Articles About Office

The recent construction industry mantra of “Wait until next year” may be coming to fruition in 2011, according to a recent survey conducted by ENR.  The 1st quarter of 2011 Construction Industry Confidence Index (CICI) survey soared to 51 on a scale of 100, a significant increase from the 43 percent reported in the 4th […]

The Federal Reserve made some serious money in 2010. The central bank’s profit soared to $81.7 billion, a record high, primarily from growing interest earnings on federal agency and government-sponsored enterprise mortgage-backed securities.  The Fed’s balance sheet — which also can be monitored monthly — ballooned to $2.43 trillion, up $193 billion from 2009, as […]

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s war on public-sector unions is being brought to the national stage by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK). Coburn challenged members of Congress following the release of an exhaustive study by the Government Accountability Office that found many overlapping and duplicate programs from education to defense that cost taxpayers billions of dollars each […]

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently called for the end of false debate over climate science, saying that we should not assume that China will create green technologies that Americans can adopt and to admit that global warming will impact the globe in coming years. In a speech at the APRA-E Energy Innovation Summit in […]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is knocking heads with Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), the new chairman of the House Budget Committee, about how to best control inflation while buying billions of dollars worth of Treasury bonds to build up the economy in a process called quantitative easing 2 (QE2). As the nation’s debt climbs to […]

President Obama recently took a short stroll from the White House and through Lafayette Park to give a speech in what might be termed enemy territory – the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The subject was jobs and what the Chamber can do to jump start hiring by the companies that form its membership.  Noting that […]

President Barack Obama’s crackdown on Wall Street excesses could be hampered if the incoming Republican-controlled Congress refuses to fund two crucial regulatory agencies.  The Dodd-Frank financial reform law – passed with heavy Democratic support – promised a generous budget to regulate the $600 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market.  Now, the law’s implementation may be derailed by […]

“The life you live trains you for the life you’re going to lead.”  This is the opinion of Michael Lee Stallard and Jason Pankau, partners in E Pluribus Partners, the world’s leading experts on how rational and emotional connections can boost productivity, innovation and organizational performance in the workplace. In a recent interview for the […]

As Chicago’s longest serving mayor leaves his post in May of 2011, Richard M. Daley leaves a legacy that includes the iconic Bean in Millennium Park to the flower-filled planters that ornament 85 miles of the city’s streets.  Whoever fills his post will find that budget shortfalls resulting from the Great Recession will collide with […]

Distressed commercial real estate volumes seem to have reached a plateau of $186.9 billion in October,  according to a report prepared by Delta Associates that crunched numbers provided by Real Capital Analytics.  The trend has been apparent for several months, according to Delta’s CEO Greg Leisch. Even as the industry breathes a collective sigh of […]