Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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Two Real Estate Promoters Pick the Same Spots by D. G. MARTIN Raleigh and with the Lost Colony that disappeared from North Carolina's coastland 425 years ago? The colorful brochure that was delivered to my house last week What does a resort real estate sales brochure have to do with Sir Walter promoted "A Retreat from the Ordinary" at Scotch Hall Preserve, a 950-acre resort community in Bertie County on the Albemarle Sound. A photo of a lovely Arnold Palmer golf course overlooking a broad expanse of open blue water got and kept my attention. The sales pitch explained, "If North Carolina has a 'sweet spot,' this is it. Set above the majestic Albemarle Sound, where cypress trees silhouette the shoreline ... As grand as Nature herself, this unspoiled place sits amidst stands of cypress, yellow pine and oak trees on a bluff overlooking the historic Albemarle Sound ... the second largest estuary in America, second only to the Chesapeake Bay." Sir Walter Raleigh would have admired this sales pitch. He suggests where the Lost Colonists might have gone when they left their encampment on Roanoke Island. Here is how the British Museum, which has custody of this "Virginea Pars" map, announced discovery of the clue: "After decades of unsuccessful searching, archaeologists may have their best evidence ever of the possible fate of Sir Walter Raleigh's 'Lost Colony.' It comes in the form of a clue from Sir Walter himself, secreted within the 425-year-old would have understood the need to engage the imagination of prospective purchasers or investors by the use of attractive and colorful illustrations. To raise funds to finance a permanent colony in what is now North Carolina, he used the lovely drawings of the native peoples and landscapes of the area prepared by John White. White also prepared a "sales map" of the area, one that covered the coast from the Chesapeake Bay to Cape Lookout and lands far into the interior. White's map was beautiful and amazingly accurate. That map made news a few weeks ago by delivering a clue that Is N.C. Back on Track? by JOHN HOOD North Carolina's unemployment rate fell in April by three-tenths of a point, to 9.4 percent. Good news? Not really. When interpreting government statistics, you have to look at the details, not just the top-line number. North Carolina's April decline in unemployment was attributable entirely to people leaving the workforce, according to the seasonally adjusted figures. At 9.4 percent, our state still has one of the highest unemployment rates in the United States — a dubious distinction North Carolina can claim for virtually the entire period since the onset of the Great Recession. That unemployment rate, technically known as U-3, consists of the number of people actively looking for work who cannot find it. It is a useful way to gauge how effectively an economy makes use of its available human capital — its stock of willing, capable workers. But it's not the only gauge of labor utilization. In slow-growth environments where new jobs are scarce, and where factors such as technological change or international competition make some jobs obsolete, people who grow discouraged and leave the workforce can make the U-3 rate look better, even though that's hardly a sign of economic vitality. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes other measures of the labor market. They aren't computed monthly, however, so they don't provide the real-time trends that reporters, politicians and others desire. Still, BLS has recently released estimates for the first quarter of 2012. They don't look good. What might be called the "underemployment rate" — the U-6 measure that includes discouraged workers who have dropped out of the workforce as well as those who work part-time but would like a full-time job — averaged 17.6 percent in North Carolina from the second quarter of 2011 through the first quarter of 2012. Only four states had a higher underemployment rate. The national average was 15.6 percent. Some politicians and commentators have taken to calling U-6 the "real" unemployment rate. It's fine if you want to define your own terms, but you have to be consistent. This broadest measure is always larger that the official U-3 rate, even when times are good. So while North Carolina's U-6 16 UCW MAY 30 - JUNE 5, 2012 rate approaches 18 percent today, it was 8.6 percent back in 2006, before the start of the Great Recession, compared with North Carolina's official U-3 unemployment rate of 4.7 percent that year. The national averages in 2006 were 8.2 percent (U-6) and 4.6 percent (U-3). By 2009, North Carolina's U-6 rate had skyrocketed to 17.7 percent. It didn't change much in 2010 (17.4 percent) and 2011 (17.9 percent). If you look at the other side of the statistic — reported jobs created rather than reported spells of unemployment — North Carolina also ranks poorly. I've seen some suggestions to the contrary, but they are based on raw job counts rather than percentage changes. Of course more-populous states add (or lose) jobs in higher numbers than less-populous states. If you measure the percentage change in counted jobs, North Carolina's rate of employment growth has trailed the national average over the past year. In short, there has been essentially no recovery in our state's labor 'Virginea Pars' map drawn by his expedition to site the first English colony in the New World." This clue resulted from the curiosity of Brent Lane, adjunct professor of heritage economics at UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School. Lane noticed two small parts of the map were covered with paper patches. He wondered what was under the patches, thinking that perhaps John White had been persuaded to make a correction or two to his map after it had been completed. Lane persuaded the museum staff to look under the patches to see if there were anything interesting underneath. Using a powerful light source, the staff found something important under one patch, a discovery that made front-page news in North Carolina and across the Atlantic. Under the patch was a symbol of a fortress, which probably Roanoke Island they may well have made their way to the site of the colony's planned capital as shown under the patch. Lots of on-ground research will be necessary to explore and document this possibility. So, with the permission of the Scotch Hall owners, archeologists may soon join golfers in digging up the ground in the sand traps and fairways of the resort's Arnold Palmer course. D.G. MARTIN, Columnist COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. marked the future location for the "Cittie of Raleigh," the planned center of the colony. To Lane, this location, marked under the patch, made perfect sense. Why? Because it put the colony's planned capital at the confluence of the Chowan and Roanoke rivers and on the Albemarle Sound. These rivers and the sound would be major internal trade routes. But what does this have to do with Scotch Hall Preserve? Its owners and Sir Walter picked the same location to build a major development. Brent Lane and others think that when the Lost Colonists left market. A tiny net job gain has been offset by increases in working-age population. Recent declines in the U-3 rate primarily reflect worker discouragement, not reemployment. Other measures paint no brighter picture of North Carolina's comparative performance. Bloomberg News computes a measure called the Bloomberg Economic Evaluation of the States, or BEES Index. It looks at changes in employment, income growth, and the value of public companies based in the state, among other factors. I previously reported that as of the 3rd quarter of 2011, North Carolina ranked dead last on the BEES Index. With the benefit of fourth-quarter figures, North Carolina has improved its ranking — to 48th. Slight improvements in recent data notwithstanding, North Carolina is not yet back on track. We continue to have one of the weakest economies in the nation. And Gov. Beverly Perdue, the most unpopular governor in the nation, is seeking another tax increase. Her fantasy world sounds intriguing. JOHN HOOD, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM