Opinion

Wyoming avoids most of economy’s fallout
By Bruce McCormack

This document was published online on Monday, January 05, 2009

Printable     E-mail     Archives     1 comment(s) Comments    

If one can get beyond the barrage of bad news and frightening scenarios about the national economy – no easy task given that continuing train wreck – and stop to consider our collective circumstance in Wyoming, we should count our blessings.

Of course, the stock portfolios and retirement accounts held by Wyoming people have suffered just like those of everyone else in, literally, the world. But as bad as that decline has been, Wall Street will rebound in the next year or two and most people will be made whole again.

While we wait for that recovery, a major positive factor in which we take comfort is that Wyoming is not suffering huge job losses. Nor are we seeing subprime mortgage re-sets pushing people into the desperation that is foreclosure.

The absence of those factors here means the bottom has not dropped out of our real estate market. This, in turn, equates to protection of what is to most people their major asset.

Granted, potential buyers here are impacted by tighter credit and real estate problems elsewhere. But notwithstanding a growing inventory of available property, values here are for the most part steady, if not stagnant.

We hear any number of optimistic real estate agents say that when the national economy starts to recover, the real estate market in Wyoming will turn red hot in a hurry as pent up demand catches fire.

In the meantime, state and local government budgets are secure, and commercial construction appears to be a bright spot locally and statewide. Those two segments will provide a major boost to Wyoming’s economy.

One major concern on the horizon is how the rest of the nation’s problems will impact tourism in 2009, even with cheaper fuel prices. It remains to be seen if people will shrug off their problems and take the vacation they need – like we mostly witnessed in 2008 – or if this is the year that tourism begins to really suffer.

In any event, in these tough times we in Wyoming should take strength knowing we are weathering the storm better than most, if not all, other states.

Printable     E-mail     Archives     Comments    

Reader Comments

Leave Your Comments

Name: Email: (optional) Comments: Current Word Count: Image Verification: (Case sensitive)	The Cody Enterprise encourages you to share your thoughts. Comments are not posted to the site immediately. They must first be read by moderators. We try to be prompt, but moderation time varies depending on time of day and the day of the week. We reserve the right to remove comments.
If you have questions or find a comment to be offensive, please contact us.