Speaker 1: A big, big, big day is always better with statistics,
Speaker 1: statistics being.
Speaker 2: What they are.
Speaker 1: I found, and I don't even know how I stumbled
Speaker 1: upon Mike o'donald's Twitter feed. But here is this man,
Speaker 1: and I did not know him at all. We literally
Speaker 1: just met on our zoom call right before we started this.
Speaker 1: But I started to follow him because he posts very
Speaker 1: interesting graphs and statistics, and some of them are not
Speaker 1: necessarily very flattering for Colorado. And after I checked his
Speaker 1: work a few times, and I did check his work
Speaker 1: a few times, I thought, you know what, this guy
Speaker 1: seems to know what he's talking about. And not only that,
Speaker 1: he's putting it on Twitter with no expectation of anyone
Speaker 1: really paying attention to it. But what he does is
Speaker 1: so fascinating. I wanted to amplify his platform. So I
Speaker 1: have invited Mike o'donald to come on the show with
Speaker 1: us today.
Speaker 2: And here he is. Mike. First of all, welcome to
Speaker 2: the program.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, Manie, it's an honor to be
Speaker 3: on your show.
Speaker 1: Well, tell me a little bit about yourself, because here
Speaker 1: you've got these incredible statistics, and where did this come from?
Speaker 1: How did you get to be the man posting things
Speaker 1: on Twitter, super nerdy economic stuff and more.
Speaker 3: Well, I am a super nerdy economic person, but really
Speaker 3: a lot of the statistics that I follow and track
Speaker 3: really come out of my lifetime career, which is really
Speaker 3: working with small businesses. I grew up in my dad's
Speaker 3: my family owned business, but I've always had a passion
Speaker 3: for small business. For twenty years here in Colorado, I
Speaker 3: ran a group called Colorado Landing Source. We did a
Speaker 3: lot of loans to small businesses all over the state,
Speaker 3: and following trends, you know, whether they're national or whether
Speaker 3: they're state specific, can really help you when you're working
Speaker 3: with small businesses. And I still do a lot of
Speaker 3: that in my declining years as well.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned trends.
Speaker 1: If you had to give a sort of a bird's
Speaker 1: eye view of the business trend for Colorado, and we'll
Speaker 1: start in twenty ten and we'll take it to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, what would that line look like for you?
Speaker 3: It's again it's Colorado, and actually moved here in two thousand,
Speaker 3: so I'm still a newcomer to Colorado. But Colorado has
Speaker 3: always had the reputation of it being a very entrepreneurial state.
Speaker 3: All of the jobs in Colorado we now have thirty
Speaker 3: years or of history have been created by young businesses,
Speaker 3: startup businesses less than twelve months old, except in six years.
Speaker 3: Of those thirty years, five of those years correspond with
Speaker 3: national recessions. The last year of the six year was
Speaker 3: actually up until the end of March twenty four, didn't
Speaker 3: correspond with a national recession. So when we look at
Speaker 3: what's happened in businesses, we as a state have always
Speaker 3: been dependent on entrepreneurs, new businesses, startups. That seems to
Speaker 3: be becoming less of a focus in Colorado. And part
Speaker 3: of my message shouting to the world through social media
Speaker 3: or just out the window out where I live here,
Speaker 3: is that we need to be more focused on businesses
Speaker 3: because businesses create jobs. The jobs create play the taxes
Speaker 3: in Colorado, and now that we're not as focused on
Speaker 3: helping businesses grow successful at jobs in this state, the
Speaker 3: states kind of run into a little bit of trouble
Speaker 3: in the future if they're planning on increasing employment. Texts
Speaker 3: as all those sort of things, it states to well.
Speaker 1: You don't ever dip your toe, or maybe you have it,
Speaker 1: I just have not seen it. You may mention that
Speaker 1: for instance, I was looking at the suicide rate in Colorado,
Speaker 1: the latest statistic you have out about that, and in
Speaker 1: that you say, and this is because the Democrat controlled
Speaker 1: Colorado legislature is more interested in promoting mental illness than
Speaker 1: treating it. But for the most part, you don't make
Speaker 1: political statements. You just kind of put the numbers out
Speaker 1: there and let them speak for themselves. Are you as
Speaker 1: an advotive follower as the politics of all this, or
Speaker 1: or on the side of the results of the politics,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Well, I see the results. I see the fact that
Speaker 3: we do have. Now the legislature here in Colorado isn't
Speaker 3: very economically aware or doesn't seem to focus on the future.
Speaker 3: There's a sort of perspective of being a kid in
Speaker 3: a candy shop. I don't if that expression means anything
Speaker 3: to anyone anymore, but essentially they seem to be And
Speaker 3: this has happened really since COVID, when the budget in
Speaker 3: Colorado almost doubled but our population stayed pretty much the same.
Speaker 3: And now we've got this mentality of let's go out
Speaker 3: and spend as much money as we can. Let's go
Speaker 3: out and add more fees. You can't call them taxes anymore.
Speaker 3: Colorado was now the sixth most regulated state when it
Speaker 3: comes to small businesses. That didn't used to be the case.
Speaker 3: So we're just creating things in expectation of revenue coming
Speaker 3: in to pay for whatever it is that they think
Speaker 3: is exciting to do as opposed to the isaics, And
Speaker 3: perhaps I don't explain that well. So I'm hoping that
Speaker 3: that And I've got a few people that have picked
Speaker 3: me up now on Twitter who follow me and sometimes
Speaker 3: requote my stats. But it's just important that people and
Speaker 3: power in the state understand, you know, where we're heading
Speaker 3: based on where we've been, at least the trends.
Speaker 1: You know, what are the parts of economics and the
Speaker 1: study of economics that I always think is kind of
Speaker 1: interesting is the human part of it. Because economists, though
Speaker 1: they they will factor in human reaction to parts of
Speaker 1: it that they often miss the on the human reaction
Speaker 1: to whatever these policies are.
Speaker 2: And when I look at what.
Speaker 1: The Democrats are doing and legislating and regulating, there seems
Speaker 1: to be an assumption that they can continue to do
Speaker 1: whatever it is they want to do to business, and
Speaker 1: business will not react, business will not leave the state.
Speaker 1: Business will not make decisions about where to place their
Speaker 1: next you know, headquarters or their next factory. In your
Speaker 1: work with small business, how reactionary is small business to
Speaker 1: these changes or are they kind of locked in place
Speaker 1: and stuck here any way?
Speaker 2: Proving the Democrats right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it's very very important when we look at it.
Speaker 3: Where entrepreneurs want to start a business, they will start
Speaker 3: a business where they really want to live, but they
Speaker 3: want to live in a place where it's affordable to live.
Speaker 3: You know. The Buer of Labor Statistics does track business
Speaker 3: migration trends and Colorado was now number six in terms
Speaker 3: of the states where businesses are moving out of the state.
Speaker 3: And we see that and that obviously has impacts on
Speaker 3: people wanting to move into the state. So when we
Speaker 3: look at things like new haul statistics, we are seeing
Speaker 3: fewer people moving, more people moving out of the state
Speaker 3: than moving to the state. We haven't seen that impact
Speaker 3: on housing prices yet, but we are starting to see,
Speaker 3: you know, something is changing in the state, and it
Speaker 3: has to do a lot with the policies that are
Speaker 3: coming down from Denver.
Speaker 2: So, Mike, when I talk to people and I'm going to.
Speaker 1: I've been mulling this over whether to make this a
Speaker 1: topic on the show, but I think it sort of
Speaker 1: fits in this context. It is very frustrating for me
Speaker 1: because I've been watching politics professionally for twenty years now,
Speaker 1: this is my job. It's very frustrating for me when
Speaker 1: I see people struggling. I see people, you know, talking
Speaker 1: about how tough things are and how housing is expensive
Speaker 1: and food is expensive and restaurants are expensive, but then
Speaker 1: they keep voting the same way, and that for me
Speaker 1: has been a huge frustration.
Speaker 2: When you put out these statistics.
Speaker 1: I just want you to know you are essentially providing ammunition.
Speaker 1: You are providing not literally ammunition. I have to clarify
Speaker 1: that for the low IQ people who listen to the show,
Speaker 1: rhetorical ammunition that I think the Democrats, I mean, excuse me,
Speaker 1: the Republicans should use every one of these statistics that
Speaker 1: you publish because they're all the results of policy. They're
Speaker 1: all the result of choices being made by politicians. What
Speaker 1: do you think, out of everything you've been looking looking
Speaker 1: out lately, is the most ripe to help sway public
Speaker 1: opinion when it comes to making different choices at.
Speaker 2: The ballot box.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a really good point. I think sadly,
Speaker 3: the trends that I'm showing is that Colorado is really
Speaker 3: heading towards sort of an implosion of sorts, and that
Speaker 3: of course, or perhaps change people's minds. But we know
Speaker 3: that under the Biden administration and the Police administration, between
Speaker 3: twenty one and twenty four, Colorado residents had the highest
Speaker 3: inflation rate of any people in any state. Colorado households
Speaker 3: own more money than people in any other state, even California.
Speaker 3: The only exception is Washington, DC. Colorado in the last
Speaker 3: fifteen months has only created five hundred jobs. You know,
Speaker 3: last month you might have probably covered on your show
Speaker 3: the fact that the nation created two hundred and eighty
Speaker 3: eight thousand jobs in the month of March, Colorado lost
Speaker 3: three and a half thousand jobs. So essentially, you know
Speaker 3: that the signs are there that the economy of nationally
Speaker 3: isn't great, that it's much stronger than Colorado's. And the
Speaker 3: only reason that Colorado's economy isn't as strong is because
Speaker 3: of the policies that are being imposed on us. You know, I,
Speaker 3: as a tax bay, I don't want to have to
Speaker 3: pay for someone's medical procedure. All the things that are
Speaker 3: sort of being feed on us. Even as I don't
Speaker 3: know the details, you probably follow this, but the way
Speaker 3: to reduce the cost of insurance in Colorado is add
Speaker 3: an insurance premium on the cost of motor vehicle insurance.
Speaker 3: Whereas if you look at the fact that the motive
Speaker 3: thefts are down in January and February and Colorado and
Speaker 3: the cost of insurance is coming down from the CPI,
Speaker 3: so you know that if the politicians would be actually
Speaker 3: up to date with some of the statistics, they wouldn't
Speaker 3: be trying to create policies that don't address an issue
Speaker 3: that doesn't exist anymore. Stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, like.
Speaker 1: The insurance thing is a perfect example, because not only
Speaker 1: do they want to add a fee to our insurance premiums,
Speaker 1: they're then going to use the fee for something that
Speaker 1: the insurance in history has said is not a driver
Speaker 1: of high insurance rates. So they're going to fix a
Speaker 1: problem that doesn't actually have anything to do with insurance
Speaker 1: costs by charging us more and telling us that it's
Speaker 1: going to bring our pricing down. Maybe they do know
Speaker 1: that prices are on the way down, but this way
Speaker 1: they can claim credit and still make more money for
Speaker 1: the state. I mean, it's it's kind of absurd, Mike.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you, were you following this closely
Speaker 1: back after the Great Recession in two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: and two thousand and nine, because I've long had a theory,
Speaker 1: and I looked at Colorado for a long time, even
Speaker 1: before I moved here, because Colorado recovered far more quickly
Speaker 1: than many many, many other states after two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight and two thousand and nine. And I believe that
Speaker 1: the reason Colorado recovered so quickly is because of tabor limitations.
Speaker 1: It prevented the government from overspending during the Great Recession.
Speaker 1: Therefore they were able to bounce back more nimbly. What
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3: And I was looking at stuff back there. I moved
Speaker 3: here just before the dot com bubble burst, and so
Speaker 3: that affected Colorado worse than most states. As the result
Speaker 3: of that, Colorado became a very diversified economy. We didn't
Speaker 3: become so dependent on telecommunications like we were, and the
Speaker 3: Colorado's economy was very well prepared moving into that recession.
Speaker 3: We were late going into it and we were early
Speaker 3: coming out of it compared to most states, and that
Speaker 3: was the function of the fact that we were focused
Speaker 3: on business diversification strength. You're right, we weren't overspending, we
Speaker 3: weren't doing all sorts of boondog or things. We actually
Speaker 3: fixed the roads, and the roads were in pretty good
Speaker 3: condition back in the twenty teens or the early twenty
Speaker 3: to the ten years before the twenty teens, So all
Speaker 3: of that was strong and we came out of that.
Speaker 3: Now we are very poorly positioned for the next recession,
Speaker 3: which may be sooner than we think. In Colorado might
Speaker 3: have its own recession, but we are very poorly prepared
Speaker 3: for that. So we'll be early in and we'll be
Speaker 3: late out. And that all has to do with ending
Speaker 3: or trying to overspend. But TABOR has actually kept us
Speaker 3: strong through that lost recession. But it's not going to
Speaker 3: help us through this next one because we have fees
Speaker 3: everywhere now.
Speaker 1: And they've just given away our table refunds, so we
Speaker 1: don't even get our money back. A Texter just asked
Speaker 1: this question, Mike, how many of the jobs last lost
Speaker 1: last month were related to government layoffs like park service, BLM,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And I want to ask a second part
Speaker 1: of that question, And what's been surprising to me is
Speaker 1: the number of jobs during the end of the Biden
Speaker 1: administration that were government jobs. So did we even create
Speaker 1: that many private sector jobs? And are these losses related
Speaker 1: to government jobs or where did they come from?
Speaker 3: Now, the losses that we see in Colorado don't seem
Speaker 3: to be related to government jobs. We have I think the
Speaker 3: number is, off the top of my head, just under
Speaker 3: forty thousand federal employees in the state of Colorado. But
Speaker 3: over the last couple of years in Colorado, the only
Speaker 3: jobs that are being created have been in healthcare. Apparently
Speaker 3: we're very SIGNI yeah, more so in local government, but
Speaker 3: a lot in state government as well. So essentially we're
Speaker 3: creating jobs there and we don't really have a stronger basis.
Speaker 3: We have losing jobs, and of course some headmin services,
Speaker 3: you know, some of the manufacturing things, but we're not
Speaker 3: really even on a national level. I think we only
Speaker 3: lost twelve thousand federal government jobs in the month of
Speaker 3: March when I check there, So we haven't seen the
Speaker 3: wave that everyone's protesting about the government being gattered and downsize.
Speaker 3: That isn't reflected in the stats yet in Colorado. Again,
Speaker 3: if you've got kids or grandkids and they want to
Speaker 3: grow up and get a job. Based on the current numbers,
Speaker 3: you either have to be in healthcare or you have
Speaker 3: to work for the government if you want to have
Speaker 3: a job in Colorado. Because those are the only new
Speaker 3: jobs being created in the state.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's depressing because those jobs don't create anything.
Speaker 2: They don't create a new.
Speaker 1: Job, they don't create a product, they don't have the
Speaker 1: opportunity for growth. They're just a drain on taxpayer dollars
Speaker 1: in the long run. I mean, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: they'll provide some sort of service, but they're just a
Speaker 1: fiscal drain on everybody else. This is an interesting text message, Mandy.
Speaker 1: I've had my bakery cafe for twenty one years, starting
Speaker 1: in Aurora and moving to Denver. The over regulation and
Speaker 1: cost of doing business are going to drive us out
Speaker 1: of business. Minimum wage up one dollar per year four years.
Speaker 1: Thanks not the Denver City Council, the Family Act mandated
Speaker 1: for a one K plan, insurance, property taxes, landlord passes
Speaker 1: those on to tenants. You know, policies matter. Give us
Speaker 1: a break, please, this is not a small business friendly state.
Speaker 1: That from Chef k is this what you're hearing from
Speaker 1: other small business owners that you know, Mike.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again that's the challenge is that we still
Speaker 3: have a lot of startups in Colorado, about twenty four
Speaker 3: thousand startups in the last twelve months that we've tracked it,
Speaker 3: and I on average each create about three and a
Speaker 3: half jobs, and they created eighty five thousand odd jobs
Speaker 3: the last twelve month period. But existing business has lost
Speaker 3: eighty seven thousand jobs. So that's the challenge is that
Speaker 3: businesses that have already started and are ramped up and
Speaker 3: have been there for five, ten, twenty one years are
Speaker 3: just finding that they're being put upon so much to
Speaker 3: pay for projects that don't really benefit them and their
Speaker 3: community that they just don't necessarily need one to support
Speaker 3: those sorts of activities. You know, Denver has gotten a
Speaker 3: little out of control, if I can be so bold,
Speaker 3: and a cost of tax and sales taxes that they're
Speaker 3: really really high now, so you know, they supply and
Speaker 3: demand if prices keep going up. In Colorado, as I said,
Speaker 3: it's been had the highest inflation rate of any states
Speaker 3: and have the highest debts, so people don't have as
Speaker 3: much money to spend on the things that they used
Speaker 3: to spend on, and that's all pushing on, pushing down
Speaker 3: demand for products. At the same time as that, the
Speaker 3: people have extra costs which increase the cost of providing
Speaker 3: those products. So it is becoming challenging and it would
Speaker 3: be really nice if there was someone in power in
Speaker 3: the state that actually understood business, especially small business.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this, have you how do
Speaker 1: you decide what to dig into?
Speaker 3: I'm a very curious person. I'm part of it is
Speaker 3: based I do a lot of research based on Vieer
Speaker 3: of labor statistics, so things that fascinate me. You know,
Speaker 3: the savings rate in the United States is about a
Speaker 3: third of what it is in Europe. The only country
Speaker 3: in the world that has the lower savings trate is Astray,
Speaker 3: where I'm originally from, and so people there are even
Speaker 3: more put upon than they are here. I don't see
Speaker 3: that Darta of Colorado. But I'm just fascinated by how
Speaker 3: jobs grow, how unemployment happens, where jobs are being created,
Speaker 3: where they're actually being lost. I'm just I have a
Speaker 3: short attention span, so I like to look at a
Speaker 3: lot of different things, and so that's part of my fascination.
Speaker 3: But My overrating objective is that I run a little
Speaker 3: nonprofit that provides early stage financing to small businesses on
Speaker 3: the Kiva platform, which is you know, crowd lending I
Speaker 3: really like. But I'm always watching the entrepreneurial ecosystem in
Speaker 3: the state of Colorado to see where the trends are
Speaker 3: because you know, many people that I've known in the
Speaker 3: state have moved to other states just because it's gotten
Speaker 3: too hard here, and I don't want to do that.
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to do what I can to try
Speaker 3: and shape directional policy to get people aware of the
Speaker 3: direction we're heading in and where we will go unless
Speaker 3: we do change.
Speaker 1: Directional little So have you discovered any data This is
Speaker 1: my final question because we're almost out of time that
Speaker 1: shocked you that was either so bad or so good
Speaker 1: that you went, wow, that's interesting, not in a.
Speaker 2: Good way or maybe in a good way.
Speaker 3: Well, it just fascinates me how often Colorado is in
Speaker 3: the top ten. So I've always heard you mentioned the
Speaker 3: suicide rates here. I was just looking back at the
Speaker 3: suicide rates and Colorado has been a top ten states
Speaker 3: for suicide rates since twenty fourteen based on the CDC
Speaker 3: data and I've been trying to work out why the
Speaker 3: Colorado Health Department says altitude has a lot to do
Speaker 3: with that, but I can see a report that's medical
Speaker 3: called it back in twenty eleven that has nothing to
Speaker 3: do with it. So, so what's going on in Colorado?
Speaker 3: And the only thing that most of the experts, and
Speaker 3: I don't consider myself an expert, but is that there's
Speaker 3: not as much access to the availability of assistance to
Speaker 3: people who are you know, distressed or mentally help help
Speaker 3: mentally not healthy in this state. So, you know, there
Speaker 3: are lots of things I don't have the answers to,
Speaker 3: but statistics fascinate me. The fact that we've created five
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty three jobs in the last fifteen months
Speaker 3: at the same time as our unemployment has grown by
Speaker 3: whatever it is by twenty you know, by thirty nine
Speaker 3: hundred and ninety five jobs, means that you know, we're
Speaker 3: not creating jobs, we are creating a lot of unemployment.
Speaker 3: It means that the state and employers are going to
Speaker 3: have to pay more for unemployment taxes. We're not bringing
Speaker 3: in the new revenue from new peril taxes, so we
Speaker 3: are heading towards a little sort of you know, a
Speaker 3: cliff that the LEGISLI you might fall off and the
Speaker 3: deficit this seed might be a lot less, and I
Speaker 3: think it is.
Speaker 1: Well, they're already talking about their deficit next year being
Speaker 1: even worse. But the reality is, And Mike, if you
Speaker 1: could do a handied andy graph of this, I would
Speaker 1: appreciate it. If you could just do the Colorado budget
Speaker 1: number from twenty ten through now. I think people in
Speaker 1: this state that have heard for the last few months
Speaker 1: we've got a one point two billion dollar deficit, they're
Speaker 1: going to think that this year's budget is one point
Speaker 1: two billion dollars less than last year's And I know
Speaker 1: that to be false, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure you do too.
Speaker 1: So if you could do that graph for me, I
Speaker 1: would share it far and wide, just to let people
Speaker 1: know what the hard numbers say. We have plenty of money,
Speaker 1: they're just spending it very, very poorly.
Speaker 3: In my estimation, Yeah, depending way too much. Again, the
Speaker 3: population is flat, it's slightly declining a little bit, and
Speaker 3: we shouldn't be spending more and more on the same
Speaker 3: population each year. They could fix the roads that would
Speaker 3: be nice out that way will be nice.
Speaker 1: And then what we'll do how would we get a
Speaker 1: new set of tires when we blow them out on
Speaker 1: a pothole. Mike is, Mike o'donald is my Mike o'donald
Speaker 1: is my guest. He not only has an x feed
Speaker 1: that is absolutely outstanding that you should follow, he also
Speaker 1: has a Patreon to uh for a longer form columns
Speaker 1: that he does, and I would strongly recommend you follow him. Mike,
Speaker 1: we will have you on again for sure. Keep up
Speaker 1: the good work because I am making a war book
Speaker 1: for Republican candidates that is just full of news stories
Speaker 1: and data and things like that. And your work is
Speaker 1: already quoted multiple times in my war books. So keep
Speaker 1: up the good work. And it's so nice to virtually
Speaker 1: meet you today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Manny, and honor and a pleasure
Speaker 3: to take care