After shattering records in 2006-2007, the development pipeline for Southwestern Illinois continued to swell over the past year, reaching a new high of more than $9.4 billion. The 2007-2008 Market Review and Investment Update – released this month by the Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois - shows the total value of projects announced, under construction or completed during the reporting period ending ...

In the civilized, regulated realm of economic development, there are heaps of financial incentives, job training programs, small business loans and corporate tax rebates available to assist communities grow their local economies. States develop enterprise zones, governors offer opportunity funds and fledgling firms form industry clusters. But what does 'economic development' look like in impoverished boomto ...

The economic wise men gathering around President-elect Obama in Chicago will be heading to Washington next month to try to jump-start the faltering U.S. economy. They may want to take a side trip to Fargo first. According to a front-page report in Saturday's New York Times, thus far the state economy in North Dakota has been immune to the downward pull of the recession that is gripping the rest of the count ...

Anyone who has taken a ride on Washington's Metro subway line knows that when it comes to making capital improvements in the nation's capital, Congress will spare no expense. The new Capitol Visitor Center, officially opened to the public yesterday, is no exception. Conceived in 2000 as a modest, secure underground greeting center for tourists visiting the Capitol Building, the project mushroomed into a pal ...

As they continue their pleas for a federal bailout (hopefully while forgoing end-of-the-year bonuses and use of corporate jets), the figureheads of major U.S. automobile companies took a little left jab to the jaw from, of all places, Slovakia! "We're in a good position to grow," says Maria Novakova, secretary-general of Slovakia's Automotive Industry Association. "Frankly, we don't want to be compared to D ...

The dispatches from the front lines of the global economic catastrophe have taken on a markedly schizoid quality during the past few days. In Washington, U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson executed yet another of his patented two-and-a-half backwards somersault, triple-salchow maneuvers. We haven't received any scoring for Hank's performance yet, presumably because the judges are waiting to see if he brea ...

The deepening economic malaise makes it imperative that businesses seize every potential revenue-generating opportunity that presents itself in coming months. The companies that succeed will be the ones that stay on top of their game, pay attention to fundamentals, and maximize the use of their resources. One such fundamental is the face-to-face meeting. We are pleased to report that early in 2009 commercia ...

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson emerged from his bunker in the epicenter of the financial crisis today to give us an update on his recent efforts to keep the U.S. economy afloat. In an upbeat Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, Paulson reported that he has successfully ''deployed a $250 billion capital injection'' and stabilized the financial system. The $250 billion that Paulson ''deployed'' came from the e ...

It was announced today that the central Asian country of Kazakhstan will receive $700 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to construct a 2,715-kilometer transport corridor being dubbed the "new Silk Road." This massive, $6.7 billion road-building endeavor, if successful, will be a boon to the fledgling nation's growing infrastructure. The transport corridor will run from Khorogos, a city on Kazakh ...

Abraham Lincoln was the first president to refer to America as ''the United States'' instead of ''these United States.'' When he dedicated a cemetery in 1863 at the site of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, Lincoln posed an existential question to the American people. Standing on the broken fields of Gettysburg, PA, where more than 50,000 of his fellow citizens had perished, Lincoln wondered aloud whet ...