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DIFFERENT TAKES: IS IT IMPORTANT FOR COMPANIES TO STAY LOCAL?

Mergers not only good for investors Keeping local roots is high priority DIFFERENT TAKES IS IT IMPORTANT FOR COMPANIES TO STAY LOCAL? When entrepreneurs or investors start companies, they do so with a goal in mind. That goal might be to create jobs, create value for investors or shareholders, develop local talent, build long-term capabilities for the company and the state’s economy, produce a profit, or all of these. Chances of success rise as we embrace the idea of an…

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Housing bubble on hold

The inventory of central Indiana homes for sale is piling up, but the backlog so far hasn’t caused prices to fall, according to experts and industry statistics.

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Does the economy care who wins in November?

If you ever visit Indiana’s past through the eyes of our state’s excellent historians, you uncover many amazing facts. To me, one of the most remarkable is this: In the 19th century, before the age of the automobile, mass communication and high school basketball, the voter turnout among Hoosiers in national elections approached, and sometimes surpassed, 90 percent. When you think about the sacrifice it took to get to a polling place in those days, that’s an incredible achievement. Of…

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Volatile markets aren’t as whacky as they seem:

Even in a going-nowhere year like 2006, the ups and downs of the financial markets strike a lot of people as too much. Stock prices, in particular, are constantly described as volatile-swinging in arcs far wider than economic conditions could possibly warrant. Look at emerging markets stocks, which jumped 25 percent in the first few months of this year, then gave the whole gain back again in less than six weeks. These stocks from economies on the frontiers of capitalism,…

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State’s new arts leader plans to take more public role: Indiana Arts Commission’s strategy calls for Executive Director Lewis Ricci to be a vocal advocate for funding

In the fall of 2005, the Indiana Arts Commission started a rigorous study to draft its next five-year strategy. After public hearings around the state, the full 15-member arts commission voted this summer to adopt the new plan. And now commissioners have someone to implement it. The chosen man, Lewis Ricci, is itching to take over the spot and turn the commission into a bully pulpit for the importance of the arts-and the need for public funding. “Advocacy is one…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Productivity is going up, but what’s the cause?

It’s all quite clear as economists draw it up on their blackboards. Growth in productivity-defined as the output produced per person-hour of labor-is what ultimately allows us all to enjoy a higher standard of living. When we collectively produce more, we earn more. Or, to put it another way, we can afford to pay ourselves more without provoking inflation. And since the midpoint of the last decade, the measures of economy-wide productivity produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics…

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Home builders facing tougher-than-expected downturn: Local building permits down 18 percent from last year

Alan Goldsticker, president of Ryland Homes of Indiana, said builders have a mound, not a mountain, confronting them. The walls might not be caving in on the Indianapolis housing market, but the current softening in home building is expected to continue for months. That’s the prospectus from Steve Lains, CEO of the Builders Association of Greater Indianapolis. While the outlook is not as bad as it could be, it is worse than most experts expected entering 2006. BAGI predicted then…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Strong economy draws out plethora of spending plans

If you ever want to satisfy your curiosity about recessions and business cycles, travel over to the Web site of the National Bureau of Economic Research. It has recorded and documented every downturn and uptick in the U.S. economy since 1857. And over that century and a half, the bureau has noticed certain regularities to the boom and bust of the economy around us. In the first stages of recovery from a recession, for example, it is quite common for…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Let’s ditch revenue forecasting

“This humidity is the worst part of living in a Hoosier forest. I can’t take off more clothes and maintain an appropriate degree of decency. Even then, this soggy air still would be oppressive.” Faye of the Forest was perched on my deck railing complaining about the weather. I just endured, puffing a cigar as if I were Sydney Greenstreet in one of those 1940s movies set in the jungle. All I was missing was the white suit. “So,” she…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: State employment growth is weaker than you think

There’s a real buzz about job growth in Indiana these days. Announcements of job creation, big and small, are echoing through the business media, and many economic development officials tell us their phones are ringing with calls from new prospects at a rate they haven’t seen in years. Yet the data used by most of us to track job growth tell a slightly more sobering story. The 2.94 million workers on Indiana payrolls in July, as reported by the Department…

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EYE ON THE PIE: If you make a mistake, then ‘fess up to it

I spoke at a meeting last week on the prospective impact of Honda in Greensburg on the Columbus economy. Several speakers had preceded me and I did not know what they had said, since I arrived an hour late. Naturally, I apologized for my tardiness. Punctuality is a virtue in societies, like ours, that value efficiency above comfort. Then I proceeded, unwittingly, to make a fool of myself. I proclaimed, in my best stentorian manner, that the key factor for…

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INVESTING: Long term, China and India offer opportunities aplenty

To put it mildly, the hype about China (and now, increasingly, about India) has been enough to choke a horse. I know. I got right to the front of the bandwagon three years ago when I started writing about India. But when it comes to your cash, it’s only worth talking about stuff that is going to make you money. We are not in a classroom. And with your money firmly in the front of our mind, let’s find out…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Simplistic ideas get in way of efforts to increase wages

To the small cadre of economists who have worked their entire professional lives trying to understand the complexities of how and why the labor market rewards some skills, occupations and people more than others, the popularity of the idea of a government-mandated minimum wage must be depressing. But it shouldn’t be surprising. The notion that complex market outcomes can be explained by simplistic notions like greed or discrimination-solvable by the stroke of a lawmaker’s pen-will probably always have a superficial…

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NOTIONS: Mailbox of plenty could yield empty pockets

Bruce Hetrick is on vacation this week. In his absence, this column, which appeared on Aug.19, 2002, is being reprinted. Dear Reader: In our nation’s capital, at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and North Capitol Street, the Smithsonian Institution has converted a former post office into the National Postal Museum. Carved into the white granite wall is an inscription called “The Letter.” Written by former Harvard University President Charles W. Eliot and edited by former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, it…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Yes, Virginia, there is an ‘Indiana economy’

“Is there really such a thing as the ‘Indiana economy’?” The question came from Ed Doric, a pillar of our community. We were at one of the many fests that provide camaraderie and calories during our humid Hoosier summers. The crowd moved us apart so I could not answer his inquiry. Let the following be accepted as my response. Yes, Ed, there is an Indiana economy. As certainly as there is a U.S. economy, as surely as you or I…

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BULLS & BEARS: Fuss over our trade deficit is much ado about nothing

I’ll preface this column by telling you I am not an economist, just an observer. How many times have you heard a sobering news report on the trade deficit? The gist of these reports is that the deficit will weaken the dollar, cause all kinds of job losses, and be the ruin of our economy. The typical deficit TV news report begins with a picture of some old, rusty U.S. factory. It closes with video clips of construction cranes building…

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INVESTING: Mexicans turn pro-market, Americans socialist

Hola! I feel like speaking Spanish today. I want to go down to Mexico and protest with my socialist brothers the outrages of the freeelection process. There’s a lot of wealth we Americans didn’t create but want to take, and that’s hard to do when a bunch of capitalists are running Mexico. It has been a long struggle for Mexico. Decades of anti-capitalist governments and first-rate corruption have created problems that will take generations to work out. But the election…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Politics sometimes fuels destructive public policy

If you called someone a royalist these days, you’d probably just get a blank stare. But 200 years ago, you would have started a heated discussion and perhaps even a deadly duel. The accusation was often leveled toward those who managed the economy in those days, perhaps for good reason. Then, as now, bankers, financiers and the other moguls trusted with responsibility for national money matters were not always a democratic lot. While politically incorrect then as well as now,…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: U.S. economy slowing, but still showing vitality

By the demanding standards of recent history, the justcompleted second quarter was a tough one for the U.S. economy. The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported an annualized growth rate of just 2.5 percent in the overall economy in the April-June period, significantly lower than historical trends and well below the blistering growth of the preceding three months. In addition, there was unwelcome inflation news, causing some analysts to dust off an old word that hasn’t been used since the early…

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Pools of Fun: Diving in the deep end Homebuilder’s ‘experiment’ still paying off 25 years later

In 1981, few central Indiana residents considered an inground pool a backyard necessity, but Plainfield custom homebuilder Larry Good added one to a spec home anyway-and jumped into the deep end of a new enterprise. “After it was installed, the home sold immediately,” said Bruce Holmes, CEO of the company Good launched. Pools of Fun started with one location and four employees. Today, it has five locations, a range of products and 90 full-time employees who share ownership of the…

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