Columbia Sportswear Announces First-quarter Record By Oregon Small Business Association Columbia Sportswear Co. reported a 5 percent increase in net sales for a first-quarter record $348.3 million, compared with first quarter 2012 net sales of $333.1 million. In a press release, Tim Boyle, Columbia’s president and CEO commented, “During the […]

The Mobile Silicon Forest: In Focus With Congressman Greg Walden & Jonathan Spalter Friday, May 10th, 11:00am – 1:00pm Embassy Suites, Downtown Portland, 329 SW Pine St. Hosted Luncheon* Consumers are gravitating to mobile technology, and Oregon is a national leader in the new exploding application economy, recently ranked #4 […]

Video: Google Glass, Facebook 22% mobile boom Two video news item of the week. Video #1 is CNN doing a demonstration of Google Glass showing how it can be used to take pictures and get up to date news in your own glasses. Video #2 is a Wall Street Video […]

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-AZ), the two lead negotiators in the Senate’s Gang of Eight immigration reform group, said that they believe their immigration reform bill will not just have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate—but majority support from both parties and the president. […]

By Oregon State Treasurer Oregon-led infrastructure effort gaining traction in Washington D.C., garners White House attention — State Treasurer leads Oregon delegation that is promoting new approach for projects A year ago, a west coast effort to look regionally at infrastructure development was only a concept on a whiteboard. Today, […]

By Jan Meekcoms Oregon NFIB (Originally published in Salem Business Journal) Oregon recently came under the scrutiny of two institutions making their annual examination of all 50 states’ economies. In March, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation released its yearly Facts & Figures, How Does Your State Compare? Fortunately for Oregon, our […]

 County Population Forecast By Josh Lehner Oregon Office of Economic Analysis Blog. A quick follow-up on previous post on improving employment in regions of the state outside of Portland. Using the latest QCEW again, the first graph illustrates over-the-year job gains for the state overall, the Portland MSA (5 county […]

By Bill Watkins, Oregon Economics California Lutheran University A “Comeback” in Name Only The New York Times loves California. Well, parts of it, anyway. Adam Nagourney, writing a few weeks after voters approved a temporary income- and sales-tax hike, reported that the state’s economic gloom was “starting to lift,” even […]

CNN did this graph from data of the Recording Industry Association of America showing how the advent of digital music has taken a giant hit to sales in the music industry. See sales chart below.

.Pew Research by Richard Fry and Paul Taylor Overview During the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery, the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped […]