Download Colorado business leaders bullish on Colorado economy July 1, 2013 Richard Wobbekind

Colorado business leaders bullish on Colorado economy
July 1, 2013
Richard Wobbekind
Colorado business leaders are bullish on the state’s economy. That’s
according to the just release Leeds Business Confidence Index from CU-Boulder’s
Leeds School of Business.
Economist Richard Wobbekind (Wah-be-kin) says third quarter indicators
rose significantly and part of the reason for the strong showing is that the national
economy seems to be gaining steam.
CUT 1 “First of all, the index is very strong. And really a significant piece of the
difference this time is that the national economy indicator jumped way up. (:10) So
what ever happened in the minds of the business leaders in Colorado, something in
the last quarter gave them a lot more confidence that the national economy is on the
road to recovery.”(:22)
And it’s not only confidence that’s indicating economic recovery for Colorado.
Wobbekind says their data matches what’s happening in the real world.
CUT 2. “If you take the last quarter’s indicators they were very positive on sales and
profits and on the Colorado economy and pretty much that’s matching what we are
seeing. (:09) With other work and data we collect on Colorado we know that not just
the employment has been growing at a pretty good pace year over year but that new
business formation is quite high in the state in the past year. (:24)
All this uptick in the economy in spit of the mandatory federal spending cuts
tells Wobbekind that Colorado business leaders feel confident enough to move
forward without help from the government.
CUT 3 “We have a lot of indicators out there, macro indicators, that are pretty
positive. And you have to believe that the business leaders are looking at these types
of national private sector indicators – consumer and producer indicators - and
saying, ‘This is what’s really important. The government not quite getting their act
together is not what’s driving my future optimism but rather the real data.’ ” (:26)
Wobbekind says overall the GDP in the third quarter was 2.4 percent, and he
says all indicators point to improving growth for the rest of this year and into 2014.
-CU-