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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Education does matter in today’s labor market

Here’s an update from the American labor market: Paying attention in school really does matter. Getting good grades and going to college is a big deal. What you study and what you learn will affect the rest of your life. Parents have been telling their kids that for a long time, and some of us even listened. But the message above isn’t from a speech or a lecture. It comes from evidence provided by the U.S. economy, in particular the…

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New fiscal year, no cuts for IU School of Medicine: But concern remains about funds for future growth

No layoffs. No seven-figure budget cut to sweat through. IU School of Medicine Dean Dr. Craig Brater had many reasons to raise a toast this month, when a new fiscal year began and the school left behind an old one marked by the worst budget cuts in decades. Indeed, Brater said he is breathing a little easier as the school starts fiscal 2006-2007 with a budget of more than $815 million. An increase in clinical revenue and grant money helped…

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Investment firm taps local talent: Riderwood opens office, targets mid-size companies

An East Coast investment-banking firm is opening an Indianapolis office and has recruited three high-profile professionals who bring a wealth of experience to manage operations. Towson, Md.-based The Riderwood Group Inc. wants to help midsize companies raise $5 million to $200 million in capital, a range largely ignored here by outside rivals, firm executives said. “There really is not a national mid-market investment bank [in Indianapolis],” company President Mitchell Fillet said. “This is a place where the big firms have…

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NOTIONS: Hailing the hare in the land of the tepid tortoise

I was going to play smart aleck this week. I was going to write in hick dialect. I was going to lambaste us Hoosiers over our stubborn adherence to the status quo, our penchant to take things slow, our preference for partisanship, our pooh-poohing of progress and our bull-headed gumption to go it alone in a global economy. Then news broke that Indiana has the highest high school dropout rate in America. So I figured that for two reasons, I’d…

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CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: A midsummer reflection on fireworks

What a great Independence Day weekend. Like many businesses, IBJ Corp. took both Monday and Tuesday off for a midsummer break. The four-day weekend squeezed our deadlines a bit, but we happily paid the price. After a strong first half of the year, we deserved the break, and I don’t think we missed much by not being here. On Wednesday morning, it was as if all the July 4 fireworks blew the humidity out of the atmosphere. We woke up…

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Colts waiting list grows fast: Despite hot ticket sales, team makes big marketing push to ensure new stadium will be sold out

The Indianapolis Colts in early July will unleash its most aggressive marketing campaign ever-even though demand for tickets, club seats and corporate suites at its RCA Dome home exceeds supply. The push is all about the future. Billboards around the state will proclaim that those who want to see games in Lucas Oil Stadium when it opens in 2008 “better not wait until the dust settles,” said Tom Zupancic, Colts senior vice president of sales and marketing. Some radio, television…

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Work still elusive for people with disabilities: Employment rates remain stagnant even though a wealth of programs are finding success placing workers

The lesson Amy Kurzekwa taught the folks at the downtown Gregory & Appel Insurance agency reaches far beyond what they learned about premiums and deductibles. Since 1992, she has taken the bus to her job there as a clerical assistant, performing such tasks as sorting and delivering the office mail and filling the copy machines. While most anyone can do that, Kurzekwa, 37, is irreplaceable to her co-workers. Her role in opening their eyes to the fact that people with…

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Honda poses pay dilemma: New auto plant’s higher wages likely to force other employers to pay up or lose workers

GREENSBURG-Companies from Cincinnati to Indianapolis hoping to drive home business from Honda Motor Co.’s 2,000-employee plant might want to watch for an economic pothole hiding up the road. Giant auto plants plopped onto the prairie, while buying hundreds of millions of dollars in goods and services from companies in the state, also tend to swallow workers from established employers. That likely will force some Indiana employers to jack up wages and benefits to retain and attract workers pining to wear…

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INVESTING: You weathered market storm; don’t make it worse now

When an unexpected disaster strikes, people look for answers. They want to know how much of what they had before is left. It takes a while for the shock to wear off, but as heads slowly clear up, a lot of reassessment takes place. The global meltdown in May in securities markets apparently hit most investors, retail and professional alike, like a misguided sledgehammer to the back of the head. Readers of this column were kept wellinformed of the approaching…

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BULLS & BEARS: Sure, market’s slumping, but better times lie ahead

As I write this, the stock market has fallen off a ledge and given up, depending on the index, between 7 percent and 12 percent in a bit over a month. After that kind of fun, you might be ready to throw yourself off a ledge, or at least cash in what’s left of your portfolio. Yes, the last few weeks have been trying, but being an investor in U.S. stocks since the beginning of this decade has been no…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Health care cost ‘solutions’ only worsen the problems

As an economic forecaster, I am almost always optimistic. But that’s not a personality trait. It’s the nature of the business. The economy around us is doing amazingly well. We’ve had much longer economic expansions, steady job and income growth, and less frequent recessions for more than two decades now. So when you deliver an optimistic forecast these days, you stand a pretty good chance of being right. But if there’s one area where my optimism vanishes, it is this-how…

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INVESTING: Weakness in housing could have sweeping implications

In early May, I wrote this about home-builder stocks: “They failed to break out of their August highs, however, and they have been struggling ever since. This is a textbook example of when the best risk/reward ratio presents itself for shorting.” Using the home-builder exchange-traded fund XHB and selling it short yielded a one-month gain of 18.3 percent. Not bad! If home-building stocks are crushed, what does that say about the real estate market in general? Here are a few…

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TOM HARTON Commentary: Don’t fear the young; e-mail them

You don’t always see it or hear it, but it’s there. The quiet panic that sets in after a theater company or a newspaper or any organization realizes it must begin appealing to a new breed of consumer if it wants to survive. Young consumers of news want it in bite-size portions delivered to their desktops. Young church-goers want dynamic worship services and activities to match, not tradition-bound church groups that require elections, officers, meetings and minutes. And young patrons…

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Giving lifted by disasters: Donors generous to victims of catastrophies but didn’t forget usual causes, IU study finds

All told, individuals, corporations and foundations gave $260.3 billion to charity in 2005, 2.7 percent more than the year before even after adjusting for inflation, according to data compiled by researchers at Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy for the annual “Giving USA” report. The report, set to be released June 19 by the Illinois-based Giving USA Foundation, answers a question that has been lingering for more than a year: Would the nation’s outpouring of support for victims of an Asian…

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BEHIND THE NEWS: Amid stock market’s slide, a high-flier gets grounded

In late April, Brightpoint Inc. investors had every reason to feel giddy. Shares of the wireless phone wholesaler were up 85 percent for the year, after advancing 113 percent in 2005. Today, those heady days seem like a distant memory. Since reaching a high of $28.50 April 27, Brightpoint’s shares have lost 50 percent of their value, lopping more than $700 million off the company’s market value. “Clearly, wireless is out of favor on Wall Street and has been for…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: We want to count jobs, but what’s the best way?

Americans like to keep score on things. And in the realm of economics, there are plenty of things to keep score on. But the economy is a huge, often unwieldy beast, and the data we use to track it are often quite a bit fuzzier than the rows of hardlooking numbers in the graphs and statistical reports we digest would make it seem. In fact, as the old joke goes, we economists like to present growth rates out to two…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Motor-vehicle jobs: a path to the future?

Would landing a new Honda plant be a plus for the Indiana economy? You bet it would. In fact, it’s hard to think of any similar-size investment that holds the same immediate potential for supporting additional jobs beyond those inside the plant walls. The project scores well on just about every objective measure you can come up with to assess its attractiveness. It draws on skills and occupations Indiana already has. Its activities hold great promise for new business for…

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Regional partnerships called key to making it: Purdue urges state manufacturers to join supply chain

Growing global competition is bringing local manufacturers together. And the definition of local is changing from around the corner to within 500 miles. Officials from Purdue University have conducted a series of manufacturing summits encouraging Indiana plants to tear down their separatist walls and become an integrated part of regional supply chains. “Supplier-based manufacturing is based on long-term relationships in a 500-mile radius, so we need to think about Indiana manufacturing regionally,” said John Sullivan, director of Purdue’s Center for…

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Geographic restrictions could backfire for PERF: $105 million fund carries lots of potential, risks

By restricting the new $105 million Indiana Investment Fund I to deals within state lines, Gov. Mitch Daniels hopes to simultaneously spur economic development and earn a spectacular return for Indiana’s retired public employees. But venture-capital experts warn it’s nearly impossible to have it both ways. “You need to be very, very clear what your objectives are when you invest [pension] money. Is it for economic development or to help the pensioners earn better pensions?” said John Taylor, vice president…

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