The economy is in shambles as far as anyone can tell. Dick Conway has spent the majority of his life tracking the state and local economies. “The economy is just a mess, and some people say it’ll be a mess for another five years,” Conway said. “I tend to be a little more optimistic, but so much depends on politics.” The mess is not showing any improvement and 2012 is not going to be much better. Europe’s crisis, the housing market and tons of other issues in the economy are not showing improvement for anyone, according to The Seattle Times.

Regions like Washington will show a better improvement than the most of the country. However, a little better is not good enough to get the rest of the economy on its feet. “We need a catalyst to propel the economy into a virtuous growth cycle,” Conway said. “But it’s hard to find anything out there that’s going to jolt us out of this. It’s going to be a slow slog.” states Conway. Of course, there are different sectors that suffer in different ways.

The exports sector is suffering in a unique way. “If we’re going to grow, we have to look for export markets, because the fastest-growing markets aren’t here — they’re outside our borders.” states Conway. Exporting is a big industry and it’s important to the growth of America. “There’s a pretty good commitment on (China’s) side to rural development in general and to a strong dairy industry and self-sufficiency in fresh milk,” Mark Anderson said who is the CEO of Anderson Hay & Grain. This is proof that some companies are benefiting more than others.

The manufacturing sector is doing better in some places than others. A company by the name of Boeing has added almost 10,000 jobs to the mix. New orders for airplanes are coming in and it’s making productivity go up which is what the economy likes to see. Different companies, like Flow International are seeing a positive increase in business, when all they saw before was a struggle. This company alone has made four times more than what it did in the previous fiscal year. Flow plans to only add more jobs to the firm. “As we’ve come out of the recession,” CEO CharleyBrown said, “people who’d reduced their workforces and now have demand returning to what it was before (are) trying to meet it with more efficient production rather than by hiring more people.”

The housing sector is also showing a slight improvement during the recession. “You have an inventory of properties that are at least 90 days past due on their mortgages that, at the current foreclosure rate, will last at least four years,” Crellin said. “With that number of distressed properties out there, price appreciation in the near term is unlikely.”As you can see, several sectors are showing an improvement but several others still need to show a lot of improvement.