Plush Oregon...

Rose Baker and I traveled to Portland from 5 to 9 October to give a speech, "Playing the Market in Human Resource Futures," HR Futures Forum sponsored by at the Nike/HRInstitute at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. We are 90% finished with a web site that contains our paper and other links related to our new "ideas" stock market, Nike, HRInstitute, and Oregon environs. Should be posted on Monday.

Our spouses took us to the University Park (Pennsylvania) airport at 5:00 am on 5 October. Early, but the plane took off at 5:55 am for Cincinnati. Security clearance takes time, and three flights leave the small University Park airport at about the same time in the morning. Heavy load for a little rural airport. We had a direct flight from Cincinnati to Portland out over, first, plains, and, eventually, mountains and snow. We arrived in Portland at about 11:00 am local time.

The Portland airport is about 30 miles from the center of the city of Portland. We took the TriMet light rail from the airport to a spot that was about 2 blocks from our hotel, the Benson. The Benson is a fine, classic, old hotel with lots of wood and amenities. Fireplace in the warm, inviting lobby. Oregon and Washington apples in a basket in the lobby. Nice.

HRInstitute and Nike, our hosts, provided a great reception with cheese, fruit, crackers, wine, and liquor during the evening of the 5 October in the fireplace area of the lobby of the Benson. There is great jazz in the lobby bar almost every night. A slideshow has some nice views of the Benson lobby area and the fireplace lounge.

The next day we traveled to the Nike Campus in Beaverton. Twenty-three buildings, all named after figures in sports. Our meeting was in the Pete Sampras Building. Here are some pictures:

http://train.ed.psu.edu/family/nikew/ Here is a sample picture:We took a tour of the Nike Campus after the morning presentation, ate lunch, and, then, Rose and I made our presentation. People seemed to stay awake, even after consuming a great Mexican buffet lunch.

Next day, we had a bit of time in the afternoon to go to the Columbia River Gorge. Here are a few picts:

http://train.ed.psu.edu/family/multnomah Here is a sample picture:The centerpiece of our afternoon was a view of the 700-foot Multnomah Falls!

After some good work on Saturday morning, we drove to the Oregon coast. Wind and rain, but spectacular! Here are a few picts:

http://train.ed.psu.edu/family/cannonbeach/ Here is a sample picture, my favorite of the litter, of Haystack Rock: Along the way, we saw a lot of rural Oregon and soutrhern Washington. I can see why people love to live in that region of the United States.

We drove back to Portland along the Columbia River just inside the state of Washington. Lots of ragged coastline and cranberry bogs. Rain, driving rain.

Out of Oregon at 6:50 am on Sunday for a smooth flight back to State College via Cincinnati.

A very good time!

Off to Beaverton, Oregon

Rose Baker and I are off to give a speech, "Playing the Martket in Human Resource Futures," HR Futures Forum sponsored by at the Nike/HRInstitute at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. HR Futures Forum, which meets twice annually, is for human resource planners who recognize the need for a better perspective on emerging issues that require human resource management. Our speech describes the Penn State Idea Futures Market that we are building.

More on this later...

Mt. Toby, Leverett, Massachusetts

Three pictures I took of the still, mirrored pond below Mt. Toby in Leverett, Massachusetts, which is just outside Amherst, Massachusetts, where I was attending an econometric modeling seminar from Wednesday through Friday last week. Arrived back in State College, my home town, at about 1:00 am last night.


I used to live in Amherst in the mid-1970s. And, the place hasn't lost its charm over the years. Still rabidly counter-cultural. Still beautiful. Still enchanting. Still filled with hope that things can get better, whether through good thoughts or prayer or kharma or a full moon or the touch of a hand or through serious deep study or whole, natural food or hard work.

Day 3, regional economic modeling...winding it up...death &...! (What happened on 30 September)

Day three of the REMI economic modeling workshop. Some great demonstrations and presentations.

Death and taxes, first. To start the day, REMItes, Adam Cooper and Jon Lee, discussed using REMI economic models to assess the economic impact of taxes. Several states use the REMI model to assess tax impacts. REMI models are used to help select tax policies that have the least damaging economic impact and generate the largest revenue.

The REMI tax examples examined sales, personal income, corporate profits, machinery, equipment, and inventory, and gross receipts taxes.

• Increases in sales taxes increase production costs, affect cost of living through price increases when taxes are passed through to consumers in prices of good and services, and decrease local market shares through substitution of less costly goods imported into the locality. REMI variables used in a sales tax policy analysis include production costs by industry, consumer prices, and industry sales.
• Increases in personal income taxes directly affect consumers by reducing real disposable income, but lower federal taxes by offsetting net taxable income.
• Increases in corporate profits taxes affect production costs by industry, but, as with consumers, might lower federal taxes by offsetting corporate profits reported to the feds.
• Increases in machinery, equipment, and inventory taxes increase business costs for manufacturers and retail establishments, make attraction of manufacturing firms difficult, and lead to loss of market shares of local manufacturing and retail business.
• Gross receipts taxes are levied on all sellers for making use of an economic region. Exports and non-profit industries from the region are exempt. These taxes affect in- and out-of-region. The idea is to spread tax burden and reduce local area negative impacts of taxes.

The REMI analysis presented demonstrates the relative impact of these tax types on employment and gross state product. Gross receipts taxes for the anonymous state modeled had the least effect on the economy. What does this say about all this talk we have about substituting a consumption tax for our current income tax system?

Jon Lee presented a complicated and politically sensitive application of tax and production cost changes in Arizona.

Stan McMillan from the University of Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis (see http://ccea.uconn.edu)spoke about his Center's various applications of REMI models. The Center was established in 1994 as an outreach activities. Stan spoke about how REMI policy impact studies are conducted:

• Land use--Reuse of a now-defunct wire manufacturer's land and buildings to create a mix of residences, retail establishments, office space, cultural attractions, and light manufacturing space in a dense, yet attractive, arrangement within walking distance to a new train station in Georgetown, Connecticut (one of the richest localities in the United States). This project had a construction phase and, then, a phase that captures new economic activity resulting from the redevelopment (net new employment, new retail and industrial activity, quality of life). Also, tax revenues were expected to increase due to a "premium" tax applied to cover the increased amenity and services involved with living in the redeveloped area. A REMI model was used to forecast the economic and demographic impact of each phase of this project. Construction costs were obtained from the developer, in whom trust had to be invested to portray the range and amount of costs accurately (very useful sources of cost information per square footage of construction when only square footage is known or divulged are available from http://www.rsmeans.com and http://www.saylor.com for construction costs for all localities in U.S.). Calculations of retail sales of eating and drinking establishments per square foot are available from a Newspaper Association of America web site. In this way, the initial impacts of redevelopment are entered into the REMI model.
• Health center impact--Examined a conterfactual of the loss of a large university health and teaching center in Connecticut (a thought experiment only). A loss of the center would affect occupational supply, student population, the relatively higher wages of health care personnel, procurements specific to health care, employee insurance, visitor spending, amenity value of research and public services (clinics, outreach, and conferences), all of which can be deducted from the REMI model of the State of Connecticut.
• New Haven buildout due to high speed rail--Estimate the economic impact of high speed rail and other rail improvements. The rail service would move from Boston to Washington through Connecticut. Rail improvements would produce buildouts on available land, office space, labs, and conference and hotel space.
• Travel and tourism impact--Another counterfactual approach which deducted spending due to lodging and marina activity. Spending data were accumulated from intercept surveys of five visitor types in nine categories.
• Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation gambling impact--Another counterfactual approach that deducted gaming revenues of several large casinos operated by an independent native American nation. Modeled also were disamenities (traffic, pollution and crime) associated with movement of 50,000 people every day.

Lunch, and, then, individual meetings with REMI personnel.

Back to State College starting at about 3:00 pm. It is an eight hour ride from here. Sleepy tomorrow. To the Penn State v Minnesota football game at 3:30 pm on Saturday. Next week Rose and I are off to Portland, Oregon, to present our paper on information markets at Nike World Headquarters at the Futures Forum sponsored by HRInstitute.