Consider it the biggest Christmas shopping purchase of the season as Google spends $2 billion to purchase a building in New York that takes up an entire block.   The building is an amazing 2.5 million square feet in Manhattan New York.  Thanks to a depressed real estate market the price […]

Senator Ron Wyden Oregon Business Summit Remarks December 13, 2010 When we held the first Oregon Business Summit in 2002, Duncan Wyse and I thought success would be having enough people to fill a couple of booths at a Denny’s. In fact, when an ice storm came out of nowhere […]

Civilian Labor Force Tops Two Million By Oregon Employment Department, Oregon’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 10.6 percent in November, essentially unchanged from 10.5 percent in October. The rate has been between 10.5 and 10.7 percent for the most recent 13 months. Oregon’s unemployment rate was 10.7 percent in November […]

What if you gave away health care and no one showed up? by Eric Fruits EconInternational Back October, I contributed to some research on state spending priorities. One of the recommendations was to eliminate a new program called Healthy Kids Connect. The program was funded with hundreds of millions of […]

By Tim Duy, Oregon Economic Forum sponsor, KeyBank. The University of Oregon Index of Economic Indicators™ rose 0.2 percent to 87.2 (1997=100), the second consecutive monthly increase. Compared to six months ago, more than half the index components declined while the UO Index fell 5.9 percent (annualized). Highlights of the […]

Oregon and World Exchange Rates By Patrick Emerson Oregon Economics Blog The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has issued a report that creates a real trade weighted value of the dollar for each state. This is weighted by the specific countries where the state exports to and imports from and […]

Lawsuits Take School’s Swing Sets Away From Kids by Mike Lepage US Chamber of Commerce Everyone has favorite childhood memories. For many people, those memories include rolling down slides, dangling off of monkey bars and swinging on swing sets at their local neighborhood playground. But elementary school students in Cabell […]

New economic study highlights international trade as a strength for both the Portland-metro region and the state Data show that International Trade sector gives Oregon and Portland substantial competitive advantages; provides jobs By Portland Business Alliance PORTLAND, Ore. – Today, business and community leaders released a report showing that international […]

Employee Gifts: How to Give Tax-Free By National Federation of Independent Business As you decide on an appropriate holiday gift for your employees, it’s important to consider not only what they’ll enjoy but also how taxes will come into play. Because a “gift” is often considered by the IRS to […]

By Ian Crawford Stoel Rives LLP, Oregon Law Firm OSHA compliance recently became harder and costlier, and may continue to do so, thanks to several developments at the federal and state level. (Click here for a prior post on OSHA reform.) You may go to prison if you discipline or […]