As market-watchers, we are suffering from a serious case of whiplash. The week of March 9 saw five consecutive trading sessions in which the S&P 500 moved at least 4.9 percent between the opening and closing bells. Most dizzying of all, the S&P dropped 9.5 percent on Thursday, March 12 and then increased by 9.3… Read more

The BLS’s U.S. January jobs report was released this morning and it includes not only the latest monthly jobs numbers, but also benchmark revisions. We regard this jobs report as a fairly positive one, but for reasons which are different than those cited by most economists. First, we dismiss the unemployment rate altogether. The unemployment… Read more

We have used this space repeatedly over the past several years to criticize Federal Reserve policy and the significant impacts that it is having on the U.S. economy. As we wrote in June of 2017, “U.S. monetary policy is among the greatest of internal risks to U.S. economic growth.” And in December of 2018, “Extraordinary… Read more

Previously published in the 2018 Quarter 4 US Economic Forecast – December 19, 2019 For years, we have been telling anyone who will listen that extraordinary policy experimentation undertaken by the Federal Reserve during the darkest days of the financial crisis remains a major impediment to robust economic growth for the nation. Facing economic meltdown… Read more

The First Law of Economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist. The Second Law of Economists: They’re both wrong. -Economist, David Wildasin[1]   It has been accurately noted in a number of different contexts that economists don’t agree on much. Consider the example of the Obama Administration’s nearly 1 trillion dollar… Read more

Reprinted from our December 2017 Publication To our great surprise, the Republican legislature appears close to passing tax reform. As recently as the previous forecast publication, we argued that the probability of such reform was low and rapidly vanishing along with healthcare reform. We noted, at the time, that Republicans lack the political skill (or… Read more

Written by Matthew Fienup and Dan Hamilton The Bureau of Economic Analysis just released its Ventura County GDP data for 2016. Accompanying the 2016 number are revisions to GDP estimates for 2015 and 2014. The data on Ventura County economic activity was a punch to the gut for the entire CERF team. Ventura County’s economy… Read more

Previously published on December 16, 2016 in the California Economic Forecast publication. The United Sates economy continues to grow at less than its potential. The 12-month moving average of job creation has been falling steadily since February 2015. In seven of the last eight quarters, investment growth has been negative or near zero. Productivity declined… Read more