A couple of months ago, on a flight from Los Angeles to New York, I had the opportunity to sit next to an impressive young woman from New Zealand, and we had the type of conversations that occur on long flights. New Zealand was too small for her, and opportunity was limited. So, right after… Read more

The 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 a link to the report: http://tiny.cc/huFh5 How does California rank in this study? The short answer is poor. By these… Read more

Two 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 plant (http://tiny.cc/ini6Z). Some would argue that these events reflect the worldwide economic decline and have little to do with California.… Read more

One 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 unemployed for more than 27 weeks. According to the release, there were just under 5 million people (4,934,000) who had… Read more