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Patrick Barkey

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: It’s time we get started on a new state economy

Have you ever plunked down a lot of money for something and worried if you made the right choice? You have plenty of company. To cope with that insecurity, some of us try to persuade our friends to follow our footsteps. We put forth convincing arguments why our brand of car, or our new electronic gizmo, is really the best thing, and feel comforted and vindicated when they make the same choice we made. For too many years, that simple…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Measuring jobs: How to get handle on how we’re doing

Getting a good read on the Indiana economy is harder than you might think. That’s partly because there really is no such thing as the Indiana economy. State borders are, after all, purely legal contrivances that flows of dollars, workers and goods don’t worry much about. We’re a collection of regions, in actuality, some centered within our state’s borders and some not. But it is the public sector that does the scorekeeping on the economy, and it is public officials…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Diversifying economy requires new mind-set

The microwave oven has been a staple in most American kitchens for so long that there is now a generation of young adults who’ve never lived without them. And for that same generation, the doughy, limp texture of foods like pizza quick-cooked in a microwave, in contrast to the crisped, browned texture produced over a longer time by conventional heat, is associated with the food, not the technology. If you’ve grown up eating from a microwave, that’s the way food’s…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Urban growth crucial for regional prosperity

Oakland County, Mich., located northwest of the city of Detroit, is home to some of the wealthiest communities in the nation. Its per capita income consistently ranks it nationally in the top-five counties, and a visual tour of its majestic homes, well-funded private schools and sumptuous amenities confirms the material wealth of its residents. So why aren’t economic developers trekking north to Michigan to discover the secrets of this county’s economic success? The answer is simple: Oakland County is also…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: A revolution in health care: Consumers will call shots

I once had a doctor who shared with me a little joke about medicine. It comes to mind every year as I get older and more susceptible to life’s ailments. Doctors, he said, don’t really cure anything. They just let you trade in one malady for another. I know he was talking about the side effects of medicines and treatments we take for our weak hearts and faltering knees. But I keep thinking it applies equally to the situation of…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Revised data shows state faring better than thought

If you were watching this space to see what-if any-silver lining for Indiana could be found in the harsh blows about to fall on the high pay, full benefit, Big Three automaker production jobs I promised to talk about last week, I ask your forbearance. The Toyota Corp. has beaten me to the punch. The company’s announcement that it plans to build its top-selling Camry in Lafayette says it better than any words I could come up with. The future…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Rising costs, lower prices sting domestic carmakers

As predictions go, it’s not a particularly difficult call. The trends are unmistakable, and the precedents in other industries are clear. Yet the silence on the part of workers, executives and even analysts on the issue bespeaks the pain, anger and denial that lurk just beneath the surface. The situation is this: In a very short span of time, perhaps as little as two or three years, the era of the highly paid automobile industry production worker will come to…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: The fight to hire top talent: Do we have what it takes?

Most cities have mayors, police chiefs and tax collectors. But suppose for a moment they each had an additional staff position as well-the recruiter. Like a basketball coach or a talent scout, these recruiters would scour the country, looking for talented people who would fit into the community and add to the economic base. And when they found one, they would make their pitch, touting their town’s assets and strengths, and urging the recruit to relocate. The prospects, on the…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Study casts new light on rising house prices

I have always been amazed at the confidence and certainty projected by those who stand before the television cameras at the end of the day and explain to us-in 90 seconds or less-why the stock market behaved as it did. I suppose if we are silly enough to ask for a simple explanation for the 5 million or 6 million trades conducted on any given day, we should expect nothing more in return. Of course, those trades take place for…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Those who put head in sand put next generation in peril

I have always been fascinated with one particular aspect of the life story of Al Smith. Here was a poor, unsophisticated, relatively uneducated kid from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who showed up at the New York Legislature in 1903 as a nobody, but in the space of 10 years became a major power broker, ultimately running for president. The secret to his success? Unlike his socializing, partying colleagues, Al Smith spent his evenings actually reading legislation. When it…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Let the private sector operate the Toll Road

Watching the tug and pull of partisan politics in full bloom in our state capital brings to mind that old saying about making laws and making sausage. You don’t really want to see how either one happens. But as our elected leaders posture and fight over the table scraps of new revenue that can realistically be said to be squeezed out of what has historically been an overcommitted state budget, another, more hopeful, vision comes to mind. It’s a vision…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS:

You can tell that economists as a group don’t have a marketing bone in their bodies. How else can you explain the incomprehensible name we’ve given the measure of economic activity we watch more closely than any other? Gross domestic product. If I were a comedian, I could probably do a sketch on what images those words conjure up. But I’m an economist, so there’s little chance of that. Instead, like the rest of my brood, I am diving into…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Americans’ spending binge is ultimately unsustainable

Americans don’t save much these days. Twenty years ago, our 9-percent rate of savings was troubling and somewhat embarrassing, compared with the double-digit savings rates of other industrialized economies. But that rate seems sky-high compared with today. If savings rates remain as low as they’ve been the last few months, we may have to rename them. Dis-saving rates? It’s an odd-sounding word, if it even is one. But what else do you call a negative savings rate? According to the…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Americans’ spending binge is ultimately unsustainable

Americans don’t save much these days. Twenty years ago, our 9-percent rate of savings was troubling and somewhat embarrassing, compared with the double-digit savings rates of other industrialized economies. But that rate seems sky-high compared with today. If savings rates remain as low as they’ve been the last few months, we may have to rename them. Dis-saving rates? It’s an odd-sounding word, if it even is one. But what else do you call a negative savings rate? According to the…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: The new economic reality: It’s all about the work force

Since these words usually find their way out onto the Internet, I thought I’d work in the following phrase to get the hit counters for the new year off to a good start: Evolution vs. intelligent design. Ah, that should do it. I can hear the sounds of computer mouse clicks already. And, believe it or not, there’s an economic angle to that debate. Not literally, of course. Economics is pretty important, but I will concede that the creation of…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: We want to spur economy, but what’s the best way?

If you want to get an idea just how hot the topic of economic development is in Indiana these days, take a stroll over to the Department of Insurance’s Web page. Instead of finding notices of regulatory proceedings or a lineby-line listing of the insurance code, you’ll get a spirited, enthusiastic rundown of all of the reasons Indiana is a great state in which to locate your insurance company. If you happen to own one, that is. That’s a little…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: King for a day on fixing the property-tax system

Well, I’ve finally been caught. Despite my best efforts to appear decisive and get straight to the point, one of my readers accused me of being just another equivocating, twoarmed economist in a recent column I wrote on taxes. You know the type. On the one hand this, and on the other hand that, never sticking their necks out and reaching a conclusion. That person will be back in this space this week, doing his best to pretend not to…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Changing state’s tax system would be tough to pull off

When it comes to matters of tax policy, inertia reigns supreme. The federal government still collects the proceeds of an excise tax on telephones that was borne as a temporary measure to help finance the Spanish-American War. The tolls on the Indiana Toll Road have not changed in almost 20 years. And the granddaddy of them all, the property tax, has existed in one form or another since the Middle Ages. So when the mayors of Indiana cities and towns…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Economy is doing great, but what about next year?

Here’s a question the visually oriented news media face all the time-what does a strong economy look like? Belching smokestacks and humming assembly lines are the clichés of yesteryear, now that we’ve entered an era when knowledge and services account for more output than do physical goods. But somehow the picture of an office worker tapping on a keyboard or a group of executives huddled around a conference table doesn’t quite convey the vitality and power of the world’s largest…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Farming on decline, but ag still offers opportunity

Drive less than 20 minutes from almost any crossroads in Indiana and you’ll come across a feature of the Midwest landscape we take for granted: farmland. The vast open space in abundance between our state’s urban areas remains dominated by the industry that once employed more people than any other: agriculture. And while the sights of barns, cropland and animals grazing in pastures are familiar to us all, we should remember that looks can be deceiving. Plenty of changes are…

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