Category Archives: Business

Rents in Tulsa up 1.3% over past month

By David Arnett

This month Apartment List reports the national rent index jumped another 2.5%, tying last month’s record-setting growth. The national median rent has now increased by 11.5% in 2021, and is 9.4% above the pre-pandemic level from March 2020. That’s inflation.

Rents are still below pre-pandemic levels in a handful of pricey markets (e.g., San Francisco, NYC), but even in these cities prices are quickly rebounding. In fact, rents are now increasing in virtually all of the nation’s 100 largest cities. What follows are the Tulsa Metro highlights and national market illustration.

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Court sides with states challenging Biden

By Staff Report

LAKE CHARLES, LA – A federal judge in Louisiana has sided with a group of states, including Oklahoma, who have challenged President Joe Biden’s attempt to disrupt America’s energy industry through an executive order.

Judge Terry Doughty has issued a preliminary injunction, blocking the Biden administration’s effort to halt the sale of new oil and gas leases on federal land and offshore wells. In his ruling, Judge Doughty said the states challenging the moratorium demonstrated that it is likely unlawful and poses a substantial threat of irreparable injury by jeopardizing millions, possibly billions, of dollars of economic activity. Oklahoma Solicitor General Mithun Mansinghani, who represents Oklahoma in the litigation, applauded the judge’s action.

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Thanks Biden: Inflation accelerating

By Staff Report

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) climbed 4.2 percent annually in April. Compared with March, prices rose 0.8 percent according to the Department of Labor and generally under reported by media.  This CPI records the largest increase since 2008, but exclude food and energy, categories that can be volatile month-to-month.  CPI rose three times faster than the estimates of 2.3 percent.

Families can see the “food and energy” not included as they review expense for gas and groceries.  Federal Reserve officials reportedly believe this will last only a few months and that inflation will be transitory. Other economists worry the higher that expected jump in CPI could trend to “runaway inflation” which occurs when prices not only rise but accelerate, as the cost of living grows and consumer purchasing power falls.  Recent economic history in Venezuela show a modern “worst case” of inflationary impact often associated with Marxists governments.

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SBA opens Restaurant Revitalization Fund

By Staff Report

SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman today announced the U.S. Small Business Administration will begin registrations on Friday, April 30, 2021, at 9 a.m. EDT and open applications on Monday, May 3, 2021, at noon EDT for the $28.6 Billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund. The online application will remain open to any eligible establishment until all funds are exhausted.

“Restaurants are the core of our neighborhoods and propel economic activity on main streets across the nation. They are among the businesses that have been hardest hit and need support to survive this pandemic. We want restaurants to know that help is here,” said Administrator Guzman. “The SBA has focused on the marketplace realities of our food and beverage businesses in designing the Restaurant Revitalization Fund to meet businesses where they are. And we are committed to equity to ensure our smaller and under-served businesses, which have suffered the most, can access this critical relief, recover, and grow more resilient.”

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Political Economy vs. Federal Fairy Tales

By James Bovard

“Build Back Better” is the motto for President Biden’s ambitious plans to remake much of the American economy and society. On Wednesday in Pittsburgh, Biden will reveal his plans for trillions of dollars of new spending for infrastructure and other projects. His devotees in the national media will whoop up his proposals as the greatest thing since the New Deal, or at least since Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act a couple weeks ago.

Once Biden fires the starting gun, a deluge of experts will descend upon cable news shows to tout the vast benefits of the proposed “investment.” There will be a barrage of econometric formulas that irrefutably prove, via 10 or 15 shaky or squirrely assumptions, that vastly increasing federal spending will multiply prosperity across the land.  

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