You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2010.
LEO has a story on the city’s chamber of commerce, Greater Louisville Inc. and the political and economic successes, pressures and failures it’s had in the last few years.
Particularly striking was the ending. The story addresses a systemic comfort with the way things work; a stagnation that has resulted in missed potential for several and increased comfort for some. It seems like this developed as Metro Government formed, and the potential remains untapped. (There’s also a potential for some state law changes.) Both remaining active candidates for mayor have proposed new ways of attracting jobs, and in recent interviews with WFPL, they both characterized their proposals (to some degree) as the way to realize that potential.
From LEO:
“I think we’ve just gotten complacent through the years,” Downard says. “And that goes across the board.” He says that the mayor’s use of economic development director Bruce Traughber to solicit jobs instead of the mayor is confusing. “When you’re the CEO of a major company, you’d expect to see (the mayor) all the time.”
Looking to Louisville’s future, former GLI chairman Jonathan Blue says that the next mayor must make job attraction “a priority, every day for the next four years, period,” and that the grim economic numbers don’t lie.
“Whoever wins on Tuesday, that person needs to be proactive and needs to find companies,” says Blue, CEO of Blue Equity. “We do not get companies relocating here by waiting for the phone to ring. So whoever wins, and it doesn’t matter to me, and they need to make sure that’s agenda item number one on a daily basis.”
A new WHAS-11/Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll gives Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul a nine-point lead over Democrat Jack Conway, with a 4% margin of error.
- Paul (R) 52%
- Conway (D) 43%
- Undecided 4%
The poll was conducted between Sunday and Wednesday, after the Aqua Buddha ad kerfuffle and before and after the debate violence.
According to the crosstabs, Paul leads in every region (but narrowly in Louisville), with men and with every age group except 18-34 year-olds.
American Crossroads is helping fund a series of ads against Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway. Because the sources of the group’s funds may remain hidden, it’s not always clear who is supporting the ads.
ABC News, however, reports on one Kentuckian who is financially fighting Conway through contributions to Republican Rand Paul and through work with Crossroads.
The businessman’s name is Terry Forcht. And like many super-wealthy conservative donors who are quietly stoking the GOP’s mid-term election surge around the nation, the extent of his investment in the 2010 campaign is both vast and, for now at least, largely unknown.
In addition to donating personally to Republican Rand Paul’s upstart campaign, Forcht is the banker handling funds for American Crossroads. The conservative group was founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove and has, through its non-profit arm, American Crossroads GPS, channeled millions into this year’s campaigns without identifying its donors.
That may not be the most shocking headline, but the statistics say it’s true (Kentucky now tracks payday loans).
Page One has a summary of the data. The post also makes an argument for the proposed 36% cap on interest rates.
Lenders are definitely dependent upon repeat borrowers for the bulk of revenue, despite what lobbyist-backed legislators in Frankfort would have you believe. At least 83% of payday revenue has been generated by borrowers with five or more transactions this year. Just 2% of payday revenue is from customers who only acquired a single loan.
The database, as was spun last year, has not curbed use. Repeat borrowing is the rule, not the exception. And it’s costing Kentuckians millions of dollars.
Payday lenders have declined to attend a recent series of meetings on payday lending. They say a 36% annual interest rate cap would put them out of business, because their loans are designed for short-term use. The Kentucky Coalition for Responsible Lending (linked above) says while the loans may be short-term, they are often taken out in succession, as borrowers end up under a growing debt with just a few loans.
We’ve seen Crossroads GPS’s ads attacking Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway. While other outlets have reported about Crossroads and other groups that have poured cash into campaigns since Citizens United ruling, we haven’t heard much about how the groups operate.
NPR has a chart that shows how close some of the various outside groups are.
The NRSC has a new ad out that takes aim at Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway.
Conway himself, however, as a new ad that criticizes Republican Rand Paul.
Speaking of criticizing Republican Rand Paul, the NEA has released this ad.
And then there’s this…an editorial in the Lexington Herald-Leader about the recent violence outside of Monday’s Senate debate.
The Paul campaign condemned the attack, disassociated itself from the volunteer who stomped the woman’s head and called on activists “on both sides” to avoid “physical altercations of any kind.”
The problem with the Paul statement is that only one side, his side, resorted to violence.
We keep hearing this is the year of the angry voter. But what motivates people to physically assault a woman who’s carrying a political sign they don’t like?
Certainly not respect for the Constitution, which enshrines the right of all citizens to express their opinions without fear. Not a belief in the rule of law. Not common decency.
Some members of Paul’s Tea Party issue paranoid warnings that President Barack Obama and Democrats are totalitarians out to impose Marxist control over our country.
But look which side produced the goon squad.
The anti-toll group Say No To Bridge Tolls* is spreading the news that the Sellersburg, Indiana Town Council has passed a resolution opposing excessive tolls on new bridges over the Ohio River. They recently sent out this notice, adding Sellersburg to the list of cities that have passed legislation opposing high tolls.
NO Tolls resolutions express the public’s fervent opposition against tolls, as a financing mechanism to pay for bridges. At the last business meeting of the Bridges Authority, on October 7, 2010, the Authority acknowledged receipt of NO Tolls resolutions by the New Albany City Council and the Louisville Metro Council.
Since that last Authority meeting, NO Tolls resolutions have also been passed by the Clark County Council, the Utica Town Council, the Jeffersonville City Council, and now the Sellersburg Town Council. Say NO to Bridge Tolls will be presenting copies of the latest resolutions to the Authority at their next business meeting, scheduled for November 4, 2010 at 10 am (Location: TBD).
*This is my favorite tautological lead
