Went to a business lunch today and there was an overall consensus that we are seeing signs of the economy coming back. I wonder if the small business owners who haven't seen any kind change would speak up (little embarassing to admit your business isn't doing well when others are seeing a turn around) and no one really voiced up that they are ready to increase spending again on things like marketing and upgrading equipment. Still there was defintely a differnent feel going around comapred to the last couple years of these lunches. Sidenote: I sat at a table with the co-founder of tripwire. Their company just announced they are going public . . . they are the first Oregon company to go public in the past five years or so. There was another Oregon company that just went IPO, but they moved to Cali before they went public. I asked him why he decided to keep his company in Oregon and all the reasons he gave me were personal reasons and had nothing to do with Oregon business economy. That was kind of a bummer to hear, but again, overall I think the economy, even in Oregon, is turning around. Do posters here feel the Oregon economy is getting better or no change from the last couple of years?
I think the economy is tied to confidence. And I believe confidence is up considering the small business I work at has seen a huge increase in business this winter/spring compared to a year ago. However I don't believe that confidence is justified and I believe we have a loooong way to go. We pretty much just fell off a mountain top of construction boom and market action. We got a huge climb to get out of this.
Why was that a bummer? Personal reasons (assuming they were on the order of "great place to live" rather than something like "I'm on parole and am not allowed to leave town") are and have long been a strong reason to locate here. It's an advantage for Oregon, a big advantage. barfo
I think we should raise taxes on corporations because they should feel lucky to be in Oregon. Surely tax burden has no impact on business decisions, at least when it comes to location. Are you with me, Barfo?
Funny because I almost heard it like "I'm on parole". Without getting too much into his personal life, he said a lot of it was because of his wife (thus the parole ). Apparently his wife is born and raised here and is very active in the community and with St. Mary's downtown. I would prefered to hear that he likes it or his employees like it . . . but as you know it is kind of my sore spot with this state and maybe I'm just hearing what I want to hear. I will say he never once said he wish he could leave or brought up anything negative about doint business in Oregon. Anyways my post was really suppose to be positive about the Oregon economy. Looking back at the meeting, maybe it wasn't so much things are a lot better. It was more a feeling of if your business survived to this point, you're likely going to make it. Put that mentality in my head, and all of a sudden I'm loving Oregon again. It is times when I wonder if the business will survive the Oregon economy that I become bitter and start blaming everyone else.
I work with and hear from many small businesses nationwide and the general consensus is that things are definitely getting better, that the tide seems to have turned. Deals are getting done, people seem to be spending more.
Those of you who have argued with me about measure 66/67 might be amused by this. I got a letter from the state today, it seems i made a boo-boo on my taxes. I paid the right overall rate under measure 66, but I failed to notice that for me, the federal tax credit (limited to $5850) was wiped out by measure 66, so my taxable income was higher by that amount and I now owe another ~$640. I'm definitely moving out of state now. barfo
I have worked at my same job since August 2006, so obviously I'm not in the job market. But up to that point I was on every biotech job board imaginable. I've recently started getting calls, maybe one every 2 weeks or so, from people who saw my resume and want to know if I'm looking. Since my resume was last posted 3 1/2 years ago, I do take that as a sign of improvement. In fact, one man told me he called because when he emailed it came back to him; he was using an email I killed in 2004. That's the good news. The bad news is these are all contract positions. Of course, since I'm not looking I have no idea what staff positions are open, but it appears a lot of companies are hiring contractors, don't have to pay benefits, can dump them if things go down again. So things are improving but unemployment and underemployment are still way way too high. And the idiots in the Senate blocked an extension of unemployment benefits because if some 57 year old got laid off and can't find a new job it's because he/she is just too lazy. Personally, I think we voters should "unemploy" anyone who votes that way, but of course they'll just get cushy jobs with lobbying firms.
So ture . . . but isn't that why half of them become politician in the first place. I was first confused why someone would fund thier own campaign with more money then they would make being a congressman for 4 years. But the idea of having power and then being able to work for a lobby firm or write a book or being a consultant to corportations or whatever and make tons of money after being in the congress makes sense.
No, that aint it. You look at someone like Meg Whitman in CA, there is no way she could ever recover what she's spending on getting elected, no matter how many books she writes or how many products she endorses. It's just that she's got the money to burn and wants to be governor. barfo
It's hard to say if it's getting better. On the one hand, I think money is easier to get for business investment. On the other hand, foreclosures continue to increase (at least in our area, there have been almost one dozen in the last 2 months) and in the healthcare sector things are getting worse. I don't know if tourism is down, but a place we're going to stay at next weekend is usually booked for the summer by now has not a single summer booking outside ours and the price has been cut in half. I also know that schools are continuing to lay off teachers as well. But I'm not a state economist, so I can't really say.
That actually sounds like a relatively small number, but maybe I don't know what you meant by 'our area'. I would have otherwise assumed 'Portland metro area', but now I'm thinking 'neigborhood'?. barfo
Yeah, townhomes in my neighborhood that sold for 300k in 2006 are on the market for 199k and not moving.
If we assume 2006 prices were inflated, due to being the high end of the housing bubble, is not selling at 199k in less-than-ideal economic times a particularly important indicator? 200k (or less) could be the proper, non-inflated price. This is definitely not my wheelhouse of expertise, but it seems like it's not useful to use 2006 prices as a baseline when everyone is saying that we had a housing bubble pop in the past few years.
sure. But if there are jobs in, say, Portland, you can't sell your house in Seattle, even for a 100k loss to move. So one of the things used previously to pull out of recessions (moving to a better situation) isn't an option for many.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/06/oregons_done_with_the_days_of.html Looks like we're pretty much in the toilet for years, maybe decades, to come. And the unions are making a point to hurt us at every turn. Now, I can't say as I blame them as they have had the upper hand for a couple of decades and single handedly created this mess. They are, by their very nature, nearly completely self serving, but they have to be as it's why they exist. Nonetheless, things look like they're going from very bad to a lot worse.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aa0cI64Gx.4E&pos=15 U.S.’s $13 Trillion Debt Poised to Overtake GDP: Chart of Day June 4 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is poised to increase the U.S. debt to a level that exceeds the value of the nation’s annual economic output, a step toward what Bill Gross called a “debt super cycle.” The CHART OF THE DAY tracks U.S. gross domestic product and the government’s total debt, which rose past $13 trillion for the first time this month. The amount owed will surpass GDP in 2012, based on forecasts by the International Monetary Fund. The lower panel shows U.S. annual GDP growth as tracked by the IMF, which projects the world’s largest economy to expand at a slower pace than the 3.2 percent average during the past five decades. “Over the long term, interest rates on government debt will likely have to rise to attract investors,” said Hiroki Shimazu, a market economist in Tokyo at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc., a unit of Japan’s third-largest publicly traded bank. “That will be a big burden on the government and the people.” Gross, who runs the world’s largest mutual fund at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California, said in his June outlook report that “the debt super cycle trend” suggests U.S. economic growth won’t be enough to support the borrowings “if real interest rates were ever to go up instead of down.” Dan Fuss, who manages the Loomis Sayles Bond Fund, which beat 94 percent of competitors the past year, said last week that he sold all of his Treasury bonds because of prospects interest rates will rise as the U.S. borrows unprecedented amounts. Obama is borrowing record amounts to fund spending programs to help the economy recover from its longest recession since the 1930s. “The incremental borrower of funds in the U.S. capital markets is rapidly becoming the U.S. Treasury,” Boston-based Fuss said. “Do you really want to buy the debt of the biggest issuer?”
Ouch. Even Jeffrey Sachs has jumped off the sinking ship. http://hotair.com/archives/2010/06/07/video-the-stimulus-failed/
