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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: What Halloween can teach us about economics

The week of Halloween at the Hicks household is also the week we learn about taxes. It is a natural combination-they are both kind of scary and involve giving up something you’ve worked for to someone else. Having three kids of different ages and interests is especially instructive. My fourth-grader is all about the experience of trick or treating with friends. She is likely to savor every minute chatting, holding hands and skipping along. She is not trying to maximize…

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Was HIP program enough?: Candidates spar over impact of Daniels’ health reforms

Just how big of a deal was the Healthy Indiana Plan? That seems to be the key question dividing Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels and his Democratic challenger, Jill Long Thompson, in their competing plans over health care reform. Daniels’ campaign for re-election points to his administration’s ongoing rollout of the Healthy Indiana Plan as his entire plan for health care reform in his second term. The plan, which uses cigarette tax revenue to offer health insurance and health savings accounts…

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ACCOUNTING: Private-company audits make a comeback, but not for all

In recent years, Sarbanes-Oxley Act regulations have been a moving force in increasing the emphasis on improved internal controls, governance and accountability in the public markets. The Securities and Exchange Commission has always required audits for publicly traded companies, but the primary users of private companies’ financial statements-banks and other lending institutions-have been slow to mandate audits. With the recent turmoil in credit markets and increasingly tight credit requirements for closely held business loans, the audit appears to be coming…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Property tax reform will change development landscape

As the country faces the “subprime crisis” and its effect on the availability of financing, we know local real estate markets have seen brighter days. Fortunately, we also know this crisis will pass. If you are a real estate developer or land-use professional, there will be many opportunities ahead. However, it is important to consider that the regulatory landscape in Indiana relative to land-use development will not be the same as the one you knew prior to the current market….

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EDITORIAL: Preparing for vote will make it count: Educate yourself before election

Preparing for vote will make it count Educate yourself before election Barring a repeat of the 2000 presidential election debacle that took more than a month to sort out, we are a little over a week away from finding out who will become our country’s next commander in chief. Although IBJ has a policy of not endorsing candidates, we do have some other recommendations as central Indiana heads into the homestretch of this hotly contested race. For weeks, political pundits…

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No perfect fit for Main Street: Small-business owners fall on both sides of political line

Joe the Plumber has been getting plenty of attention in recent weeks, but what about Kimberly the Merchant or John the Manufacturer? For all the talk about whether this year’s presidential candidates favor Wall Street or Main Street, there’s little discussion of the fact that neither Democrat Barack Obama nor Republican John McCain may be perfect for all small-business owners. Indianapolis manufacturing firm owner John Raine is backing McCain because of his stance on taxes and labor unions. Local shop…

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VIEWPOINT: Throw crooks in jail, fire dummies

The $700 billion bailout of our country’s financial system may be necessary, but it ultimately will prove useless unless real change is enacted to prevent a repeat performance of this fiasco. What the American people should be demanding is for someone to give them a clear explanation of what really happened to create the financial mess. Remember, after the market crash of 2000, the Wall Street research scandal (where nearly every Wall Street firm admitted to lying to clients through…

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Ousted mayor guides local up-and-comers: Peterson named moderator for prestigious group

Voters decided last Election Day that they’d had enough of Bart Peterson, but the former mayor is in demand with academics, a think tank, and now the city’s premier leadership network. Peterson is moderator of the Stanley K. Lacy Executive Leadership Series, which introduces “emerging leaders” to Indianapolis and its problems. “It’s something I never went through as a class member. I’ve always envied those who did,” Peterson said of the series, which accepts just 25 applicants each year. “It’s…

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MARKETING: Take ethical high road and set good example

A student bartender explained that the bar owner requires his employees to serve cheap liquor in place of the more expensive liquors listed on the menus. “The customers don’t know the difference. So who’s hurt?” she asked. What difference does it make that customers pay for a top-quality product and actually receive a low-quality substitute? Let’s see. What kind of ethical standard is the bar owner setting for his young employees? How many businesses down the road will be tainted…

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A renewed call for renewable energy mandate: State bucks trend by not forcing utilities to diversify

Indiana has become the lone state in the upper Midwest not requiring that utilities supply a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable resources, such as wind turbines and landfill gas. Last month, Michigan’s legislature mandated that at least 10 percent of electricity supplied in that state be generated from renewable sources by 2015. Indiana’s conspicuous lack of a standard, along with growing environmental concerns over coal, could improve prospects for passing a standard during the 2009 session of the…

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INVESTING: Investors’ margin calls accelerated selling spree

After a tumultuous and historic couple of weeks, culminating Oct. 10-when stocks dropped 800 points as the market opened-investors stood on the edge of the abyss and stopped selling. Market participants arrived at the conclusion that, over that coming weekend, financial chiefs around the world would do whatever it took to rescue the financial system. And they did, by formulating measures to be undertaken by finance leaders across the globe that are unprecedented and wideranging, from supporting the commercial paper…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Economic crisis explained, at last

I was uncomfortably challenged when Faye of the Forest landed on my deck a few days ago wanting to know what all these economic goings-on meant. “I’m responsible for teaching the elves,” she said, “and I don’t know what to tell them.” “I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “But here’s what seems to me has happened.” “Some people,” I said, “are unable to make the payments on their mortgages. These mortgages are not held by the banks…

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Gubernatorial candidates Daniels, Thompson see economic development differently

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson promises to buoy Indiana’s slumping rural counties with a three-tiered
incentive plan. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has a different vision for stoking the state economy. He wants to build on Indiana’s
strengths–such as world-class research at universities–to innovate and create jobs.

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Starting from scratch best hope for health care system

A person’s DNA may someday determine how doctors diagnose illness and prescribe affordable treatment. That same genetic makeup also might help doctors determine whether a person suffering from cancer might be predisposed to respond or not respond to chemotherapy or another type of innovative or experimental treatment. That future picture of health care delivery, however, is missing a key piece. It doesn’t address what those advancements might mean for health insurance and other related questions about medical coverage. Our current…

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VIEWPOINT: Put progress over politics and enact reform

As we approach the final stretch in this year’s election season, it’s easy to get desensitized to the political rhetoric. Sometimes, though, there’s an issue that transcends the partisan divide and deserves to cut through the clutter: Local government reform is such an issue. Indiana’s Constitution created a multilayered system of county, township and municipal government in 1851. This might have been appropriate when most travel was by horseback, but today it’s left Hoosiers to support more than 3,000 units…

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NOTIONS: The perils and pitfalls of pulling the party lever

My sister-in-law is a deputy county prosecutor in Michigan. By all accounts, she’s good at her job. But that may not matter. You see, my sisterin-law’s boss is up for re-election next month. And because his job is on the line, so is hers. So in addition to her day job, my sister-in-law has been working nights and weekends on the campaign. My sister-in-law is passionate about putting away bad guys. She’d like to keep doing it. But it’s not…

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Commentary: Turmoil raises questions about toll road

On Aug. 28, the investment bank UBS downgraded its rating on the Australian investment bank, Macquarie Group. UBS noted that Macquarie faced the threat of a declining asset base, which it leverages to fund Macquarie’s dividend payments. UBS also posited that Macquarie may be inadequately capitalized. Macquarie Group should be familiar to Hoosiers as one of the two entities that leased the Indiana Toll Road in April 2006 for 75 years. To lease the toll road, Macquarie invested $385 million…

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Lawsuit raises questions about prison privatization: Complaint alleges abuse of mentally ill inmates

A newly filed federal lawsuit alleging widespread abuse of Indiana inmates raises questions about the state’s privatization of prison health care. The Indiana Protection and Advocacy Services Commission, a not-for-profit watchdog organization, sued the Indiana Department of Correction on Oct. 1, charging it regularly segregates mentally ill prisoners into isolation for 23 hours a day. According to the suit, the prisoners are punished by stripping away their clothes and being fed a diet consisting entirely of “nutraloaf,” described as “a…

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