Latest Articles

Good News and Bad News

We have some economic news out today.  453,000 filed initial unemployment claims, and the second quarter GDP estimate is 1.7 percent growth.  The news people are practically ecstatic over this, proclaiming it’s good news.  The […]

Read more

Healthcare and Government

I get the following question, or something like it all the time.  This time it came by e-mail.  I thought I’d post my response.  Here’s the question: When looking at the economy, unemployment, and job […]

Read more

Political Decisions Matter in State Economic Performance

California has pending legislation, AB 2529, to require an economic impact analysis of proposed new regulation. Its opponents correctly point out that AB 2529 will delay and increase the cost of new regulation. There will […]

Read more

California’s Double-Dip in Jobs

California’s unemployment rate edged up from 12.3 in July to 12.4 percent in August, the Employment Development Department reported today. This was driven more by changes in jobs, (losses), rather than changes in labor force. […]

Read more

United States Wealth

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 […]

Read more

Economists Don't Always Fit In

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 […]

Read more

Death, Data, and Today's Initial Jobless Claims Report

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 […]

Read more

Mankiw Speaks

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 […]

Read more

Lawyers, Wealth, and Judges

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 […]

Read more

We'll be Seeing More of This

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 […]

Read more

The August Employment Situation

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 […]

Read more

More Signs of California’s Decline

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, […]

Read more