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 […]

Boquist bill would buck Wall Street, aid community banks, businesses Senator Brain Boquist Press Release A Senate committee considered a bill introduced by Senator Brian Boquist (R-Dallas) on Thursday that would empower the Oregon Growth Board to help community banks offer more business loans to Oregon Main Streets. “In my […]

Senate Passes Bipartisan Social Media Privacy Bill SB 344A prohibits higher education institutions from demanding access to social media accounts By Senate Majority Office, The Oregon Senate today passed a bipartisan bill designed to protect the privacy rights of college students. SB 344 A focuses on privacy protection for higher […]

NIKE has pulled their Boston massacre T-shirts USA Today reports that NIKE has pulled their “Boston Massacre” T-Shirts from their factory outlet stores in light of the unexpected Boston bombings that occurred last week. The term is used to represent a New York Boston rivalry (as you can see the […]

By Oregon Prosperity Project New $275 Million Tax Increase Unveiled this Week —HB 2456 adds new taxes on top of Measure 66 & 67 taxes A new, serious tax increase proposal was introduced. The Oregon House of Representatives will vote on it soon. The bill is HB 2456. The proposed […]

University of Oregon Regional Economic Indexes By Tim Duy Oregon Economic Forum University of  Oregon We thank KeyBank for their generous support of this project. • Regional divergence widened further in February, with Portland pulling ahead of the rest of the regional economies. Highlights of the release include: • The […]

PC sales have made a sudden steer downwards with a 14% drop. At the same time, Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 8, sales have been under projection. In some cases Windows 8 is being blamed for the PC end as PRO-PC states, “Microsoft’s Windows 8 actually deterred potential PC buyers, […]

Michael Hendrix Director, Research & Emerging Issues Forum for Innovation, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Have we just popped a Bitcoin bubble? If you haven’t heard of Bitcoins before, they’re a digital currency with no central monetary authority, instead sourcing, verifying, and trading coinage through peer-to-peer networks. They can also be […]