Other Economies

Next, he’ll visit technology-rich areas around the country — Pappas named Boston, North Carolina, Austin, Michigan, Georgia and Silicon Valley — to learn from their accomplishments and mistakes. "You can create an environment that encourages entrepreneurial activity," Pappas says.

Sixty-nine percent of Kentucky businesses use computer technology to handle some of their business functions, but only 36 percent use the Internet and little more than 20 percent have a website, according to a report…

"They will enable all Scots, especially those in deprived areas, to lead a more satisfying, economically successful life and, following Adam Smith’s principles, increase the wealth of our nation."

The thriving 120-acre farm is an example of “new entrepreneurial agriculture,” a blend of small-scale farming and business practices that eschews middlemen and sells finished products directly to customers. Blackstar’s strategy is the same one entrepreneurs everywhere use: Increase the value of everything you produce. Compared to farms still playing the commodity game, Blackstar adds four more dollars to each dollar worth of product grown on its property or entering its gate. It’s enough to make a middleman cry.

Business leaders in Oregon have come up with a thick report of recommendations for revitalizing the state’s economy for the next 10 years, called "Stepping Up: A Plan for Growing Quality Jobs and Statewide Prosperity."…

The 10-year plan aims to create the jobs by boosting education and training from kindergarten through university levels to give Hoosiers skills to compete in the burgeoning global economy. It also would plow money into university research facilities and investment funds for entrepreneurial companies.

Porter had three basic messages for Massachusetts: Fix your budget mess (he never said how); improve the business climate; and beyond that, don’t look to government to solve your economic problems.

The governor continued: "We have a choice: we can sit and wring our
hands and bemoan a national recession, or we can act assertively,
decisively, deliberately so that, when the economy turns, Indiana will be
ready to explode.

State Senator Cynthia Stone Creem, Democrat of Newton, said she sponsored the bill to keep research firms in the state. ”We want to encourage them to stay here and not move to California or England,” she said.

MENLO PARK — As dwindling venture capital financing and competition from other regions stalls growth in biotechnology’s birthplace, the state is taking steps to create a strategic plan to keep the Bay Area in the…