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