Business to lead economic growth again
Topic: The Economy
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that business is set to resume its traditional role as the leading force in the expansion of the economy. Many companies have large stores of cash that they are using to buy equipment and to hire.

What could follow:

More construction spending
More job creation
More demand for office and industrial space
More orders for goods and services to meet business needs

Possible flies in the ointment:

Rising interest rates
High oil prices

Higher oil prices might have a nuanced impact on economic growth. The US economy, as a whole, simply uses much less oil per unit of productivity than in the past due to the movement from a goods-producing to service-producing basis. Nevertheless, there is a high oil impact. There are some estimates that high oil prices knocked 0.75% off last year's growth in GDP. Even 10 years ago the impact of high oil prices like we have today would have been 20% to 30% greater. Reference: See article on front page of todays WSJ (How Retooling Lifts U.S. Economy)

About this weblog
Welcome to the new companion blog to Strattonresearch.biz. Since this is the first post for the blog, I figured I'd also make it act as the "about" page for the site.

The purpose of this blog is to provide a stream of information relevant to real estate development, demographic, economic and consumer trends, reports on my research and related subjects.

This blog is run by Jim Stratton, owner of Stratton Research, a consulting company dedicated to providing market research for real estate developers and other businesses.

New postings will appear at least once a week and more often when warranted.