Mark Zandi declared “the recession is over” on Tuesday September 1, 2009. All of the economists at CERF would like this to be true. However, we suspect that this is not true. Mark’s declaration was […]
Read moreOver the weekend I read this article. It seems that Barney Frank and Ron Paul, normally not allies, have gotten together and proposed a law requiring an audit of the Federal Reserve System and limiting […]
Read moreKurgman has had several recent blog entries and an op-ed ( http://tiny.cc/7S3of ) on the virtues of government debt. He compares the current stimulus to that of the 1930’s, WWII, and the Cold War. He […]
Read moreThe current economic downturn is a serious one, especially for coastal California counties. Los Angeles County also experienced a serious and prolonged recession in the early 1990s. The early 1990s United States economy experienced a cyclical […]
Read moreIn November of 2008, we substantially revised our forecast of mid-year 2009 California year-on-year job growth from a fall of about one percent to a fall of about five percent. At the time, we felt […]
Read moreThe Employment Development Department’s July 2009 Ventura County jobs report, released Friday, is depressing. From the household survey we see that the seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate rose from June’s 10.3 percent to 10.9 percent in […]
Read moreThe Pacific Research Institute released a new study yesterday. The report, titled “Assessing the State of the Golden State,” analyzes indicators for income, labor, migration, and entrepreneurship and compares California to every other state. Here’s […]
Read moreThis is a slow week for economic news. I was thinking about how different things are from last August. Last year we were approaching the most serious economic crisis of our life. Economic storm clouds […]
Read moreTwo Los Angeles Times articles today highlight California’s problems. One article discusses the falloff of activity at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports (http://tiny.cc/eFHbx). The other discusses the expected closing of California’s last auto […]
Read moreMost people are concerned about potential inflation, but deflation is the immediate worry. It is easy to see why the concern for inflation. Big deficits and big increases in the monetary base usually lead to […]
Read moreOne last comment on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) employment and unemployment data release on Friday, I promise. I haven’t seen any comments on the “Long Term Unemployed.” These are people who have been […]
Read moreThe markets are reacting enthusiastically to today’s jobs and unemployment data. I’m not sure why. Dan discussed the jobs data and the problems with seasonal adjustment in the previous post. There is also a problem […]
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