CERF Blog

The Fed’s national wealth report for the second quarter is out today. For a New-Classical Macroeconomist, this is one of the most important data releases. Wealth is one of the most important theoretical drivers of consumption, and it is one of the drivers in our forecast model of the United States economy. National wealth, i.e.… Read more

Last night we had a faculty meeting.  One of the issues that came up was parking congestion.  The University is growing, and this year there have been some problems finding parking spots. More parking was suggested, but the number of parking spaces isn’t the problem.  The problem is that the University gives parking permits for… Read more

Here‘s Bloomberg’s report on today’s data release.  One paragraph has caused the Drudge Report to run the headline “GOV’T MAKES IT UP: JOB NUMBERS ‘ESTIMATED’ FOR WEEK…” (Caps by Drudge).  Here’s the paragraph: For the latest reporting week, nine states didn’t file claims data to the Labor Department in Washington because of the federal holiday… Read more

Mankiw has a post on the administration’s proposed changes in the tax treatment of investment.  As usual, he is right on.  The proposed treatment amounts to a zero interest loan, at a time when interest rates are already remarkably close to zero: However, the impact will be relatively modest. Notice that expensing merely accelerates deductions.… Read more

California Watch has a piece on the chief justice of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Seems he wants poor judges.  I have a problem with that.  Judges come from the lawyer pool, and there are four types of lawyers, listed below by probability of being wealthy: Honest and competent Dishonest and competent Dishonest and… Read more

Things don’t look so good for Harrisburg PA.  Here’s what CNN has to say: The capital city Pennsylvania is broke and will be skipping this month’s multi-million dollar bond payment.On Sept. 15, Harrisburg, Pa., was scheduled to make a $3.29 million payment on the bonds it issued to build a trash plant. But, the cash-strapped… Read more

The August employment report is out this morning. The United States unemployment rate rose slightly from 9.5 to 9.6 percent, driven more by labor force gains than employment losses. The non-farm job losses occurred in the public sector, the largest component of which was likely related to the Census wind-down. The bulk of the Census… Read more

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times had an article on the decline of illegal immigration into the United States. It is unpopular to say this, but this is bad. There is lots of evidence that immigrants, including illegal immigrants, are a net positive to the economy. Here is a recent and typical research piece from the… Read more

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 in this space back in May. Thus far this year there have been 118 bank closings, which compares to about… Read more

I 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 inconsistency.  The authors argue that Proposition 13 led to a concentration of power in Sacramento, but only a few pages… Read more

The 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 of 2.4 percent, but some commentators spoke of this release in favorable terms, as it was higher than pre-release estimates… Read more

The 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 percent. The unemployment rate remains almost 300 basis points higher than the United States unemployment rate. To some extent, as… Read more

Last 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 was downright angry.  I wasn’t optimistic enough.  A very similar vignette played itself out when I gave a forecast to… Read more

It’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, proposed John Taylor, for determining what Fed Policy should be.  That is, what is the interest rate that the Fed… Read more

Every 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 weak.  I listen to music.  Today though, I listened to the business news, and now I’m sorry I did. Some… Read more