Janet_Perez's blog

As the economy slowly — very slowly — recovers, the credit markets remain tight, and access to credit could make all the difference between a small business surviving or going under.

With this in mind, Sam’s Club, a division of Walmart, announced today that it is testing an online program to provide small businesses with loans. The retailer is partnering with Superior Financial Group, a top Small Business Administration (SBA) lender, in order to make available loans of between $5,000 and $25,000 to qualifying small businesses.

Is it possible that the glut of foreclosed homes in the Valley is finally starting to thin out? One researcher at Arizona State University says a new report indicates a drop in foreclosure activity.

Jay Butler, associate professor of real estate at ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business, says foreclosures as a share of the overall Valley’s resale-housing market are declining. The school’s latest Realty Studies report finds that the number of foreclosures has gone down from 40 percent of the market’s activity in March to 33 percent in May.

But in this troubled economy, there are always caveats.

The economic fallout from SB 1070 continues. This afternoon, the Los Angeles City Council passed a measure that bars the city government from conducting any business with Arizona unless the controversial immigration law is repealed.

According to an Associated Press report, Arizona stands to lose up to $8 million in contracts.

On April 23, Gov. Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070 into law.  The new statute makes it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally. The law also directs local police to question people about their immigration status and demand to see their documents if there is reason to suspect they are illegal. Changes made to the law within days of Brewer signing it include adding the admonition that officers cannot base their reasonable suspicion on race, color or national origin. The law goes into effect on July 29.

Underscoring once again that the current economic recovery is limping along, but still moving forward, is a new forecast from the Arizona Department of Commerce. The forecast, released today, states that the Arizona economy will keep losing jobs, albeit at a much slower pace, in 2010. The state isn’t expected to see positive net job growth until 2011.

It’s been established that the Great Recession of this century rivaled in scope and severity the Great Depression of the last century. With a consensus that we have generally bottomed out, all eyes are now on the economic recovery. Will it be robust? Modest? Weak? And as with any great cataclysm, will there be more aftershocks?

This afternoon, top economic experts from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University gave their mid-year economic forecast at the annual Economic Luncheon sponsored by the Economic Club of Phoenix.

After days of speculation, Tempe-based US Airways has announced that it has broken off merger talks with UAL Corporation, the parent company of United Airlines. Public talk of a potential merger heated up recently when the New York Times reported that talks between the two were intensifying. As late as last week, speculation began that the merger could even become a three-way including Continental.

The state’s tourism industry is gradually recovering from the one-two punch of 2008’s economic collapse and corporate meetings backlash. When the subprime mortgage industry imploded, the resulting diminishment of Americans’ personal wealth signaled a moratorium on travel by belt-tightening consumers. And then there was the “AIG-effect.”

Companies receiving government bailouts — such as insurance giant AIG — were blasted by the public and the press for continuing to hold meetings and events in luxury locations, even when taxpayer money was not used.

The Valley, known around the nation and world for its luxury resorts, found itself in the middle of the backlash, costing the state millions of dollars at a time it couldn’t afford to lose them.