You are here: / / The Economy

The California economy’s surface strength hides looming weakness

/in ,

Excerpt from an article that first appeared in the OC Register.

If you listen to California’s many boosters, things have never been so good. And, to be sure, since 2011, the state appears to have gained its economic footing, and outperformed many of its rivals.

Some, such as Los Angeles Magazine and Bloomberg, claim that it is California — not the bumbling Trump regime — that is “making America great again.” California, with 2 percent job growth in 2016, gained jobs more rapidly than most states. The growth rate was about equal to Texas and Colorado, but behind such growth centers as Florida, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah and the District of Columbia. Read more

‘Hillbilly Elegy’ author J.D. Vance, economic development experts discuss the heartland

/in ,

This article first appeared in Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND — It was all about middle America at a City Club of Cleveland forum entitled, “The New American Heartland,” held at the Global Center for Health Innovation.

The big draw was author J.D. Vance, whose book, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” is in its 41st week on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Vance delivered a keynote address and was then followed by Michael Lind, co-founder of New America, who talked about an optimistic report he helped write called, “The New American Heartland: Renewing the Middle Class by Revitalizing Middle America.”

The “New American Heartland,” as defined in the report, extends from the Great Lakes and the upper Great Plains to the Gulf of Mexico, and is viewed by the report authors as the region that will drive the nation’s economy going forward.

The forum concluded with a panel discussion by economic development experts from around the country.

Watch the event:

Read more

What Trump Has Wrought

/in ,

This article first appeared in the OC Register.

Just a few short months ago, we seemed on the brink of a new political era. Donald Trump improbably was headed to the White House, while the Democratic Party, at near historic lows in statehouse power and without control of either house of Congress, seemed to be facing a lengthy period in political purgatory.

Today some progressive voices still see a “bleak” future, but it is increasingly the Republican Party, and its shattered conservative core, that is reeling. Bitterly divided among themselves, and led by a petulant president with record-low ratings, the Republicans seem to be headed to a major crash just six months after a surprising victory.

Gone from view now are visions of a renewed Republican Party uniting its traditional base with historically Democratic parts of Middle America. Rather than a realignment in the mode of Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan, the Trump administration seems to be devolving into a remarkably early interregnum, a pause between alternating progressive eras.

Trump supporters, not Trump, the real losers

Donald Trump’s nationalist agenda started with a natural appeal to much ignored non-cosmopolitan America. Unlike the seemingly diffident and distant Barack Obama, Trump offered a laser-like focus on growing high-wage jobs for the declining middle and working classes. A reform agenda on everything from deregulation and taxes seemed to have the potential to escape the low-growth “new normal” and restore broad-based opportunity across the country.

Read the rest of the article at OC Register

Photo credit: Michael Vadon via Flickr under CC2.0 License

California’s War on the Emerging Generation

/in , ,

This article appeared in the OC Register.

It should be the obligation of older citizens to try to improve the prospects for their successors. But, here in California, as seen in a new report issued by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, we seem to have adopted an agenda designed to make things tougher for them. Read more

One tax change that should be made — and certainly won’t be

/in ,

by George F. Will

Attempting comprehensive tax reform is like trying to tug many bones from the clamped jaws of many mastiffs. Every provision of the code — now approaching 4 million words — was put there to placate a clamorous faction, or to create a grateful group that will fund its congressional defenders. Still, Washington will take another stab at comprehensiveness, undeterred by the misadventures of comprehensive immigration and health-care reforms. Consider just one tax change that should be made and certainly will not be….

Dismayed U.S. homebuilders foresee a 6.4 percent increase; U.S. lumber interests say that is an exaggeration. Even allowing for theatricality on both sides, lumber protectionism will certainly deepen two problems: Because the mortgage interest deduction enables higher housing prices, Americans will continue to pour too much wealth into housing. And inequality will be exacerbated. Homeownership is crucial to the accumulation of wealth. But as social scientist Joel Kotkin writes, millennials are caught in a pincer of low incomes — the Census Bureau estimates that even those with a full-time job earn $2,000 less in real dollars than the same age cohort did in 1980 — and high housing prices. Kotkin says “homeownership rates for people under 35 have dropped 21 percent” since 2004.

Excerpted from the Washington Post. Read the rest of the article here.

The Politics of Migration: From Blue to Red

/in , , ,

by Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox

Democratic “blue” state attitudes may dominate the national media, but they can’t yet tell people where to live. Despite all the hype about a massive “back to the city” movement and the supposed superiority of ultra-expensive liberal regions, people are increasingly moving to red states and regions, as well as to suburbs and exurbs. Read more

To Reunite America, Liberate Cities to Govern Themselves

/in ,

By Joel Kotkin and Richard Florida

Even setting aside the dysfunction of our national government, the fact is that no top-down, one-size-fits-all set of policies can address the very different conditions that prevail among communities.

Time magazine’s 2016 Person of the Year was elected president, as the magazine’s headline writer waggishly put it, of the “divided states of America.” Read more

The End of the Asian Era

/in , , ,

For the past 40 years, the Pacific Rim has been, if you will, California’s trump card. But now, in the age of President Donald Trump and decelerating globalization, the Asian ascendency may be changing in ways that could be beneficial to our state.

Rather than President Barack Obama’s famous “pivot to Asia,” it now might be more accurate to speak of Asians’ pivot to America. Once feared as a fierce competitor, East Asia is facing an end to its period of relentless growth, and now many interests appear to find that the United States offers a more secure, and potentially lucrative, alternative. Read more

Can Tech Oligarchs Thrive Under Trump?

/in ,

With the first billionaire in the White House, Wall Street booming and, for the first time in almost a decade, very solid and broad based job growth, one would think America’s business elite would be beaming. But that’s not so because the country’s moguls are more divided than at any time in recent history.

Read more

The Cities Creating the Most Tech Jobs in 2017

/in ,

A growing tech industry is often considered the ultimate sign of a healthy local economy. By that measure, the Bay Area still stands at the top of the heap in the United States, but our survey of the metropolitan areas with the strongest tech job growth turns up some surprising places not usually thought of as tech meccas. Read more