By Dr. Eric Fruits Econ International Blog If you have ever visited Portland, it’s fairly certain that someone will proclaim that the city has more strip clubs per capita than any other city. Indeed, Portland’s reputation is international. Earlier this year, the UK’s Guardian newspaper dropped the factoid in its […]

Chevrolet Volt Energizes the Rich Jose Mesa José Mesa Auto Wholesale, LLC The Chevrolet Volt is far from being the everyday driver for the average American. In fact only 7,671 were sold in 2011 which is just short of General Motors goal of 10,000 vehicles. It has an average price […]

Latest viruses exploit Facebook, Twitter By Oregon Small Business Association, A new form of virus—dubbed social media virus or social spam—has companies like Facebook and Twitter working around the clock to prevent hackers from exploiting their social networks. Hackers have become adept at creating fraudulent profile accounts from which to […]

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber State of the State Address Portland City Club – 1-13-12 I’m proud of the progress we have made during the past year. We have not shied away from tough decisions – on the budget, education and health care – to put Oregon on a more sustainable […]

Best & worst of the 2012 tech products and gadgets CNN does a review of the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show with some very exciting and otehrs very odd tech products.

By Heritage Foundation Economic freedom declined worldwide in 2011 as many countries attempted — without success — to spend their way out of recession, according to the 18th annual Index of Economic Freedom, released today by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. The average economic freedom score for […]

By Tim Duy, Oregon Economic Forum The Oregon economy lost momentum in November. The three-month moving average of the Oregon Measure of Economic Activity was -0.93, largely unchanged from October. The University of Oregon Index of Economic Indicators™ slipped 0.3 percent to 88.8 (1997=100) in November. Further comments: • The […]

Pop-up shops’ sales jump 53 percent, retailers report growth in sales By Portland Business Alliance This year’s holiday season was a jolly one for downtown retailers. Many retailers are reporting at least a 10 percent increase in sales over last year, and the über-popular pop-up shops rung up more than […]

by Patrick Emerson Oregon Economics Blog The report out from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is excellent. 200,000 net new jobs is not just a good number but a great number. As a rule of thumb, you need at least 100,000 new jobs a month to keep up with population […]

By U.S. Chamber of Commerce There’s much to do. For starters, Congress should take another crack at bipartisan negotiations to reduce the deficit following last year’s failure by the deficit reduction super-committee. The $1.5 trillion in automatic spending cuts scheduled to begin on January 1, 2013, does not address the […]