"This Recession Will Be Transformative," Economists Say

A majority of Sonoma County employers say they will be hiring in 2012, a local economist said Wednesday.

"Out of 350 Sonoma County employers in our Business Confidence Survey, 58 percent said they expected to hire new employees this year," Ben Stone, director of Sonoma County Economic Development Board, told members of the on Wednesday.

"The jobs are coming back, but it's going to be at a slower pace than normal," Stone said, adding that an increase in hiring was one of several hopeful indicators of a gradual economic upswing locally.

But an expert financial analyst with offices in Healdsburg said even if there is more hiring, a new strategy must be put in place to raise income for average workers -- or else the U.S. risks losing the entire middle class.

Ed Osborn, co-founder of wealth management firm Bingham Osborn & Scarborough, said the U.S. cannot expect to recover from the recession by using the old strategies of saving less and borrowing more -- as it has in past recessions.

That's because people have already exhausted their limits of how much less they can save and how much more they can borrow, he said.

"This is a 'demand recession,'" Osborn said. "That means that consumers don't have enough money to buy what the U.S. companies are capable of producing."

Stone and Osborn were keynote speakers at Wednesday's "News at Noon" luncheon at in Healdsburg.

About 80 Chamber members attended the event, which also included announcements of annual honors. Those were to Tori Lewis, branch operations manager for Summit State Bank, who was named "Healdsburg Chamber Ambassaor of the Year," and to new Chamber Board of

Both Stone and , detailed extensive marketing and business opportunity plans now in place for Healdsburg and Sonoma County.

McElroy, who celebrated her one-year anniversary at the job on Wednesday,  said the Chamber is embarking on a $28,000 "Epicurean Winter Healdsburg" campaign that embraces more than 100 local events that normally take place between January and March and puts them together under one promotional banner.

Stone said Sonoma County, led by has put together an ambitious eight-point business growth plan.

That includes:

1. Making the permitting process easier.

2. Creating a business retention center, modeled after when he held that role in Healdsburg for 10 years.

3. Strengthen business cluster development.

4. Build demand for local products.

5. Help businesses access money for capital projects.

6. Help spead wi-fi access to rural areas.

7. Align education and training.

8. Enhance collaboration among all the workforce programs.

Osborn said the U.S. will come out of this recession substantially changed -- making it a "transformative" recession. He said it could take as long as 10 years to get through it.

"The only way out is to increase the real income of a greater swath Americans," he said, explaining that the current trends only increase the income of the top 20 percent or even top 1 percent of people. "It will be a difficult and long-term process."

Osborn said he was staying optimistic that once the U.S. decided how to increase income for the middle class, that "we as Americans are very good at doing it, once we figure out what to do," he said.

He quoted from Winston Churchill, who said: "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing -- after they have exhausted all other possibilities."

Also Wednesday, Roger Olson, of the in Santa Rosa, presented the Chamber with a check for $535.50 raised in a recent event.