North Carolina unemployment is 11.1%.  There is one residential foreclosure filed for every 1,595 households. Forty-five percent of consumers believe the current economic situation is bad.  We have discussed where people are cutting back and where they are not willing to scrimp, but as the recession lingers, more and more people will find it harder [...]

By now, the laser-like focus of the virtual world on the hoax video by two misguided Domino’s pizza employees and the effectiveness of Domino’s corporate response has dimmed.  But for a few days last week this story was the train-wreck we couldn’t stop watching. 

If you want to read a simple, straight-forward article that shows how the international credit crunch is hurting local business, read this article from the Raleigh, NC News & Observer.  It discusses why apparently booming and successful Wakefield Commons shopping center might be sold at a fire sale and how that will affect local properties.

According to a recent survey by Discover Financial Services Small Business Watch, 90 percent of people surveyed continue to rate the economy as fair to poor, unchanged from February.  But a greater percentage of small business owners see economic conditions for their businesses improving, and fewer people see conditions getting worse.  An excerpt from the report:

A recent post struck a chord with one of my clients, Dr. Bruce Wieland, a former PhD research engineer at  Duke, who started his own company a few years ago.  I thought everyone might be interested in his perspective, which I post with his permission:

Nationally, foreclosure filings increased 81 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to an article published in the (Durham, NC) Herald-Sun (registration required). Â
Local economists and the likes of Business Week and CNBC have been telling us that Durham is better positioned economically than most areas to survive the recession because our main industries are higher education and medicine.  In line with this [...]