My Page: Robert Struckman
new west conference
Housing Won’t Bottom Out Until Late 2009 or 2010, Economists Say
A big screen image of a howling ghost opened Chris Thornberg's economic forecast Friday morning at NewWest.Net's 3rd Annual Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies conference.
So what was Thornberg's spooky forecast?
"We're not out of this, by any stretch of the imagination; 2009 is going to be a bad year, not deeply negative, but a little bit negative. We're not going to come out of this until the first quarter of 2010," he said. "There will be a lot of bankruptcies. It'll be bad, but not a depression."
Thornberg presented his economic forecast and then spoke on a panel at Missoula's Hilton Garden Inn with regional economist Tobias Madden of the Minneapolis Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, economist Larry Swanson of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Missoula and real estate economist Dave Eacret of Sand Point, Idaho.
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Documentary: Jailed For Their Words
Free Speech on the Ropes in Wartime
University of Montana journalism professor Clem Work knew he had the makings of a documentary -- after he finished writing his nonfiction book -- when he learned that a World War I-era mob had confronted Billings farmer Herman Bausch and threatened to hang him from his apple tree in front of his wife and child.
The mob was in a frenzy of wartime patriotism. Bausch hadn't bought Liberty Bonds.
"That was enough to get him convicted of sedition," Work said. Later that year, in 1918, Bausch was sentenced to four years in prison.
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The Latest from RealtyTrak
Foreclosure Report: Montana and Colorado Better; Idaho and Utah Worse
Even as the real estate market continues its freefall in Nevada, Florida and California, foreclosure rates in Montana and Colorado have begun to drop, according to the latest figures from RealtyTrac released today.
September did not hold good news throughout the Rocky Mountains. Foreclosure rates last month continued to climb in Idaho and have doubled since last year in Utah.
RealtyTrac publishes a national database of foreclosure and bank-owned properties, with over 1.5 million properties from over 2,200 counties across the country, including from across Montana and other rural states in the West.
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Phyllis Erck's small office in downtown Missoula has a poster-sized photo of the smiling face of her son Billy Poole.
Last January 22nd, at 28, Billy skied a line down Big Cottonwood Canyon near Salt Lake City, as a Warren Miller Entertainment film crew captured the scene. Billy jumped a cliff, something he had done many times before. This time he hit a small boulder. A short while later, he was dead -- the first skier to die in the production of a Warren Miller ski film.
That moment has become a fulcrum in Phyllis' life. There was the time before, and there is now. His death has tinted every moment, every conversation his mother can recall having had with her son, especially those times - usually when he talked to his mother via cell phone - after he had brushed against his own mortality in the pursuit of his dream to ski as a professional.
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Who's Paying for the Signs?
Ravalli County Anti-Zoning Campaign Draws ScrutinyHot land politics and alleged campaign shenanigans in Ravalli County spurred Montana's Commissioner of Political Practices to pay a personal visit yesterday, writes reporter John Cramer in the Ravalli Republic.
Before hearing concerns from locals, Commissioner Dennis Unsworth drove around and saw several campaign signs aimed at preventing zoning and streamside setback regulations. Unsworth said the signs seemed to avoid disclosing who paid for them. The state has four ongoing investigations about political practices in Ravalli County and fields more than a dozen complaints a day, Cramer reported.
The state’s most pressing investigation in Ravalli County concerns the Higher Ground Foundation, a nonprofit group that is urging voters to repeal the growth policy in an effort to prevent zoning and streamside setback regulations from being adopted later.[more]
Montana Banking News
Montana Nonprofit Bank Gets $40 Million in Federal Tax CreditsThe Missoula-based Montana Community Development Corp., a nonprofit bank, received $40 million in tax credits from the U.S. Treasury Department to encourage investment in the state.
"We'll be able to use this program to help take Montana businesses to the next level," said MCDC's David Glaser.
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Montana Republican attorney general candidate Tim Fox has made gun rights the key to his campaign, but Democratic opponent Steve Bullock, who also supports gun rights, says a place to hunt is just as important -- and more endangered, writes Jennifer McKee of Lee Newspapers State Bureau in Lee's five Montana newspapers today.
Since July, Fox has pushed gun rights as a cornerstone of his campaign and targeted Bullock for being, in his campaign's estimation, weak on the issue. The National Rifle Association and the Montana Shooting Sports Association have endorsed Fox.
It might not be to Fox's advantage to take Bullock on with the gun issue, because it's impossible to discuss Bullock and guns without getting into his heart-wrenching personal story. In 1994, his 11-year-old nephew was shot and killed on an elementary school playground in Butte by another boy. The incident actually strengthened Bullock's commitment to gun rights. [more]
A Meadow Hill Middle School student has been suspended after voicing threats to classmates, and school officials have mailed an explanatory letter to parents.
The student did not bring a weapon to school, and nothing was written to identify targets. The incident is under investigation, says a press release from Missoula County Public Schools.
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Western Progress
Behind Closure, a Muddle of Fickle Donors, Poor Management
Even as Colorado State House majority leader and Western Progress board chairwoman Alice Madden said she's in the process of nailing down the large donors necessary to reopen the doors of the progressive think tank with offices in Missoula, Denver and Phoenix, questions remain about what caused it to unexpectedly close earlier this month.
"We're re-organized and ready to get funding," Madden said in a lengthy telephone interview. "It might take a couple more weeks. Frankly, I want to make sure we have enough."
Madden declined to name the backers, saying discussions with them were ongoing and sensitive.
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Last week, a faux reporter on the comedian Jon Stewart's Daily Show produced a hilarious report on undecided, swing voters. The point of the segment was to lampoon the stupid bloc, the "swingest of swing" voters, who hold the outcome of every election in their idiotic hands.
The Daily Show segment seemed funny until I saw this piece by reporter John Stossel on 20/20, which actually makes the argument that uninformed young voters are too ignorant to make decisions about America's leadership and should avoid the polls on Election Day.
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