How’s our economy? Improving? Turning around? That’s the conventional wisdom – that here in Spokane and in North Idaho, we are crawling toward recovery. When the economists talk about next year, they tend to predict more of the same: slow growth. Media reports – even when noting minuscule changes in the jobless rate or other factors – tend to take a similar line. The glass is not 97 percent empty, in other words. It’s 3 percent full. Two recent evaluations of the local economy – one national and one local – take the opposite view, arguing that there is reason for abundant caution in the cautious optimism/Shawn Vestal, SR. More here.

Question: Are you optimistic re: the federal/local economy for 2013?