Washington an economic "early riser"

"If you want to be in the right place when the recovery starts, that place may be in Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Texas or Washington."

Those aren't our words, but the words of Bill Dedman from MSNBC.com who reports that our strong high-tech industry will help us be one of the first states to recover from the recession. He says the first wave of "early riser" states are predicted to see job growth start in the fourth quarter of this year.

This follows the preliminary forecast released last week by our state's chief economist, Arun Raha, who also predicts the state's economy will start to turn around late this year.