CERF Blog

This essay was written October 26, and published in the Ventura County Economic Forecast Publication that was released on November 5. The U.S. experienced a historic contraction in March, a recession that will mark the history books with its severity and sudden-ness. The $2.2 trillion contraction from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the second… Read more

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The 2020 LDC U.S. Latino GDP Report seeks to provide a factual view of the large and rapidly growing economic contribution of Latinos living in the United States. We estimate the U.S. Latino GDP based on a detailed, bottom-up construction which leverages publicly available data from major U.S. agencies. The most recent year… Read more

Democratic candidates for President in 2020 have put forth numerous innovative policy proposals.  One of these is a tax on wealth (the Wealth Tax).  Bernie Sanders’s plan called for a 2% annual tax on net worth between $50 million and $1 billion, 4% on net worth between $1 billion and $10 billion, and 8% on… Read more

  Fiscal Dominance    noun a situation in which the fiscal authority is so profligate that a conscientious monetary authority is forced to accommodate – that is, the monetary authority must print money in order to maintain government solvency.   Stockholm Syndrome    noun feelings of trust or affection felt in many cases of kidnapping or hostage-taking… Read more

Written by Dan Hamilton & Matthew Fienup The BLS April Employment Situation is now available for all to see.  After economic forecast houses across the globe ran their models beginning in mid-March and re-ran them again and again until as recently as last night, we now have bona fide economic data on the historical and… Read more

The Coronavirus Recession The Coronavirus is now understood to be having a stunning impact on the U.S. economy. The suspension of economic activity resulting from social distancing and shelter-in-place orders issued across the nation is simply breathtaking. One of the earliest data points to arrive was new jobless claims. Nearly 17 million people have filed… Read more

Considering both the actual stimulus packages passed by Congress and the potential fiscal and monetary responses, we conclude that the U.S. government can do little to reduce the severity and length of the Coronavirus Recession but can do much to prolong it. Monetary policy was already on a crisis footing. Policy makers failed to unwind extraordinary… Read more

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

Written by Matthew Fienup & Dan Hamilton We do not envy decision makers in local, state, and federal government. They have exceedingly difficult decisions to make, under extreme pressure, with human lives literally hanging in the balance. At the same time, the suspension of economic activity that has resulted from social distancing and shelter-in-place orders… Read more

Written by Matthew Fienup & Dan Hamilton The Coronavirus is now understood as having a stunning impact on the U.S. economy. The suspension of economic activity is simply breathtaking. It appears safe to say we are experiencing a historic and life-changing event. One week ago, we provided an update, which predicted a Q2 GDP growth… Read more

Written by Matthew Fienup & Dan Hamilton Although we will be releasing a full U.S. economic forecast publication in just two weeks, the CERF team wants to take a few moments to share some thoughts and observations.  We provide this to the community and our clients so they are abreast of CERF’s thoughts on recent… 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

Matthew Fienup & Dan Hamilton (Original post 12/13/19, edits 12/15/19) The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its annual Metro GDP dataset yesterday which provides economic growth figures for our regional economy.  The release includes a new Ventura County GDP growth estimate for 2018 as well as significant, and truly surprising, revisions to the… Read more

An index fund is a portfolio that aims to mimic as possible a designated index, generally a broad-based stock or bond index.  For example, some of the most popular index funds target the Standard and Poor’s index of 500 large stocks.  The SP500 is a market capitalization weighted index.  This means that the weight of… Read more