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Techpoint’s new leader sees room to grow: Indiana making progress, but could do better, he says

Techpoint, a locally based technology trade group that represents the interests of about 330 members statewide, is undergoing a transition in leadership. Jim Jay, 37, has been named interim CEO following the resignation of Cameron Carter, who has led the organization since 2003. Directors should begin a formal search for a permanent replacement the first of the year. Whether Jay lands the top job remains to be seen. But in the meantime, the Butler University graduate with an entrepreneurial spirit…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Our technology woes begin in grade school

Those of us who work for universities soon become acquainted with the concept of tenure, which is a status typically conferred upon those of faculty rank who have demonstrated to their colleagues the ability to teach and conduct research to a high standard. Those who achieve tenured status are more free to speak their minds about controversial issues, since it is much more difficult for their superiors to terminate or dismiss them without just cause. The words penned in this…

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BULLS & BEARS: Market may be at high, but big challenges loom

The other day, as investors basked in the glow of new stock market highs, an eyecatching headline traveled across newswires. The article, which seemed out of place with the record highs on the Dow Jones industrial average, was titled “GAO chief warns economic disaster looms.” The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, is an investigative arm of Congress that audits and evaluates the performance of the federal government. The head of the GAO can be thought of as the nation’s chief…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Improving state economy defies simple measures

The replacement of the Indiana Department of Commerce with the privately directed Indiana Economic Development Corp. has been mostly a non-issue in this election season. While most of the fist-pounding, face-reddening rhetoric has been directed at such meaty issues as how long we wait when we go to the BMV office once a year and whether or not we should reset our clocks each spring and fall, the issue of how we go about reinventing and reinvigorating the economy that…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: High gasoline prices sometimes difficult to understand

Just who or what is it that sets the price for a gallon of gas? Well, gasoline station owners of course. Whether it’s a momand-pop station or part of a large chain, the owner looks at prices up and down the street and changes the signs accordingly. These owners know what everybody else around them is charging, and they also know what their supplier is charging them for their wholesale supply. What about the wholesale price? Its set in a…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: It’s time to get realistic about the federal deficit

Most of us know that the dollar figures used to describe the national economy are awfully large. That includes the dollar totals that pertain to the operations of the federal government as well. We’re a big country, with a population nearly 300 million strong. We have the world’s largest economy, and, yes, the world’s largest government. And every newly elected congressman or congresswoman soon gets comfortable tossing around multibillion-dollar spending commitments as if they were salt and pepper shakers at…

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NOTIONS: Dear philanthropist: Make me a daydream believer

Last month, I picked up my boys in Fort Wayne, drove north on Interstate 69, hooked a left at Interstate 94, and got off at the Portage, Mich., exit. There, we whiled away the weekend at a family reunion. The grownups ate too much, caught up on gossip and puttered around the lake in the speedboat. The teenagers, whom we rarely saw, did X-Box battle in the basement. On Sunday, after the kids had surfaced for lunch and the grandparents…

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Fewer businesses splurging for employee relocation costs: Perk is more prevalent, though, when attempting to attract high-level executives

Paying closing costs on a home or, better yet, asking that a potential employer purchase the house itself are among the brashest requests she’s fielded. Yet the owner of Quiring Associates Inc. expressed some surprise when the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota arranged to move her daughter, a recent Purdue University graduate embarking on her first job no less. “They brought a huge van down to pick up her things,” Quiring said. “They actually wanted her to know how serious they…

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Office furniture dealers experience sales rebound: Better economy, more moves give industry a boost

Indianapolis-area office furniture dealers are awash with business, following a robust national trend that has lifted the industry beyond its lows of a few years ago. As businesses have begun to move into bigger quarters since 2003, they’ve naturally ordered desks, chairs and filing cabinets to fill the bigger space, local dealers said. “The industry is closer to where it used to be, but I don’t think we’ll ever again see the kind of activity we had in the mid-…

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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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