I think your #2 and #5 are the best, and most likely, strategems. It's like making sure you're bathed and well dressed before a job interview. The others are somewhat co-dependent on the city and state's economy.
Of course if you don't recognize that the state's economy is not doing well but instead prefer to perceive it as "not doing badly considering...."
I keep hearing about how bad Oklahoma is doing, but don't see it in the business' I go to - stores, restaurants, etc. They all "seem" to be busy at kind of normal levels... I realize my visits are just little 'snapshots', but there aren't a lot of cobwebs being spun on the doors of most business'. As of 8 months ago, the only year we experienced any real issue with "doing well" was 2009, when we lost GDP. 4% isn't booming, but still isn't too bad, especially when you look at the rest of the US and most of the world.
Government and mining (oil/nat gas/coal) are our two biggest economic components at 15% each. (Link at bottom)
And most of our state budget problems are self-inflicted from electing Mary Failin' and her ilk.
There are many questions I have about economic issues, but a couple seem to stand out and keep crossing my mind. Oklahoma has probably the worst 'tunnel vision' on these, but it is also a national/worldwide phenomenon.
First, oil base economic dependency. Wood had it's day as primary fuel. Coal had it's day. Now oil is most likely nearing the end of it's day as primary - meaning largest usage base, not sole source. When is Oklahoma going to start realizing that 15% (see table link at end) has been going down and will continue to decline? We always go into a tailspin when oil prices/revenue does go down - that suggests our dependency is at much higher level than it's 15% contribution to the economy! This is unsustainable (to overuse a term I find mildly "cliche"...)!!
Oil consumption worldwide has gone down this year. It will become a smaller part of the overall energy usage mix going forward. That's just a fact, but none of the current non-leaders in state government are understanding or acting on that reality! We have talked at length about what is coming - well, the future is here. Now. And making an impact worldwide that will grow every year. If we don't stop continuing with the UnVision leadership we seem to love so much, we WILL continue our lackluster piddling along!
We have an exceptional opportunity in this state to get ahead of one of the curves - and I bet - no...I guarantee - we miss it completely!! Agriculture here ain't bad...we have a lot of things happening, but the biggest chunks are still limited in variety. Cattle, corn, wheat, canola. Those make up the majority of our farm products. We also have a lot of land that could be more effectively used for growing marijuana - not for medical or recreational, but for oil product production - fuels, lubricants, etc. This country enforced an ethanol program for years based on corn - with biomass production capabilities of a ton or so per acre. Switchgrass is touted as a "wunderkind" plant at 8 to 9 tons per acre. Marijuana easily comes in at 12 to 15 tons per acre. We have approx 33 million acres of ag land - 13 million considered "prime' ag land. If we used maybe 10 million of the non-prime land for marijuana, we end up with over half a billion gallons of biomass liquids that could be used just as fuel - like biodiesel - but could also be used as feedstock for a high tech specialty oils/lubes/bio-chem products industry that could add significantly to the state.
We have the ag part of it done very well with OSU. We have the petrochem part of it done very well with TU. We could really shine on the world stage! And not just from our half billion gallons, but we could also buy grass from surrounding places - anyone ever see trucks full of hay moving around? Well put it on trains so the transport costs are cost-effective and bring it from KS, CO, TX.
500 million gallons of something made into a market value of $5 or $10 a gallon - $50 billion - or about 1/4 of the state GDP! BHAG's!!! Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals!!
Second, the world economy in general has dependent on cheap (read that as "slave") labor for hundreds of years. It is literally what allowed the expansion of western European society across the world stage. It made for a "growth" economy that is now ALL we understand, and no where can I find evidence that anyone is looking at any other model. (Enlightenment appreciated here.)
Before that, from what I have read and studied, relatively speaking, the world was "growing", depending on the success of the various imperialistic entities, at slower rates. It was not quite, but more in the direction of a "steady-state" economic model than recent history. With lots (all ! ) of the wealth accumulation at the top. When you run out of new parts of the world to move into for exploitation - the labor markets are no longer just slave wage places...China, Mexico, VietNam, etc. - how does one approach a more steady state model? Seems to me based on history, you just enslave more people... The question(s) that arise relate to whether anyone is doing any serious study about this? And whether a low growth economy can work without enslavement? Agricultural societies in small groups seem to have been more the norm in distant past and almost certainly low growth - is that the only way economies can work?
Here is an interesting history of GDP...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Oklahoma