Washington, the state, has the highest unemployment in the nation.....it'll be awhile, but hey, we nearly turned the lights out in Seattle in the early 70's when Boeing was laying off bigtime....We'll survive and do even better.

Arkansas. Well, lets see....I would say we give our Democratic State Legislature another 150 years. They've been trying real hard and are halfway there. Come to think of it, better make it 200 just to be safe.

The real question is what will be the generator for a recovery and will it generate recovery for American businesses of foreign business. We don't make things, we just service people. We can't service people who don't have jobs, and we can't get jobs, because we gave them all to China.

One thing that always happens during a recession is that businesses look more closely at their costs. They become more efficient and may even consider relocating to more "tax-friendly" states to save money.

This bodes well for Southern and Western (coast excepted) states, and not so well for northeastern and pacific coast states since the tax and regulatory costs are so high out there.

Why pay $10 million for a facility in California that will cost $2 million in Texas? Why pay employees $80K in California when you can pay them $60K in Texas, and actually increase their living standard in the process?

San Diego seems to be in good shape. Even our tourism is back up and our hotel rate is only down 25%. The only major closing has been a new store chain which closed 3 of its recently opened stores. I work for a property management company, and our tenants are all business owners. Nobody is going out of business or leaving.

As a whole, San Diego seems to be doing well.

Here in central Illinois we haven't recovered from the last recession yet. In Decatur the only company not laying people off this year makes big yellow tractors & they only hire contract employees (80% of their engineering dept is chinese or indian & work fo $15,000/yr). Besides that there are 2 plants that make alcohol out of underpriced corn & a company that makes tires that blow up that is shutting down at the end of the year. I have worked for all of them, mostly as a contract engineer, and things wont get better for a long time. The only way to get a good paying job in industry or consulting in Illinois is to move to Chicago, which I wont do.

In AZ where I lived, we didn't get to share in the boom so it's hopeless. I recently moved to Vegas-with my impeccable timing, I arrived just after 9/11! 100,000 layoffs! LOL I think it will take awhile as we're dependent on Tourism and couples with money to burn.

I've been pondering that myself. Just what will generate the recovery??? The techies are bust and they fueled the last one. Now tech jobs are going outside the country. What's left? We don't produce much anymore.

Or $200,000 in Mexico.

"They become more efficient and may even consider relocating to more "tax-friendly" states to save money."

Right now, my friends and I who were discussing it, don't see many positive economic drivers yet down here, so it may very well take those kinds of outside forces to pull us out. We're feeling like we haven't yet seen the worst of it, since the effects of Enron haven't yet hit. Commercial and residential real estate are still in pretty good shape, but that could change in the next few months. At this point it's hard to see where the positives will come from.

Have you'all been hit mostly by Boeing, or by a combination of Boeing and tech, or is it just general?

Well, it's nice to hear good news!

Do the state and local governments have any plans to work to attract out of state businesses?

today when Houston gets a new mayor as in Orlando Sanchez, the recovery will be a lot faster ;-)

At this point it's hard to see where the positives will come from.

Personally, I'll think we'll see a rebound by next spring. Taxes, interest rates, and energy prices are all lower than they were last year at this time; and the dot-com bomb is over

"Personally, I'll think we'll see a rebound by next spring. Taxes, interest rates, and energy prices are all lower than they were last year at this time; and the dot-com bomb is over."

Nationally, I agree with you but locally I'm not so sure. While Houston isn't as dependent on energy as it used to be, I still doubt that lower energy prices are a net positive for us. There is also a tremendous amount of uncertainty regarding electricity deregulation (especially in light of California, now Enron) that will depress investment in that area until it is resolved.

Here in Orlando, the timing of recovery is tied directly to the public's confidence in travel and in the economy. Disney and the other parks recent hired over 700 after laying off many just months before. I hope things will continue to improve after the holiday season.

Where I live the economy is bad but it's always bad so the nice thing is, we don't really see any difference.

Well....when job losses take place at Boeing and in hi-tech....it affects construction, retail, etc....so it's all I think.