Category: Business and Economy
-
Bacon Bits: Dulles and Danville
Unfriendly skies. Washington Dulles International Airport is the most expensive airport in the United States to fly from. In a survey of the 45 largest airports, Travel Pulse found that the average ticket cost $427.37. On the other hand, travelers do get a bit more for their money, such as free carry-ons and seat selection.…
-
Roanoke Gears up to Recruit Young Talent
The Roanoke Valley is making the leap from thinking about economic development as recruiting corporate investment to recruiting skilled and educated workers. As the national economy continues to grow, the main bottleneck to regional growth is the availability of a workforce with the skills that employers are looking for. Reports the Roanoke Times: The Roanoke…
-
Sweet Briar Finds Niche in Artisinal Agriculture
Women account for a rapidly increasing percentage of the nation’s farmers, and in that trend Sweet Briar College sees a business opportunity. The women’s college, which nearly shut down due to financial difficulties a couple of years ago, has no intention of competing with Virginia Tech’s traditional agricultural sciences program. Instead, it is building a…
-
What can Virginia learn from Nashville (Part 2)?
Update. In the first installment of this two installment post I described the metropolitan juggernaut that is modern day Nashville. I also provided some historical perspective on how Nashville became the sixth fastest growing US city (measured along several axes) between 2011 and 2016. As a side note, the 35 fastest growing cities documented in…
-
VEDP Snags Recognition as Best Economic Development Organization in Nation
Site Selection magazine has awarded the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) its Prosperity Cup as “the most competitive state-level economic development group” in the country. That’s quite a turnaround for an economic development organization that only two-and-a-half years previously the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) had found to be inefficient, ineffective, and suffering…
-
Dumping, Again, on the Lowest-Paid Folks
A recent article in the Washington Post highlights an issue I alluded to in my recent post on government outsourcing functions. To summarize: The Alexandria school superintendent’s budget proposal called for eliminating 30 custodian positions and outsourcing the jobs to a private company. (The system already contracts with private companies for custodial services in many…
-
Dominion Energy Joins Consortium Demanding Climate Change Legislation
I am not making this up. Yesterday, Dominion Energy joined a newly launched coalition of more than a dozen major corporations and environmental groups – CEO Climate Dialog. This organization will urge Congress to pass climate change legislation. Example members of the group include BP – an oil and gas company, Citibank, Dow Chemical, DuPont,…
-
Certifications and Upward Mobility
I have been critical of the Virginia higher-ed establishment’s goal of making Virginia the best-educated state in the country. The goal is arbitrary and unconnected to the demand for higher-ed degrees. Pursuing the goal could result in over-investment in higher-education at great cost to students who wind up indebted and under-employed, and at the expense…
-
The Cost of Doing the Wrong Thing
The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), an entity that normally restricts its focus to higher education, has issued a report calling for reforming Virginia’s educational system from stem-to-stern, from pre-K to higher ed. The report, “The Cost of Doing Nothing: An Urgent Call to Increase Educational Attainment in the Commonwealth,” is predicated…
-
Virginia, Antifragility, and the Next Recession
In the previous post I argued that there are large pockets of hidden risk in the U.S. and global economies that could trigger a devastating economic downturn. I’m not predicting that a recession is imminent — I do not profess to see the future — but I would suggest that only fools would pretend that…
-
“A Dozen Pockets of Extreme and Growing Risk”
The economy is chugging along at a 3% growth rate, unemployment is hitting record lows, productivity is surging. The economy looks like it’s in fantastic shape. A friend of mine and long-time Trump hater, normally disinclined to give the president credit for anything, marveled recently that the low-inflation, low-unemployment economy “is as good as it…
-
And Now… Some Mind-Blowing Data about Rural Virginia
Rural Virginia may have seen a decline in the number of jobs since 2011, but get this: Incomes have been rising faster than in Virginia’s metropolitan areas — 12% since 2010 compared to just 5% for the metros, says Hamilton Lombard on the University of Virginia’s Demographics Research Group blog, StatChat. Likewise, poverty rates have…
-
Changing How Virginia Thinks about Economic Development
Stephen Moret, CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP), is doing more than closing billion-dollar deals and resurrecting Virginia’s reputation as a top state to do business. He’s trying to change how Virginians think about economic development — or at least change what outsiders think about how Virginians think about economic development. The VEDP…
-
Grooving on the Virginia Job Numbers
It’s been a long time since the unemployment situation looked this good. From the Virginia Employment Commission, here are the latest unemployment and job growth numbers for Virginia’s metropolitan areas: You’d think that Virginia’s mainstream media might bring attention to this good news. But I don’t recall seeing a single front-page article touting the Old…