Out of 26 million Texans, you may have an idea to change the world. You may have had several ideas to change the world. But only a tiny minority of you pushed through the U.S. Patent office from application to successful patent. We've seen Texans change the world many times over. Jack Kilby did it with Texas Instruments in 1958 with the integrated circuit, causing the start of the digital revolution, which, in part, is why you can read these words over your electronic device.
Over the last few years, Texas Business has brought its feature: Texas Business Patent of the Day. This list is of the ones that were either extremely clever, odd or strange. One thing becomes apparent from these patents and the patent that runs daily in Texas Business—Texans have a unique mind set.
Though the history of the Corn Dog is disputed, the State Fair of Texas claims to have introduced the Corny Dog sometime between 1938 and 1942. As a paean to that invention that now sits in the freezer section of every grocery store in the southwest, here are the fried foods the State Fair of Texas has introduced, or tried to introduce, in the last seven years.
Dead Texas musicians live on every time you hear their songs. Their songs play everywhere, so the dead Texas musicians appear to be immortal. Here's the short list.
Don't get caught up with John Wayne religion. For one thing, he's not Texan. He's in some fine movies involving Texas, most notably The Searchers, but none of his movies can make the best cut of Texas movies. Here's the short list.
Unsung Texas Business Journalists Mention that one is a reporter, and there's a spark of interest. Mention that one is a business news reporter, and watch the eyes glaze over. Except to the players, business and economic journalists are unappreciated. While many wish to become sports reporters when they grow up, most do not realize that business journalists cover the Real Game. Mention that reporter covers business, and watch the eyes glaze over. A toast to these below on the short list and the numerous unnamed ones slogging away. Full Story » TexasBusiness.com
Best Texas Mexican Food: The Short List No, we're not going to debate the difference between Tex-Mex, Mex-Tex, Mexican and Texican food. Just know these establishments are the pinnacle of Texas Mexican fare. No brag, just fact. Full Story » TexasBusiness.com
Best Texas Burgers Texas Burgers. . While a hamburger is merely sustenance and gratification for a meal, the memory a good Texas burger can give rise to Homeric odes. The short list. Full Story » TexasBusiness.com
SWEETWATER — About a year ago, talk began circulating in this West Texas town about a huge oil-producing formation called the Cline Shale, east of the traditional drilling areas around Midland.
As he looks at the calendar, DeWitt County Judge Daryl Fowler is getting nervous.
Fowler is among a group of officials in the Eagle Ford Shale area who are lobbying lawmakers for money to address the rural South Texas region’s roads, many of which have been pummeled by drilling activity. With about a month left before the legislative session ends, he and others fear the push for funding has stalled.
Galveston Still Healing 5 Years After Hurricane Ike GALVESTON — From his 18th-floor law office, Buddy Herz, the head of the Galveston Housing Authority and a lifelong resident of this city, can point out how his view has changed since Hurricane Ike slammed into the island in 2008. Full Story » Audrey White for the Texas Tribune
Texas likes to be “business friendly” and as the state legislature considers bills to limit environmental regulation to keep it that way, some economists warn of the longer term consequences.
When Texas promised to protect a threatened lizard in the oil-rich Permian Basin, state officials entrusted the day-to-day oversight to a nonprofit that sounds like an environmental group: the Texas Habitat Conservation Foundation.
Charlette Hearne thought she and her neighbors in southeast Oklahoma had won their water war against Texas. A decade ago, Oklahoma considered pumping billions of gallons of water out of the Red River basin—a poor, rural slice of the state—and selling it to Texas to slake the thirst of Dallas-Fort Worth, the country’s fastest growing metropolitan region.
Texas may have built a reputation as the energy capital of America, but in some parts of the state, like Midland and South Texas, the oil and gas boom has actually driven electric prices up — substantially.
Full Story » Mose Buchele, KUT News/StateImpact Texas
Each year, just before they reach the United States border, thousands of truck drivers hauling produce from western Mexico to southern Texas stop in the city of Reynosa to lighten their loads.
Texas Business reports: ABILENE, Kan., -- ALCO Stores Inc. will move its corporate headquarters from Abilene, Kansas, to Coppell, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.
Texas Business reports: Retail sales increased in March, according to business executives responding to the Texas Retail Outlook Survey. However, the sales index fell 4 points to 8.4, suggesting growth slowed. Inventories also rose more slowly.
Texas Business reports: Texas service sector activity expanded in March, according to business executives responding to the Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey. The revenue index, a key measure of state service sector conditions, edged up from 14.2 to 15.4, its highest reading since September.
Texas Business reports: Texas factory activity increased in March, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, rose from 6.2 to 9.9, indicating a slightly faster pace of output growth. The share of manufacturers noting a decrease in production fell to its lowest level in two years.
Texas Business reports: WACO—The Texas Hunger Initiative (THI) at Baylor University won a $3.5 million Community Partnership Program (CPP) contract from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) that will allow THI to develop an innovative statewide public-private partnership to expand access to food and health care for low-income Texas families through community-based research and programmatic activities.
Wichita Falls, Texas, Could Go Dry by Year's End The Texas government keeps a list of a communities that could run out of water within 180 days. Most are small, affecting a few hundred or few thousand people. But now there is a big city on the list — Wichita Falls, near the Oklahoma border, home to more than 100,000 people. Full Story » Audrey White of the Texas Tribune
With no budget, and the federal government operating on a continuing resolution at least through this month and potentially through the year, Fort Hood civilians are looking at 22 discontinuous days of furlough, and Soldiers and their Families will see cuts to some services on the installation.
Full Story » Heather Graham-Ashley, Fort Hood Sentinel News Editor.
Census estimate: Texas grows, Wichita Falls declines by Lynn Walker of the Wichita Falls Times-Record-News. WICHITA FALLS — Estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau Thursday show most urban centers in Texas experienced population growth in the two years since the official 2010 Census. The only metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the state showing a population decline was Wichita Falls.
Texas Business reports: COLLEGE STATION, Texas—The Texas A&M University System, reached an agreement with SSC Service Solutions, a subsidiary of Compass Group North America, to manage facility support services, to include building maintenance, landscape maintenance and custodial services at 16 A&M System campuses throughout Texas.
Texas Business reports: Retail sales posted their seventh consecutive month of growth in February, according to business executives responding to the Texas Retail Outlook Survey. The sales index was positive but edged down from 14.8 to 12.4, suggesting growth slowed slightly. Inventories rose.
Texas Business reports: Texas service sector activity expanded in February, according to business executives responding to the Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey. The revenue index, a key measure of state service sector conditions, rose from 8.4 to 14.2, with 34 percent of respondents noting revenues increased from January.
Texas Business reports: COLLEGE STATION – Texas cotton planting is expected to be down by as much as 25 percent from last year, according to a Texas A&M state cotton specialist.
Texas Business reports: The state of Texas plans to give $1 million to a company who says it will invest $1.2 billion in an Alin plant and hire 100 people.
Brett Berman is hoping his company’s mobile app, UMeTime, will be a hit at next month’s South by Southwest Interactive, the annual Austin tech conference that was a launching pad for Twitter and Foursquare. Berman knows it won’t be easy at an event where dozens of other startups will be competing for the attention of nearly 25,000 attendees.
Texas Business reports: WACO—Companies may overreact to social or environmental activists protesting their business practices, according to a Baylor University article in the Academy of Management Review.
Texas Business reports: Texas is ranked as the number one exporting state for the 11th year in a row, according to 2012 annual trade data released today by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Texas Business reports: The state of Texas plans to give $3.15 million to health care start-up companies. The money will be funneled through the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF) to three early stage companies that are developing technologies to help treat and diagnose diabetes and heart failure.
Texas Business reports: Retail sales picked up pace in January, according to business executives responding to the Texas Retail Outlook Survey. The sales index rose from 6.9 to 14.8, its highest reading in four months. Inventories rose.
Texas Business reports: The Texas service sector activity expanded in January, according to business executives responding to the Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey. The revenue index, a key measure of state service sector conditions, fell from 14.9 to 8.4, suggesting slower growth.
Texas Business reports: Texas factory activity rose sharply in January, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey.
The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, rose from 3.5 to 12.9, which is consistent with faster growth.
Texas Business reports: KATY—Entrust Inc., a benefit management and consulting firm, plans to relocate its corporate headquarters to the Fort Bend County section of the Katy area.
Texas Business reports: PLAINVIEW, Texas— Kansas-based Cargill announced that it will idle its Plainview, Texas, beef processing facility effective on February 1, 2013.
Texas Business reports: AUSTIN—Raising the minimum wage to a living wage begins the cycle of lifting single mothers out of poverty, according to a policy report released by the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis (IUPRA) at The University of Texas at Austin.
Texas Business reports: Retail sales increased in December, according to business executives responding to the Texas Retail Outlook Survey. The sales index came in at 7.6, similar to last month, suggesting the pace of growth was unchanged. Inventories rose.
Texas Business reports: Texas service sector activity expanded in December, according to business executives responding to the Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey prepared by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Texas Business reports: Texas factory activity edged up in December, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, rose from 1.7 to 2.7, which is consistent with slow growth.
Texas Business reports: Rarely has a Federal Reserve chairman spoken of an event in more ominous terms, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Falling off the “fiscal cliff,” a phrase coined by Ben Bernanke to describe a massive and abrupt shift in federal taxes and spending, may accompany the last words of “Auld Lang Syne” to begin 2013.
Texas Business reports: Economic indicators released for October and November have been mostly downbeat, although the contribution of the late-October Hurricane Sandy has been difficult to assess, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The manufacturing sector’s uptick in September proved to be temporary as the softening seen since the beginning of the year resumed. Consumption growth was revised down and is now somewhat more consistent with tepid business investment. Employment growth, on the positive side, remained near its recovery average despite expected disruptions from the storm.
Texas Business reports: Texas job growth has been persistently above trend this year, with jobs growing at an annual pace of 3.2 percent through October, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. In recent months, however, the pace of employment growth has slowed. Exports have generally declined since February, causing a weakening in Texas manufacturing. Continued low prices for natural gas have also led to some slowing in the energy sector. Offsetting this somewhat, construction activity has accelerated. Looking forward, the Texas Leading Index increased for the fourth consecutive month in October, although the pace of increase has moderated. The outlook components of the Dallas Fed’s three Texas Business Outlook Surveys all weakened in November, suggesting somewhat weaker growth ahead.
Texas Business reports: Global economic activity has slumped in recent months, with the latest economic indicators suggesting this weakness may continue in the near term, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Waning growth in emerging economies after a strong recovery in 2009 and tempered growth in advanced economies due to uncertainty have led to weak external demand for U.S. exports. The euro-area sovereign debt crisis continues to be the most pressing risk to the global economy, with Greece and Spain set to receive another round of funds.
Texas Business reports: IRVING, Texas—With a $1.1 million incentive from the state, TEKsystems Global Services plans to locate a new IT center in Irving.
Texas Business reports: COLLEGE STATION—Record-high carryover stocks of cotton and future weather patterns are just a few factors affecting cotton prices heading into 2013, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economist.
Texas Business reports: FORT HOOD—The Fort Hood Army post had an economic impact of $25.3 billion in Texas during fiscal 2011, according to a new analysis released today by the Texas Comptroller’s office.
Texas Business reports: ADP plans to expand its operations in El Paso, creating 585 jobs and $22 million in capital investment. Texas is providing $2.4 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) to ADP.
Texas Business reports: As rivalry between Texas and California increases, Texas won another bragging right as people voted with their feet. Last year, more people moved from California to Texas than from Texas to California, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Texas Business reports: Texas is giving $1.3 million to Layne Christensen Co. as an incentive to move its global headquarters to The Woodlands, creating 210 jobs and $6.7 million in capital investment.
As the net flow of immigrants from Mexico nears zero, violent and impoverished Central American countries have emerged as the fastest-rising source of illegal immigrants to the U.S. Mexico's southern border with Guatemala - a hotbed of smuggling - highlights the challenges of managing immigration in the years ahead.
Texas Business reports: AUSTIN—With fluctuating gas prices and the increasing call for work-life balance, telecommuting has become an attractive option for busy professionals. Yet according to a new study from The University of Texas at Austin, for most employees who work remotely, telecommuting equates to working more hours.
Texas Business reports: Retail sales increased at a slower pace in November, according to business executives responding to the Texas Retail Outlook Survey. The sales index fell from 11.3 to 6.8, its lowest reading since July. Inventories rose.
Texas Business reports: STEPHENVILLE, Texas—The Sid W. Richardson Foundation has awarded a $300,000 grant to Tarleton to test a model that would expand science and math coursework, through distance learning, in rural school districts.
Texas Business reports: Texas service sector activity expanded in November, according to business executives responding to the Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey. The revenue index, a key measure of state service sector conditions, dipped from 13.5 to 11.1, suggesting slightly slower growth.
Texas Business reports: Texas factory activity was little changed in November, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, came in at 1.7, indicating output barely increased from October.
Texas Business reports: GARLAND, Texas— Navistar International Corporation announced that it intends to close its Garland, Texas, truck manufacturing operation as part of its efforts to reduce costs and optimize its manufacturing footprint.
Texas Business reports: Retail sales increased at a significantly slower pace in October, according to business executives responding to the Texas Retail Outlook Survey. The sales index fell from 22.3 to 11.3. Inventories rose.
Texas Business reports: The trimmed mean PCE inflation rate for September was an annualized 1.9 percent. According to the BEA, the overall PCE inflation rate for September was 4.7 percent, annualized, while the inflation rate for PCE excluding food and energy was 1.4 percent.
Texas Business reports: Texas factory activity increased in October, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, dipped from 10 to 7.9, indicating slightly slower growth.
Texas Business reports: The Federal Reserve has a mandate to promote price stability and full employment. Generally, “price stability” is given a forward-looking interpretation, according to Tyler Atkinson and Evan F. Koenig of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Policy should be conducted so that expected medium-term (two- to five-year) inflation is low and stable or, less strictly, so that expected inflation beyond the next few years is low and stable.[1] Households and businesses, too, are generally more interested in where prices are headed than in where they have been.
Texas Business reports: DALLAS—With a continuing focus on lean and efficient operations, Lockheed Martin Corporation announced it will reorganize its Electronic Systems business area into two new business areas, including one in Dallas.
Texas Business reports: The ongoing euro-area crisis is seen by many as vindication of skeptics who said that a monetary union encompassing a disparate group of countries is doomed to fail because the countries do not constitute what economists call an optimum currency area. Thus, they argued, a one-size-fits-all monetary policy that goes with participation in an alliance such as the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) creates strains that ultimately prove insurmountable according to Mark A. Wynne and Janet Koech of the Federal Reserve Branch of Dallas.
China's Slowdown May Be Worse Than Official Data Suggest Texas Business reports: In the months following the 2008–09 economic crisis, emerging-market economies robustly rebounded. Output in China and India expanded more than 10 percent in 2010, and Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 7.5 percent was its best performance in 25 years. Emerging-market economies retraced their precrisis level of industrial production by 2009, while advanced economies remained below their precrisis levels in 2012.
Texas Business reports: Texas service sector activity picked up pace in September, according to business executives responding to the Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey. The revenue index, a key measure of state service sector conditions, rose from 10 to 15, its highest reading since March, with 33 percent of respondents noting revenues increased from August.
Texas Business reports: Retail sales increased in September, according to business executives responding to the Texas Retail Outlook Survey. The sales index rose from 17.7 to 22.3, its highest reading in 12 months. Inventories rose.
The Texas News Scrawl is a handy reference to stories Texas Business recommends from other news sources. Some of the stories that Texas Business currently suggests include: The West News proves the value of a great weekly newspaper in a community torn up with grief and chaos; Chinese investors checking out Texas, Austin; Texas makes bounce house operators carry liability coverage, but not plants like West Fertilizer; bSpaceX’s Grasshopper leaping to NM spaceport;American Airlines, US Airways to name post-merger leadership within weeks; Texas power cushion seen at lowest level in a decade; Media outlets reflect Houston's diversity; and more.
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