The year 1972 was a big one for me. I left the US Air Force, and I married the woman I still love. Once it dawned on me that I needed income to support my wife and our future family, I started looking about for what to do. I seriously considered working in one of… Read more

Forbes recently ran an article by William Baldwin titled “Do You Live in a Death Spiral State?” In the article, Baldwin calls states with declining economies Death Spiral States. (Confession: I really wish I’d come up that term) He correctly included California among his Death Spiral States. Then, he gives investment advice based only on… Read more

California has almost achieved zero population growth. According to the California Department of Finance (DOF), California’s population has stagnated at sub-one-percent rates for an unprecedented seven consecutive years. The slow growth was a result of negative domestic migration, declining international migration, and declining births. Unless we fix our education system and create opportunities for everyone,… Read more

Dan Walters has a piece on California’s proposed licensing of interior designers, and I recommend you read it.  Here’s his concluding paragraphs: Is there any public interest need for such licensing? If an interior designer botches a job – painting a wall magenta instead of puce or some such – it’s not a matter of life… Read more

California has now had three consecutive months of job gains, and the State’s unemployment rate has been declining, albeit slowly.  That’s an improvement, but it’s not time to break out the bubbly. For one thing, those job gains have been pretty darn small, and they haven’t been enough to drive down the unemployment rate.  Outmigration… Read more

The October 29, 2009 issue of Time Magazine had an article titled “Why California is America’s Future.”  I sure hope not.  California is fast becoming a post-industrial hell for almost everyone except the gentry class, their best servants and the public sector. We only need a few numbers to demonstrate that California is clearly on… Read more

Previously published March 22, 2011 It appears that California residential real estate is in the second dip of a double-dip decline. California home prices, and sales, crashed at the beginning of the recession. Then, last year they picked up in the first half of the year, a result of temporary government programs and optimism unsupported… Read more

Previously published March 22, 2011 California remains mired in something like a zombie state, not quite dead, but certainly not vigorous, moving but with no clear direction. Perhaps, jobs and migration data best show California listless nature. Jobs have been increasing in almost every sector, but that job growth has been anemic. We saw only… Read more

A lot of state governments are in trouble, afflicted as they are with high expenses and weak revenues. They need to be thinking clearly if they are to have any hope of solving their problems. Unfortunately, lots of fuzzy thinking occurs when it comes to taxes. The biggest problem is that many people think that… Read more

The Los Angeles Times has an article today with the scare headline “$69 million in California welfare money drawn out of state.” This is the most recent of several of these types of articles, not necessarily in the Times, the purpose of which seems to be publicizing the claim that welfare recipiensts are wasting the… Read more