More Bad News for Business

For several years, Inc. Magazine has compiled a list of the 100-fastest growing companies in urban areas. This year's list, published in the June edition, contained companies from Cincinnati and Columbus, but none from Cleveland. A particularly interesting Cincy company, Intelliseek--a blog analysis firm--came in at #21, though it has since been aquired by Nielsen BuzzMetrics. If you're curious about the parameters from which the list is drawn, they're here. Meanwhile, Forbes has just published a list in which it ranks states on their business environment (specifically: business costs, economic climate, growth prospects, labor, quality of life and regulatory environment). Ohio comes in at #31, which, truth be told, is higher than it has been on various such lists in the past. Then again, the self-proclaimed "Capitalist Tool" is infamous for its sometimes-sketchy research on some of these lists, especially the most celebrated one, of the 400 richest people in the world. As I've written before, it continues to mostly take megamouth Donald Trump's word for it that he's a billionaire, despite much evidence to the contrary. In any event, all in all, it's a pretty uninspiring showing for the region and the state, I'd say.