Home » Economy

Economy

Articles

BULLS & BEARS: What investors can learn from venture capital skid

I was watching a business program the other day, and one of the guests was an independent-thinking fellow who summarily dismissed the old saw, “They don’t ring a bell at the top.” He went on to say, “They do ring bells; it is just that nobody listens.” Remember the glory days for venture capital? It doesn’t seem that long ago when an idea was worth a billion-dollar initial public offering. Back in the 1990s, the wizards of Silicon Valley were…

Read More

EYE ON THE PIE: Indiana less entrepreneurial than nation

For many people, owning a business is a dream. As a nation, we idolize such people as “entrepreneurs.” We assemble data that show “small business” as the heart of the economy (even though the definition of “small” is fewer than 500 employees). Let’s look at this segment of the economy. Oops. The data we have are not as good as we want. We do not know how many proprietors or business operators are full-time and how many are part-time. It…

Read More

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: How Hoosiers who smoke are hurting state economy

For those who have gone through life shying away from anything involving numbers, the demonstration of the principle of compound interest is usually an eye-opening revelation. It’s quite simple, actually. Money set aside today accrues interest, if it is wisely invested. But so does the interest on what you set aside yesterday. Over a long time span, this snowballing of interest on interest can build up to a sizable nest egg. That’s why financial advisers always tell you to start…

Read More

MICKEY MAURER Commentary: The power of a single ‘thank you’

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my job as president of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. and secretary of commerce was the opportunity to represent our governor and the state of Indiana on goodnews occasions. On April 26, 2005, I bestowed official state certification on Intech Park, a business incubator that had qualified under the Indiana Certified Technology Park Program. Certified tech parks enjoy the advantage of being allowed to capture and invest in the development of their park…

Read More

Ratio building go-to reputation: Convention Center expansion latest notch in firm’s belt

As the Final Four approaches, it seems fitting to relive in basketball terms how Ratio Architects Inc. came off the bench in dramatic fashion to save a high-profile downtown project after the star had fouled out. The Indianapolis-based architectural firm played that role in 2004 after sketches from the original out-of-town architect designing the downtown headquarters of Simon Property Group Inc. failed to impress corporate executives. Ratio had one week to deliver, and did. But while the firm’s portfolio is…

Read More

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Ideas needed for fixing health care financing

It’s been 15 years since third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot briefly captured the nation’s attention with his crisp, witty promises to “look under the hood” to fix the problems in Washington. Since that time, some problems have gotten worse, some have gotten better. But in this era of political polarization and legislative gridlock, the idea of a new face coming to town to actually fix some of the problems we face today is as appealing as ever. What would such…

Read More

MICKEY MAURER Commentary: Hoosiers, wake up to the world

Don’t rest the chopsticks on your food. Don’t blow your nose during the meal and never pour the soy sauce on your rice. These and other tidbits of Japanese dining etiquette had to be digested before our first trade mission to Japan in 2005. That 74-person mission, led by Gov. Mitch Daniels, was the largest delegation of Indiana business leaders and state and local officials ever on foreign shores. Indiana is the No. 1 manufacturing state in the union. More…

Read More

NOTIONS: Must we pay the painful price of Hoosier incivility?

One of the most effective advertisements I ever created never had to be published. The mere fear it instilled via private showings to Connecticut state legislators was enough to undo the havoc they were threatening to wreak. At the time, lawmakers were contemplating what they called a “business services tax,” a tax that would be imposed on the services one division of a corporation provided to another, so long as both operated within the state. For example, if an Aetna…

Read More

Tax break would reward patent producers: Indiana legislators view bill as way to attract young, innovative high-tech companies and solo entrepreneurs

A bill weaving its way through the Indiana General Assembly could give the state an edge in attracting and growing the type of high-tech ventures several states covet. Indiana House Bill 1461, introduced by Rep. Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, advanced to the Senate after sailing through the House of Representatives on Feb. 26 by a vote of 95-3. The legislation that was referred to the Senate’s Economic Development and Technology Committee would provide a tax incentive that would shield income from…

Read More

BULLS & BEARS: Amid all the complaining, U.S. continues to prosper

A few weeks ago, I heard Ben Stein speak about politics and the economy. The noted lawyer, writer, actor and economist spouted off various positive statistics about the U.S. economy and then lamented that the public seemed morose about the financial sunshine. Even though our standard of living is at an all-time high, it seems as if Americans like to grovel and complain. Stein said, in his best Ferris Bueller drone, the American public was the most “unhappy happy society”…

Read More

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: How consumers respond when paper profits vanish

Most market sages know it already, but there is always a new generation of investors that needs to relearn the lesson taught by this latest financial market volatility. Namely, that paper wealth is subject to change. Turning your financial wealth into something else of value-like a house, or a car, or even a bond-always contains an element of uncertainty. If you want to take it literally, more than a trillion dollars of wealth was wiped out in the first five…

Read More

The high cost of not going to college VIEWPOINT:

The high cost of not going to college VIEWPOINT Recent studies reinforce what many parents and prospective students have found out firsthand: The cost of a college education is rising beyond what some middle- to lowincome families can afford. The cost of attending a public college rose 35 percent during the past five years, after adjusting for inflation, according to studies by the College Board, a not-for-profit organization that administers standardized tests throughout the country. As these and other studies…

Read More

BEHIND THE NEWS: Duke Realty hits groove; stock rings up big returns

T h e m a n a g e – ment team at Duke Realty Corp. is proving itself adept at juggling these days. The Indianapolis-based industrial, office and retail developer wowed Wall Street with a 25-percent increase in fourth-quarter funds from operations, a key measure of performance for Duke and other real estate investment trusts. The company received a lift, in part, from a spate of property sales. But the solid results weren’t an aberration for the relatively low-profile…

Read More

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Markets pay a premium for the college-educated

Nothing erases the thrill of getting a raise from your employer faster than the news that someone else got a bigger one. We care about how much money our friends, neighbors and coworkers make-not always in a benevolent sense-even though there is usually little we can do about it. The trappings of material wealth are all around us, and it is almost impossible, it seems, not to get caught up in the game. But despair over disparities in income and…

Read More

BULLS & BEARS: Despite myriad challenges, there’s cause for optimism

A week or so ago, I spent a few lovely days at a conference in sunny San Diego while the mercury dropped below zero in the Midwest. For once, my timing was excellent. Weather aside, the days were filled with several thought-provoking speakers. Below is a smattering of takeaways that were interesting enough to share. Paul McCulley, an economist muckitymuck who sits at the right hand of bond investment guru Bill Gross at Pimco, made the observation that the world…

Read More

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Fate of U.S. auto industry is controlled by investors

On the same black Thursday that Borg Warner announced it would close its 780-worker Muncie manufacturing facility in 2009, the price of its stock surged 6 percent. Are the traders on Wall Street heartless, or prejudiced against Muncie, or do they simply like bad news? In truth, none of these answers is probably correct, although we really have no way of knowing. But the divergent reactions of stockholders and workers and their families to the news that nearly a century…

Read More

MICKEY MAURER Commentary: A plug for non-partisan policy making

MICKEY MAURER Commentary A plug for non-partisan policy making In my final week as secretary of commerce, I appeared at a hearing before the State Budget Committee on behalf of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. The hearing was the first step in the reauthorization process for operating budget and incentive program funding for fiscal years 2008 and 2009. It was to be my final presentation at the Statehouse. In an effort to demonstrate that the Legislature was reaping a handsome…

Read More

BULLS & BEARS: Investors overlooking risk, and that spells trouble

I closed my last column by suggesting that the markets seem to be paying little attention to risk across a broad range of asset classes. One measure of risk is stock market volatility, or the magnitude of ups and downs in stock prices. The Wall Street Journal recently reported the following statistics compiled by the market analysts at Ned Davis Research: It has been almost 1,000 trading days since the Dow Jones industrial average has seen a 10-percent decline from…

Read More

Technology-friendly legislation quietly advances: Bills could spur patent commercialization and more

A handful of bills pending in the General Assembly could have a major impact on Indiana’s high-tech sector. Legislation under consideration could stimulate increased commercialization of patented Indiana technology, channel more money toward development of alternative fuels, require regular review of Indiana’s certified technology parks, and more. Tech leaders are optimistic about the chances their agenda will be approved. “It’s the reason we married up with CICP,” said Ron Brumbarger, chairman of TechPoint, a trade association for Indiana high-tech companies….

Read More

EYE ON THE PIE: Where are the best-paying jobs?

Where is the best place to work if all you consider is money? Where are the wages and salaries plus benefits paid by employers the highest? We have data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis that help us answer the question. The data refer to 2005, the latest year available, and do not include self-employment; thus, only jobs working for someone else are counted. And remember, these data are by place of work, not place of residence. Where are…

Read More