Our recent story on Japanese homebuilding preferences and how they’ve helped one North Idaho sawmill led me to a guy named Roger Williams. He’s an architect based in Seattle, but he’s done a lot of work in Japan. He’s made dozens of trips there over the years.
I was trying to understand why there’s such a focus on wood quality in Japanese home construction. I wondered about the origins of that emphasis, and what it has meant for the Japanese housing market. Continue Reading →
Demand from overseas helped sustain small and rural timber towns as new home construction foundered.
Last week StateImpact told the story of Idaho Forest Group’s Laclede mill, which experienced its first shutdown in decades when the housing bubble burst, decimating lumber demand. The mill reopened thanks in large part to the company’s new focus on the export market.
The Wall Street Journal this week reports that the export market is helping to spur a similar turnaround in California timber towns, where timber revenues are on the rise. Continue Reading →
St. Luke's CEO David Pate started blogging on health and policy issues in the fall of 2011.
The CEO of Idaho’s largest health system, St. Luke’s, is asking readers of his blog what they think Idaho should do about expanding Medicaid.
Dr. David Pate began his blogging endeavor almost a year ago as a way to reach more of St. Luke’s 10,000 employees spread across six hospitals and 100 clinics in Idaho.
He says so far, it’s been a success. And he’s recently experimented with informal online polls to better gauge how St. Luke’s employees and the community feel about cornerstones of President Obama’s health care reform law.
Bundles of newly printed 20 dollar bills prepare for distribution.
If fewer Idahoans have jobs, that means the state doesn’t collect as much revenue. That in turn can determine how much money is available for schools, road repair and health services.
So we took notice last week when the governor’s budget office revised down its estimate of revenue coming into the state’s bank accounts.
The Division of Financial Management typically evaluates its forecast for the coming fiscal year in August and again in January.
In past years, a downward revision in August has meant hold-backs — that’s when the state cuts agency budgets midway through the fiscal year. But legislative budget and policy analyst Keith Bybee doesn’t anticipate hold-backs this time around. Continue Reading →
While farmers across the U.S. are suffering through the worst drought in decades, Idaho farmer Jim Tiede's irrigated wheat field promises a bumper crop.
Today brought new information about the unrelenting drought that’s affecting a broad swath of the country.
Here in Idaho, the drought has been less pronounced than it has been in many parts of the U.S. The national drought monitor says conditions across the southern part of the state are “abnormally dry” or experiencing “moderate drought.” Continue Reading →
If you’re hungry for raw economic statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau has launched its first mobile app.
The app is available for Android users now. Apple users will have to wait a few weeks.
The Census app promises info on 16 key economic indicators including; wholesale and retail trade, unemployment, construction and personal income.
The Census Bureau plans to unveil three apps for mobile phones and tablets over the next several weeks in an effort to give people “faster and easier access” to the government-collected statistics.
RealtyTrac data released today illustrates a mixed picture of Idaho’s housing market.
The foreclosure tracker looks at two things each month: annual changes, and month-to-month changes. In Idaho, the annual trends are positive. It’s the month-to-month data that tends to be more volatile.
Idaho’s foreclosure rate ticked up slightly by just under one percentage point from June to July according to RealtyTrac. Continue Reading →
Chobani will open its Twin Falls facility later this year. The company has been approved for $3.3 million in training grants.
The Idaho Department of Labor has approved another round of workforce development training grants for eight companies, totaling $4.8 million dollars.
The biggest chunk of that goes to three businesses, Chobani, Central Garden and Pet, and ATK.
New York-based Greek yogurt maker Chobani is currently building its Twin Falls, Idaho manufacturing facility. It’s already started training managers, and the company is eligible for reimbursements of up to $3.3 million from the Idaho Department of Labor. The Department estimates Chobani will train 583 people, costing on average $5,700 per person. Continue Reading →
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