economy

I was recently interviewed by the guys at Tuggl.com about local businesses and the MHBA. Here's a portion of the interview where we're talking about the role of local businesses in our community. Enjoy!

Okay, the cat's out of the bag. We admit that one of the primary reasons we formed the Mile High Business Alliance is to help us address this big question: 

How do we effectively provide for our needs without destroying people or the planet in the process?

Considering Colorado’s $600 million budget shortfall and other economic challenges (recession, unemployment, reduced business revenue and tax revenue), we must maximize the economic impact of federal stimulus funds coming into the State.  One critical way of doing this is to ensure that funds are not spent just once in Colorado, but instead ensuring they re-circulate in our local economies to create a healthy multiplier effect.

The Colorado Public Radio Public Insight Network wants to know how the current economic problems are impacting local businesses. They have a great survey that only takes a few minutes to complete. We think it's important to be talking about how local businesses can survive (and perhaps even thrive?) while addressing the real challenges we're facing. (share your story now)

This announcement contains information about a groundbreaking event by the Mile High Business Alliance to address the economic challenges faced by local businesses and communities.

Rebuilding Economic Stability & Financial Independence

Today's Angel Capital Summit will end with a town hall meeting entitled, Disrupting the Recession: Colorado's entrepreneurial response to the financial crisis, election, energy and sustainability. (read more) It's just $25 to attend the town hall meeting, and the panelists look interesting. Topics of discussion will include:

The Denver Office of Economic Development is hosting a free event on Thursday, December 4th to present financing options available to businesses and real estate developers. Although some financial institutions are lending less freely, local businesses do have options.

Read more about the event, and be sure to pre-register by contacting Artamis Byars at 720-913-1660. We'll be there taking notes and will blog about it here for our members who are unable to attend.

The word is spreading about Buy Local Week. Check out this Your Hub article about Buy Local Week published today. It features MHBA member Talulah Jones and stresses the importance of directing our dollars to locally owned companies this holiday season.

It's official. (and we all saw it coming) News outlets are reporting today that the US economy is shrinking, with consumer spending down 3.1% This means we're half way to an official recession. (which is negative economic growth for two consecutive quarters)

This could be Really Bad News for everyone. When people spend less money, that means less revenue for businesses which have to cut costs. People lose jobs and it becomes harder to pay our bills. So what can we do about it?