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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Recession speculation is wrong way to use brainpower

With all the media warnings on the state of the U.S. economy, it is hard to get a good idea what a recession is and what it might mean for Hoosiers. The formal definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. We haven’t had even one quarter where real growth dipped below zero, and the weakerthan-usual employment data of the first three months this year won’t be enough to pull the economy into a recession. The…

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SPORTS: How big was Patrick’s win? Let the debate begin

Like most of the rest of the sporting world and to some extent beyond, I had awakened on that Sunday morning to the delightful news that, overnight in faraway Japan, Patrick had broken through to secure her first Indy Racing League victory in 50 tries. She now is something more than a pretty face and, to some, a sexual object who also just happened to drive race cars. She is a champion. Now this isn’t, as one gearhead suggested, along…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Can we handle Obama’s truth?

This is not a political endorsement. It is, however, a cry of outrage that a candidate for president is attacked for speaking the truth. Barack Obama has been quoted as saying, “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And it’s not surprising then [that local residents] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: How kids do in high school matters to economy

Far too often, our worry about the shortterm state of the economy prevents us from focusing on the long term. That’s too bad because it is the long term, not the short run, that we have the most ability to influence. The most important issue looming for Indiana and the nation is education. Here is the fate of a representative group of 10 18-year-olds. Four years ago, our 10 Hoosier students entered high school. One could not read. As of…

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Commentary: Jim Browning, a champion of the city

It was probably 15 years ago when Jim Browning called and invited me to lunch for the first time. I don’t recall why he extended the invitation, but I remember from the lunch that he was interested in what I had to say. And that surprised me. I didn’t know Jim then, but I knew of him through his architecture firm, Browning Day Mullins Dierdorf. I also associated him with the group of bold civic leaders who came up with…

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Star, other daily newspapers adapting to digital world

The Indianapolis Star has launched an armada of initiatives to bolster revenue as it reacts to seismic industry changes, many
driven by advertiser and reader flight to digital media. Daily newspapers–once one of the nation’s most stable, profitable
businesses–now face a rapidly changing marketplace that would make the most innovative business operator quiver.

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Federal survey of patients puts hospitals to the test: Satisfaction questionnaire ranks criteria ranging from room cleanliness to communication skills of providers

New patient satisfaction scores compiled by the federal government and posted online give consumers more feedback than ever regarding the care hospitals provide. The usefulness of that information is up for debate. On its Hospital Compare Web site, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services tracks technical measures that show how often hospitals provide certain types of care that is recommended for patients treated for various conditions-heart attacks or pneumonia, for instance. Starting late last month, the agency began including…

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Film exec returns home to sell state: New tax credits helpful, but not enough to make Indiana stand out as movie venue

When Erin Newell was growing up in Greenwood, she and a friend would swipe her dad’s video camera and make movies in the basement. As a student at Ball State University, she studied filmmaking. And when she graduated, she was out like a shot to Los Angeles. Now, nearly nine years later-after scoring production and assisting credits on movies that even everyday folks have heard of-she’s back in Indiana, helping to beef up the state’s film-production industry so others might…

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Building opportunities: CREW Careers offers girls a glimpse into the diverse world of commercial real estate

While one college basketball team just completed its journey to a national championship, CREW Network’s women hope they’re on a similar winning path-a path to scoring parity in the male-dominated field of commercial real estate. The Commercial Real Estate Women Network is a national member organization dedicated to the advancement of women in commercial real estate. It has 66 chapters, including one in Indianapolis. In 2005, CREW Network completed the industry’s first comprehensive study of the status of women in…

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Commentary: Israel through the eyes of a visitor

My wife, Janie, and I made some new friends on our recent trip to Israel, including Moira Carlstedt, president of the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership. I happily cede my space this week for her observations of the trip. It is like any hospital room in Indianapolis-except you can see the Lebanese border from the window, and you stand amid damage from a Hezbollah rocket that tore through that window. And then you understand the need for the underground hospital that…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: New architecture contracts bring interesting changes

Change. While it is a buzz word that some political candidates throw around like candy, the construction industry is bracing for an important and imminent change of their own. The American Institute of Architects has produced standard contract forms for the construction industry for more than 100 years. Regardless of your perspective on such forms, the AIA forms still are the most commonly used standard forms in the industry. The AIA released their updated and revised set of contract forms…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Business isn’t losing any sleep over new technology

I’ve been looking over some business polls from 2007 and 2008, and I have to tell you I’m disappointed. As a technology columnist, I’d hoped that companies would be perpetually lathered over all sorts of thorny technical issues that only new purchases could solve and that I could critique. Silly me. But still, I went into the exercise with high hopes. After all, isn’t every aspect of a business permeated by breakable, worrisome technology of all kinds? And doesn’t every…

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INVESTING: Don’t turn bullish too fast on ravaged market sectors

British investor Joe Lewis (who is still a billionaire, although after you find out what happened to him, you will wonder how he has any money left) started buying stock in Bear Stearns back in August when it fell to $120 a share. When the stock fell to $110 in October, he bought more, to the tune of $300 million. In November, Bear fell to about $90, and Joe was at it again. All told, he bought $1 billion of…

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Legislators tackle range of business-related measures:

Property tax reform took center stage during the just-completed session of the Indiana General Assembly. But lawmakers also grappled with a host of other measures with business implications. A roundup appears below. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT One of the session’s most divisive issues-whether to penalize companies that hire illegal immigrants-died during the waning hours. Under the legislation, introduced by Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, companies could have had their business licenses suspended, or revoked after three instances. The Senate and House passed…

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Mortgage blues haven’t hit all: Some firms are holding their own despite housing, credit slump

The local office of Cleveland-based KeyBank has hired a banking veteran to lead a revamped mortgage department that will boast a larger sales force. And locally based mortgage firm Signature Group recently completed construction of its new headquarters and added three brokers. In this climate of ballooning foreclosures and rising interest rates, one might wonder whether executives of the aforementioned institutions are reading the wrong spreadsheets. To the contrary, despite the gloomy picture monthly housing statistics paint, they are among…

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A&E: Seeing ‘Tosca’ from the terrace

I try to avoid leading this column with commentary on productions that have come and gone. While I steadfastly believe it’s valuable to keep such productions in the mix, I appreciate that many of you aren’t as interested in what happened as you are in what’s still happening. Still, I think there’s use in talking about some weekend-onlys and onenighters. If I share, for instance, that Indianapolis Opera’s production of “Tosca” (March 14, 16) offered a compelling, entertaining, and often…

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Commentary MICKEY MAURER: No more stock advice-I promise

“At $2.94 per share, the price of Finish Line stock has almost fully discounted the downside risk.” Whew! The above quote in my column of Dec. 3, 2007, had me choking on my own ink. I was addressing Finish Line’s ill-fated quest to purchase the outstanding stock of much larger Genesco Inc. for $54.50 a share. The thought of trying to digest the $1.5 billion purchase price is reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin’s lunching on his own boots. I predicted that…

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Local bankers surprised by Bear bailout: Observers hope firm’s sudden sale signals peak of financial turmoil

The local president of Milwaukee-based M&I Bank, Reagan Rick, got the shocking news while waiting for a plane at Boston Logan International Airport. It came in a text message from Robert Warrington, the former CEO of First Indiana Bank, the Indianapolis bank M&I acquired last year for $529 million. Warrington told him 85-year-old New York-based investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. had been sold to JP Morgan Chase Co.-with backing from the Federal Reserve-for a mere $2 per share. “The degree…

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SPORTS: ‘The Luke’ and its potential are finally real to us

And in less than five months-if, as we used to say in Center Grove, the Good Lord’s willing and the cricks don’t rise-it no longer will be just that mammoth structure rising between West and Missouri streets. It will be ours, and in that personal pronoun, I mean, sincerely, that Lucas Oil Stadium will belong to all of us, not just residents of Indianapolis and the contiguous counties who have pitched in on the funding, but to all Hoosiers who…

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