The FDIC’s quarterly banking profile, providing data for quarter 2, was released today. The number of 2010 United States bank failures will likely exceed the 2009 failures, the FDIC reported. This was as I reported […]
Read moreI just finished California Crack Up by Joe Matthews and Mark Paul. For me, the book was not quite fulfilling, and it took determination to read the final 30 pages or so. There was some […]
Read moreThe Bureau of Economic Analysis released their second estimate of United States 2010 second quarter Gross Domestic Product today. The revised estimate of 1.6 percent real GDP growth is much lower than the initial estimate […]
Read moreThe July California jobs report shows continued weakness for the Golden State’s labor markets. Annualized month-on-month job growth declined 0.8 percent. Year-on-year job growth also declined 0.8 percent, and the unemployment rate held at 12.3 […]
Read moreLast winter I gave a forecast to the agents of a commercial real estate company. The forecast was necessarily negative, but it was well received by the agents. The company’s president was another matter. He […]
Read moreIt’s not everyday that Greg Mankiw and Paul Krugman agree. When they do, it’s worth thinking about. Here are their blog posts: Krugman & Mankiw. The topic is a Taylor Rule, which is a method, […]
Read moreEvery morning I have this little battle with myself. Will I listen to music, news, or business news? I know I should do one of the latter two, but I really like music. Mostly, I’m […]
Read moreThe Center for Responsible Lending has published a report “Dreams Deferred: Impacts and Characteristics of the California Foreclosure Crises”. I focus my comments on two of the points made in their report. According to their […]
Read moreWell, this is interesting. It seems that the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed suit against New Jersey for securities fraud in marketing its debt. Their problem was that they neglected to report some pension […]
Read moreI was at a meeting this morning with with people from across the economy. We had a farmer, an accountant, a banker, two city economic development people, a university dean, and more. While the meeting […]
Read moreFinally, people are starting to see the problem with the United States economy. This piece is typical. For over a year now, we have been warning that the United States could be facing a long […]
Read moreJoel Kotkin has just published the best piece yet written on California and its diminished economic prospects. Better yet, he used our data to support his work. It is a relatively long article, but well […]
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