market. Not surprisingly, though, this decline in vacancy in the last two years has come with rent growth — but not a lot of rent growth. From the third quarter of 2017 to the third quarter of 2019, the average rent grew 8.6 percent (or 98 ...
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New Mesa County Foreclosures Hit 12-Year Low in December

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Last time, we saw that "releases of deeds of trust" spiked in Mesa County. That suggests some strong demand for for-sale housing in the GJ metro area. So, not surprisingly, we also find that foreclosures in the area fell to a 12-year low in the area. In fact, these numbers may be lower than anything we've seen in much more than 12 years, but I only have data going back to 2008. In other words, there were fewer new foreclosures in December 2019 than in any other month during which I collected this data. Specifically,  during December, there were 11 notices of election and demand.  The "NED filing" is the first step in the foreclosure process. That's down from 17 in November 2011, and it's down from December 2018 when 19 NEDs were filed. As the blue line shows below, the NED filings total is even down from where it was in 2008. The other measure of foreclosure activity "auction sales" has not dropped off quite as much. The "sale...
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Releases of deeds of trust surge in Mesa County

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A release of a deed of trust is an event that occurs when a deed of trust (often referred to as  a mortgage) is paid off, either through refinance, sale, or when all payments have been completed on a home loan. It is a "positive" economic indicator in sense that areas with improving economies tend to generally also report increases in releases of deeds of trust. Other factors can be important as well. In cases where there is a housing shortage, but other economic indicators are robust, we might also see declining release activity. It's not always easy to know which factors are the key factors in whether or not releases are going up or down.  We do know, though, that releases tend to go up when interest rates fall. And releases tend to go down when interest rates rise. We've seen this in the combined release data for the state's biggest countries. Combining the state's big metro counties (plus Broomfield County) we saw that releases headed down ...
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Colorado Gets More than Half of Its Revenue from Income Tax

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Pew breaks it down . I was surprised by how little revenue is generated from severance taxes. And, of course, there is no statewide property tax thanks to TABOR.
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