NC Media Watch

California is surrounded by more business competitive states

Russ Steele

California Business Minute reports that the Beacon Hills Institute at Suffolk University in Boston has released its 10th annual State Competitiveness Report.

The report examines government and fiscal  policies, security, infrastructure, human resources, technology, business incubation,  openness, environmental policy.

This year, North Dakota, Colorado, Massachusetts, Wyoming, Minnesota, Nebraska Utah,  South Dakota, Iowa, and New Hampshire round out this year’s top ten.

California finished 29th.  The state finished poorly in the obvious areas of government and fiscal policies, but surprisingly impacted by a slanted survey associated with issues on environmental policy.

Strange, Suffolk University believes that implementation of green policies will have a negative impact on business and consumers.

The bottom ten included Hawaii, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, Oklahoma, Georgia, New Mexico, Alabama, West Virginia and Mississippi.

(My emphasis added)

The Western States surronding California all are more competitive that California:  Colorado 2nd, Nevada 16th, Oregon 15th, Arizona 24th, Utah 7th, Idaho 18th, and Washington 14th.  

Texas finished at 25th, again more competitive than California.

The full report is here.

It is just weather, but is it a winter indicator?

Russ Steele

Stockholm is forecast to experience its coldest seasonal temperatures for over 100 years this week, according to the Swedish Meteorological Institute (SMHI), with the mercury set to plunge to -15C, on Wednesday and Thursday.

In Trondheim Norway, it was coldest night in 222 years on 29 November.  They have not experience these low temperature since 1788.

On Nov 29th Derbyshire UK had its coldest November night in 134 years.

On 25 November, 13 States recorded record low temperatures, AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NE, NM, NV, OR, SD, UT, WA, WY.

Just in case you were wondering the low temperatures in Cancun Mexico will be +17C on Wednesday and Thursday.  The worlds climate scientist and political followers will be far removed from this historic cold weather.

Snakes Nest Update: Bureaucrats Gone Wild in Cancun

Russ Steele

As you watch this video, remember that reduced consumption is only for the little people, climate change bureaucrats are exempt. Pictures speak louder than words.



H/T to Glenn Reynolds at the Instapundit for the video.

CARB attempts to rescind the First Amendment

 Russ Steele

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has the details in his Forbidden Speech column on the HJTA web site.

Philosophers have pondered and debated the question of “what is true?” for eons.  Now, thanks to the bureaucrats at the California Air Resources Board (CARB), we have our answer:  The truth is whatever CARB says it is, and those who utter forbidden opinions to the contrary will be punished.

 Sounding like something from George Orwell, CARB is poised to adopt a regulation that literally “forbids” and “penalizes” opposing views.  

The resolution, which CARB dubs, “prohibition on false statements,” is frightening in that it would actually sanction communications to the agency during hearings or in the presentation of studies that CARB disagrees with.  Apparently, CARB’s legal staff missed that whole bit on the First Amendment.  In America, we don’t jail people for making “counter-revolutionary statements.”

You can read the rest of the full column here. There was one final note:

The first hearing on CARB’s proposed regulation was scheduled for December 1st.  According to CARB’s website, the hearing has now been postponed until next year.  Moreover, the proposed regulation providing for “penalties” for false information has been removed from CARB’s website. I guess CARB’s lawyers may have were finally awaken from a CO2 induced stupor.

Exit Question: Why does CARB want to prevent the truth -- there is no significant global warming and none that can be attributed to humans -- from being uttered at their Board Meetings?  

H/T to a regular reader for alerting me to this article.

Reason's reality check on MarketWatch's California's economic stability claims

Russ Steele

Our local middle of the road blogger has declared that he is investing in California by buying state bonds here. Then he justifies his economic enthusiasm based on an article by Brett Arends' sustained defense of  California economic stability in MarketWatch. After reading the column my BS alarm went off with a loud resounding clang!

Low and behold other have issues with the column. Reason's Tim Cavanaugh thinks that any column that gets a thumbs up by both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown is cause for deep suspicion, especially this MarketWatch column by Brett Arends.  Cavanaugh writes:

Arends' thesis is that a cabal of rightwing pundits are manufacturing the story of the Golden State's economic troubles. He makes some points that are true: California pays out more than it receives in federal funding; the state's $2 trillion economy is the eighth largest in the world; and housing is way too expensive. (Arends conspicuously avoids looking at some of the reasons behind that last problem.)

Does this mean all the grim forecasts you hear about the Golden State (most emphatically from Gov.-elect Brown, though Arends says critics of Californianomics are motivated by animus toward the incoming third-termer) are bogus? Only if you're really willing to cherry pick your data.

Here's how Arends spreads the good news about California's investment climate (warning: heavy sarcasm ahead):

Back in the Silicon Valley glory days, in the late 1990s, California attracted an incredible 42 cents of every venture capital dollar invested in America. Ah, those were the days — when the private sector was still willing to back California with its own money. As any conservative will tell you, that’s the real voting in the economy.

How far has California fallen from those giddy days?

According to the latest data from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, in 2010 California just got a miserable, er, 50 cents of every venture capital dollar invested in America.

So, how much, according to NCVA and PWC, does that actually come to? About one-third as much as in 1999, when VCs put up more than $51 billion in funding, and less than a fifth as much as in 2000, when they put up more than $100 billion. Nationwide, VCs spent an anemic $17 billion in 2009. It's true that California attracts a slightly larger piece of the venture capital pie than it did 11 years ago, but the pie is geometrically smaller than it was then. If you think venture capital is going to lift the Golden State out of the dumps, you're wrong.

You can read the rest of the Reason article here.  Tim Cavanaugh concludes:

Fiscal conservatives aren't against California. Reality is. The state has lost a third of its manufacturing base in a decade, its budget is structurally unbalanced, and its political leaders believe you can get out of bankruptcy by fining jaywalkers.  You don't need to be a Republican or a Democrat to understand that these problems are real.

I guess it helps you understand if your are not one of our local left leaning bloggers and those who support AB32 in opposition to Prop 23.

Environmental hypocrisy, saving the planet from CO2 with bird shredders

Russ Steele



Doug Hoffman at The Resilient Earth has the details on a new study showing wind turbines continue to shred birds in California’s Altamont Pass. The wind turbines in the Pass reportedly  kill 880 to 1,300 birds of prey each year, including up to 116 golden eagles, 300 red-tailed hawks, 380 burrowing owls, and additional hundreds of other raptors including kestrels, falcons, vultures, and other owl species. (Click for a larger image.)
Hoffman writes:

If advocates for green, renewable energy are to be believed, wind farms do not threaten endangered bird species like eagles, hawks and owls. A recent article in Science implies that problems at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA) in California have been reduced by spacing turbines farther apart and removing turbines from problematic sites. But on-site scientific studies have revealed that the kill rate for all birds, and for birds of prey in particular, have not been reduced and may have even increased. It seems that some eco-activists are so committed to expanding wind power as a way to fight global warming that they are turning a blind eye to the slaughter in the skies. How can these duplicitous greens be trusted if they are willing to drive endangered species to extinction in the name of reduced CO2 emissions?

Read the rest of Doug’s article here at The Resilient Earth blog.  We are killing golden eagles to stop human caused global warming, a non-existing problem. Here is some real hypocrisy for you to think about. The same environment elites, academic rent seekers and venture capitalist who spent $31  million to defeat Prop 23 seem to be OK with the shredding of birds to pad their pockets under AB32. Follow the money.

(Updated with photo that did not show up)

OMG: Hypocrisy at the New York Times - No Really

Russ Steele

The New York Times is dissemination the stolen State Department cables that have been made available to it via WikiLeaks. These were stollen illegally obtained documents not intended for public information.

Do you recall New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin's inspiring statement on the Climategate e-mails:

 "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here."

Oh, my!  Is the New York Times being hypocritical?  Really?

Exit question: What do the liberal/progressive commenter who defended the NYT think?  Why is the NYT not hypocrisy?   Oh!

Climate weirdness coming from the snakes nest

Russ Steele

In Mayan, Cancun is "snake's nest".  World leaders and scientist are meeting in Cancun for the latest round climate change talks. Back home here in California, CARB’s Mary Nichole’s called climate change "climate weirdness", and true to her description we are seeing a lot of weirdness coming from the snake’s nest in Cancun Mexico.  Here is an example from an article by Louise Gray at the UK Telegraph:

Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.

Professor Anderson admitted it “would not be easy” to persuade people to reduce their consumption of goods. He said politicians should consider a rationing system similar to the one introduced during the last “time of crisis” in the 1930s and 40s.

Why should we need to resort to WWII rationing according the good Professor?

Unless emissions are reduced dramatically in the next ten years the world is set to see temperatures rise by more than 4C (7.2F) by as early as the 2060s, causing floods, droughts and mass migration.

Those were similar claims made by James Hansen at NASA twenty years ago, and guess what!  The raw and satellite temperatures are not rising beyond natural variation, only the "adjusted" temperatures at Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research are rising. We are not seeing unusual drought or floods that have not happened in the past, before the scary rise in CO2 that the good Professor wants to curtail. It was appear that Cancun is living up to it’s reputation for snakes, only this time the real problem is a snake charmer from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

Exit question: Will the Sierra Business Council be endorsing Professor Anderson’s recommended solution to a no-existing problem?

Here is a depressing economic factoid

Russ Steele

I found this information on the California Political News blog, which I have edited for brevity:

Comparing the second quarter of 2009 with 2010, California corporate income tax receipts dropped a breathtaking 41.6%.  That is a stunning reduction in one year.  Only rust belt Ohio was worse.

ooo

With California's unique AB32 global warming law becoming effective in 2011, we soon should be able to sprint past Ohio in our race to the bottom.

One of the reasons for the decline in corporate income tax is that companies are leaving California.  California Political News is planning a regular feature listing companies that are leaving the state.

There is one danger in only listing the companies leaving, some are moving to the state. Governor Perry from Texas ran into this problem, when he boasted that The Lone Star State had ripped off 153 businesses from The Golden State in the first eight months of the year. Perry's office obtained the figure from business consultants Dun & Bradstreet. What Perry doesn't say is that 92 companies moved from Texas to California during the same period, reducing the Texas net gain to 61.

The bottom line is that California tax revenue are plunging, the state keeps spending money it does not have, and they are poised to fully implement AB32 which will make doing business in California more expensive.  What else could possibly go wrong? Oh! Bankruptcy and a Federal take over.

Tracking Nevada County Employment

Russ Steele

As we look to forward to Nevada County’s economic recovery, we need a tool set for measuring our progress.  Writing in the latest issue of the Nevada County Business News, Gil Mathew makes an important point in his column Should We Be Reading Tea Leaves?  Gil writes:

“And, speaking of reading the tea leaves. We watch the unemployment rate as though it can tell us a lot. The bloggers and news pundits and politicians wait with eager anticipation fro the next announcement of the unemployment rate, but I suggest that the better measure of the health of the workforce is to watch the measure of employment. If the number of employed people remains the same but the potential work force increases then the unemployment increases; conversely, if the number in the potential workforce decreases you have a decrease in the unemployment rate (although the same number of people are employed). So, population movement can have a huge effect effect on the unemployment number.”

Due to the space limitation on his column Gil did not give any examples. Here are some from the last few months that demonstrate the changes in the workforce numbers.

It is clear that the labor force has declined over the past three month, with the unemployment rate following this trend. The 2009 yearly average was 50,470, with an average unemployment rate 11%.  In October 2009 the labor force was 49,630 which is 190 less that 2010.  I would agree with Gil the most important economic indicator is the level of employment, not the unemployment rate.

Here is a broader look at the employment numbers:



As you can see the workforce follows a seasonal pattern. I will do some additional analysis using R a statistical programming language in an update to this post. 

The Nevada County Business News tracks the employment at the top 50 employers in Nevada County. This could be a good indicator of Nevada County economic recovery strength. Here is the latest plot from the Business News:


As you can see, the graphic trend is not encouraging.  I will continue to report this every two months when the data is published by the Nevada County Business News.