Files containing subject leading index

The Puget Sound region has a habit of stumbling into deep recessions. Relatively speaking, in every downturn since 1969, it has suffered a greater employment loss than the nation. Fortunately, since robust recoveries have more than compensated for the backsliding, the region has outpaced the nation in the long run. Over the last five decades, regional jobs have tripled, while national jobs have [READ MORE]

President-Elect Donald Trump saved 1,100 jobs at a Carrier plant in Indiana. Or was it 800? He then objected to the $4 billion cost of the next Air Force One being built by Boeing...It should be no surprise that someone who prides himself as a businessman would want to get his hands on the economy. [READ MORE]

The Long Goodbye, a Robert Altman movie starring Elliot Gould as Detective Philip Marlowe, got mixed reviews. The Great Recession's version of The Long Goodbye deserves to be slammed. [READ MORE]

This decade has been "just one damn thing after another." Who would have imagined our string of bad luck: the dot-com implosion, 9/11, the housing bubble and credit crunch, and soaring energy prices? Or was it bad luck? [READ MORE]

We can gauge a recession in several ways--the decline in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the number of lost jobs, and the rise in unemployment. An interesting alternative is to express it in terms of time. [READ MORE]

Fed chair Ben Bernanke may not like it, but Alan Greenspan has still got it. The day after the former chief uttered the "R"word, the stock market turned south, causing a case of the jitters. [READ MORE]

Mix the expansionary phase of a business cycle with a weak dollar in a trade-dependent area and you have the makings of an economic boom. That is exactly what happened in the Puget Sound region twenty years ago. [READ MORE]

Even armed with high-powered models, economic forecasters sometimes get it wrong. The Blue Chip panel of economists failed to predict the national recession in 2001. In fact, they did not even recognize it until it was almost over. We fared no better in forecasting the collapse of the Puget Sound economy. [READ MORE]

Like it or not, the Puget Sound region has little control over its economic destiny, at least in the short run. World air travel dictates how many commercial jets Boeing will sell. Volatile housing markets in California and Japan generate production swings at Weyerhaeuser lumber mills. The incomes of many Seattle fishermen are made or lost in Alaskan waters. [READ MORE]