Boulder, CO – Colorado business leaders are not confident amidst COVID-19 shutdowns ordered by Governor Jared Polis. In fact, the Leeds Business Confidence Index is at a historic low.
The quarterly survey from the University of Colorado Boulder has been used for 17 years.
The Leeds Business Confidence Index (LBCI) captures Colorado business leaders’ expectations for the national economy, state economy, industry sales, profits, hiring plans, and capital expenditures. Ahead of Q2 2020, the index dropped 21.1 points to 29.7, with all components of the index well-below neutral (50). Signaling that the economy is expected to improve in the third quarter as the virus fades, the index rebounds modestly to 38.2.
From: Leeds Business Confidence Index (LBCI)
The drop in confidence is staggering. Perhaps more concerning is the still low 38.2 index projected for the third quarter when the economy should rebound.
If this is used as an estimate, the economy may not improve as rapidly as many of us hope.
Of the panelists, 86% cited COVID-19 as the cause for the economic downturn and pessimistic outlook. At Colorado Citizen Press, 100% of our writers cite Governor Jared Polis’ response to the COVID-19 crisis as the leading cause for a pessimistic outlook.
Polis brought the economy to a standstill
The governor has brought the economy to a standstill. In fact, we wrote earlier today that 1.82 million people might be out of work in Colorado before this is all over. That is a grim outlook for the economy.
Even if things return to normal soon, the amount of spending money in the economy might be at a minimum while people dig out of the holes Polis buried them in.
We do not want to write about doom and gloom constantly, but Polis is leaving us with little choice. Polis is blaming everyone but himself when he is the one shutting down the entire state.
If things were handled more moderately than a statewide shutdown, perhaps the LBCI scores would look better.
Unfortunately, they were not.
Now, we are not downplaying the importance of social distancing as a smart response to the COVID-19 crisis. However, the government could have offered suggested guidelines that many people would follow without ordering the closure of businesses.
Some of the economic damage could have been mitigated with a measured approach. Instead, Polis used took authoritarian steps that now threaten the lives and livelihood of hundreds of thousands of Coloradans.
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nero and his/its band of liberals are focused on control rather than the people affected, in his/it desire for control he and the his/it band ignored what happens to the real people those that actually pay the taxes by working, but the media never questions what he/it is doing just keep giving him/it cover, while he decimates the state’s economy, enough, people wake up you are being used and abused
Businesses NEED to get some guts and stand up to this “governor” and STAY OPEN like normal (like some businesses have done in other parts of the country) if businesses did this I for one would support everyone of them (I KNOW for sure other people would as well)! 99% of the people that I know or have talked to know the response to this is BS and are sick of it!
It’s hard to call them ‘leaders’ of any sort, if they willingly relinquished liberty without a fight.
If they concerned about the outlook, they should get their people back on the job right now.
Liberty. No government permission is required.
Don’t you get it. Coronavirus is the flue. You’ve all had a different strain of it before, every single one of us on the whole planet has.
Just because this Coronavirus-19 (TM) is patented by a corporation. Ohhh, let me just give up all my rights and economic future because; muh corporations want to wedge out small businesses due to a cold.
This ends, when the people demand it ends.