Iran War Impacts Confidence in the economy is often tied to partisan politics, with Democrats seeing green when they control the White House, and Republicans ready to invest when their party is in charge. War always creates uncertainty, but uncertainty does not determine the market. A famous gr...
Great Timing The workers’ union at the JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colorado, is on strike. The union is demanding more pay for its members, of course, and they want the company to pay for gloves. Given the shortage of cattle, there is overcapacity in cattle slaughter, and JBS has be...
The January jobs report surprised to the upside, coming in at 172,000 new jobs, well above the consensus expectation of 68,000. However, the February report showed jobs falling by 86,000, far off the consensus expectation of a gain of 60,000. This loss was driven by education, leisure and hospi...
Illuminating the value of technical research
On behalf of a commodity producer organization, WPI evaluated the outputs from a project that featured a $5 million investment into technical research over multiple years. WPI’s team captured the results of this extensive effort and synthesized them for presentation to the organization’s governing board; among the findings uncovered and presented for the first time was the development of genomic traits proven, via rigorous testing, to provide crop yield advantages of 50 percent or more to U.S. farmers in times of drought. Capturing measurable results from long-term efforts can be challenging. Educating clients on the dynamics of success measurement when quantifiable results are not readily available requires deep client-consultant collaboration and an ability to consider both near- and long-term client aspirations with market/policy dynamics – attributes that WPI brings to every consulting engagement.