Here They Come! Is Cincinnati Ready?

While the goons over at UrbanCincy are carrying on about whether the city is ready for echo-boomers, we, here at Blogging isn't Cool & our pals at the Bilderberg Group, are more concerned with whether the city is ready for the billions in European investment in the USA or not. These guys have already decided to invest in the country, but do they even know what Cincinnati is? Where Cincinnati is? What it's strengths & weaknesses are?
Our last mayor might have had the right idea by representing the city abroad but how well he did it & how good his aim was, I don't know. Did he go to Romania? One third of the Romanian companies, mainly from manufacturing, technology and consumer goods industries, are considering international expansion in the coming year, according to a study conducted by Citibank. The most popular areas for expansion are the Middle East, Europe and the U.S.
We have Globili - that's a start, but most of the international businesses that are interested in coming to the US already have English speakers. We have a website but so does everybody else.
What we need are people out scouting for businesses abroad that are a good fit with Cincinnati, it's location, people, skills, assets etc.
As the PIC @ UrbanCincy points out

As Cincinnati’s new leadership settles into their self-empowered roles of merely paving roads and keeping streetlights on, how does that position the city and region in an ever-changing economic landscape…

And it's not just foreign investment, American businesses are re-shoring, too.
A greater portion of the United States population is expected to move to urban areas in the coming years. The fastest growing segment of the population is immigrants as US birth rates have slowed.
Is Cincinnati prepared to reap anything from these trends? Or is Cincinnati, like a child, just going to stare out the window while chewing on the lead paint on the sill?

Spring Grove's Gypsy Grave Economic IndicatorWhat does an analysis of the gypsy grave decorations at Spring Grove Cemetery tell us about the state of the economy?
meh
Retired Cincinnati State Technical and Community College economics professor, Mary Peterson, annually views and interprets the displays.

There’s no grand displays and nothing puny. They are consumers like the rest of us. This reflects their behavior in the economy, and they’re in the middle of the road in their willingness to spend.

Bizniz Courier story here

Suburbs Offering More Lower Paying JobsThe suburbs of Cincinnati, long known for not having high paying jobs, are becoming centers for low paying jobs.
Read all about it at the Fishwarp

$6B - 'B', Like in BRAINSThis WSJ 24/7 article is about a year old (whoever said BIC wasn't on the ball?) and guesstimates the zombie economy at around $5.74B. But that's a year old & the article only goes down to grade B movies & doesn't address grades C-Z or even porn or the crazy Japanese stuff. Interestingly, the article points out:

George Romero’s 1968 cult classic Night of the Living Dead is royalty-free, and does not add much to the actual economics of the zombie genre.

For Porktown gore fiends we can look forward to bloody Milford's Horror Hound's convention at the shiny Sharonville Convention Center in March (when the ground starts to loosen up a bit) to add our share to the zombie economy.

Hallowe'en Sells
Forget about new car sales & housing starts, the new economic bellwether is Hallowe'en sales - candy, costumes, pumpkin futures…..
US News & World Report sez that to get a handle on the economy - just walk down the street & look at Hallowe'en decorations on your neighbor's porches.
170 million people are planning to celebrate Halloween this year - that's 71.5% - up from 68.6% last year. Hallowe'en spending is expected to reach almost $8B - up 17.5% from last year. Folks are going to spend $2.5B on costumes for themselves & $370M on their critters. Dunno about spending on concrete geese.

MoneyLand article here.

Cincinnati Mayor Puts His Town on Firm FootingCincinnati mayor is in France today meeting with, among others, Snecma, a partner with GE and with officials of other local companies and businesses.
With the U.S. looking more attractive to foreign investors, their investment in the U.S. is expected to grow approximately 50% over the next 5 years. Mallory doing the groundwork now could put Cincinnati on a very solid foundation. The U.S. stands to get millions of new jobs as China and India, with lower productivity than the U.S., lose their luster and China's wages rise to be more in line with the U.S.
Now if Kasich doesn't blow it…..
Of course, whoever is in office in the future will take credit for whatever happens.

Will U.S. be the Next Greece ?

While I doubt the U.S. will share Greece's economic fate simply because of size & diversity issues, there's certainly evidence pointing to a radical fringe group like the Golden Dawn attaining power in the U.S.. It's fun to watch the antics of this nationalist nativist group of yahoos from afar but given the popularity of Limbaughs, Becks & Robertsons here, how far off can we be? Illegal migration in Greece is actually worse in Greece than in the U.S. and, besides the settlers there's a ton of transients over there, too. Approximately 90% of illegal migrants in Europe enter through Greece. The Spartans had it relatively easy at Thermopylae.
Unfortunately, the antics of these guys only serve to distract from the real issues.
Upon election, they got the ball rolling demanding "respect" from the traitorous press corps.
Temper tantrums & going after middle aged women half your size on national TV might be considered bad form but, apparently the Dawn's status improved after this kerfuffle.
Threatening natualized citizens does the party no good & harkens back to Kristalnacht krap. This comes on the heels of street violence aimed at foreigners that went unchecked by a police force sympathetic to the Dawn.
A blood bank for natives only might seem kinda nice but is also kind of insane. Blood is blood.
Laying claim to Istanbul & other cities in Turkey is a complete hoot. Sure Greeks established the town about 2,500 years ago but they haven't owned it for over 1,700 years. Maybe they should also seek reparations from Italy…..
They'll need all the help they can get given their financial problems.
But even in the U.S. we see the folks who, in spite of increasing deficits, want to wage wars & occupy foreign lands, enable government takeovers of religious institutions and continue class/race warfare on their fellow citizens. And they want it all for free! yeah, we may not be too far off.

Ohio Slips Under Kasich's Stewardship
A recent survey by CNBC, Ohio has slipped from 23rd to 25th as a state to do business in under the so called business friendly John Kasich. Notable drops in ranking were in the categories of Transportation & Infrastructure, Quality of Life, Economy & Education. Business Friendliness & Access to Capital have improved a bit.
This does have Ohio leading it's neighboring states except for Indiana. Somehow Ohio has the next to worst workforce in the entire country - which I find hard to believe but it seems to have improved despite a crappier education ranking.
I have no doubt the transportation & infrastructure decline is primarily due to Kasich & Wray deprecating TRAC & doling out transportation dollars as political favors.

Ohio
USA

This book Reckless Endangerment, is really frustrating to read. Responsible middle class businessmen would never do the things these wealthy folks who depend on the government to bail them out did. But they do wind up paying for their gambling. The complicity of our wimpy political representatives is just the icing on the cake.
Also available in print & electronic format (sorry Tom) at the Hamilton County Library

Deconcentrate the Rich
The City of Cincinnati has decided to right wrong thinking of the past and, in an effort to deghettoize neighborhoods like Over the Rhine by deconcentrating the poor through the deconcentration social services.
Wish 'em luck. I agree with the concept but don't know as legislation is the way to go.
In our current financial/economic meltdown, a big reason we are in the mess we are in is because of a concentration of great deal of wealth in a few people's hands. When these few people screw up, vast assets and people and businesses are screwed up. The gummint has decided to fix the problem by throwing money at it, (as usual). The problem here is that even more sums of money are being put into the hands of the few who screwed up in the first place. In fact, even fewer as some of the institutions have used their bailout money to acquire other institutions thereby concentrating even more assets into the hands of even fewer screw ups.
While these large companies are not monopolies (yet), it seems that breaking them up might be a better plan. Many smaller financial institutions are doing just fine with smaller, more manageable stores of assets.
Breaking the larger companies up would broaden the brain pool of managers, create jobs and foster creativity and competition.
An argument for deconcentrating the poor is that people who have made bad life choices shouldn't be reinforcing their ideas on one another and that by assimilating them into "good" neighborhoods the better life choices of those people might rub off on them. If it is supposed to work for the poor, it probably oughtta work ok for the rich, too.

Summer Jobs
yeah, I know it's only February, but, WPAFB is offering about 300 summer jobs this year for high school and college students who are U.S. citizens. Jobs will start in May or June and last 60-90 days. Pay is $9.74 - $18.59 per hour.
With the current economy and job market this offer from the Fairborn Air Force base is pretty decent for kids just wanting a summer job. The types of jobs are administrative, finance, contracting, human resources, science and engineering support positions.
For information go to https://wrightpattjobs.wpafb.af.mil
or
http://www.88thservices.com/humanresources.htm

Noose Son story here.

Springfield Navistar Hopeful
Folks at Springfield's Navistar facilities are hopeful that production and sales will improve in what is, currently, a pretty bleak market for trucks.
The are pinning their hopes on military sales to the US & the UK and the hybrid trucks that are produced exclusively in Springfield.

Noose Son article, here.

Does Ohio Need Casinos ?
No
Leave the casinos to Las Vegas. They do it right. Low end casino towns, like Deadwood suck.
If you just want to gamble, get a game going with your friends or coworkers.
The latest push for a casino in Ohio is coming out of Wilmington, which is getting creamed by the abandonment of a major employer, DHL.
Las Vegas was built into a success a long time ago by people that Wilmingtonians would not want for neighbors. Las Vegas, today, is a result of that success built upon by big entertainment corporations. What Wilmington, or any location in Ohio, would get with a casino, is, basically, a bone from the entertainment moguls that would provide low paying jobs to locals and siphon off the lion's share o the cash while leaving Ohio and Wilmington holding the bill for infrastructure improvements and public services.
A smarter location in Ohio would be on Ohio's northern lakefront, southern riverfront or in south east Ohio's hills. That is, areas that have natural attractions tourists want. But the tiny profit and large headaches would still be the same.
If Ohio really wants to succeed in the tourist trade, it should legalize marijuana. Still, most of the jobs in the tourist industry just don't pay all that well and, frequently don't provide much in the way of employment for older people.
Ohio, and it's cities need to focus on using and marketing their resources. Cincinnati is right to have a major focus on the downtown areas of OTR, CBD & the Banks. OTR, in particular represents an old neighborhood that is still salvageable but would be impossible to re-create.
Ohio should focus more on new industrial jobs. First Solar has recently announced plans to expand and add jobs in Perrysburg. Renewable energy would be a great industry for Ohio. It would create jobs, it's adoption could lower energy costs, making the cost of living and doing business in the state more palatable. A cleaner environment would aid in tourism, the agriculture industry and cut health care costs.
Expanding and diversifying our agricultural industry (what Ohio was built on) is crucial. Agriculture for energy is one idea, focusing on specialty stuff like Alpacas is another.
I offer no quick fixes, no "jackpots", but with some work, dedication and investment in things that are already somewhat in place, Ohio can do a lot better in the long run than by looking to casinos for band-aids.