News

The U.S. trade deficit contracted sharply in September as foreign companies snapped up American-made goods, helping the economy rebound from an ugly first half of the year.

California exports sagged in September, deflating momentum and optimism prompted by a strong rally in Golden State shipments abroad in August.

Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 161,000 in October from the prior month, following September’s upwardly revised gain of 191,000, the Labor Department said Friday. . . The unemployment rate, derived from a separate survey of American households, ticked down to 4.9% last month from 5% in September because the labor force shrank. The labor-force participation rate edged lower, to 62.8% in October from 62.9% the prior month, but remained elevated from its October 2015 level of 62.5% .

The two annual time changes have a net negative effect on consumer spending, according to a report the JPMorgan Chase Institute released Thursday. . . The new report confirms U.S. consumer habits may be swayed by sunlight, in some cases. But the reduction in spending when most of the country “falls back” to shift daylight an hour earlier, as will occur this weekend, is larger than the boost in spending that occurs in the spring.

A federal trial court in West Virginia, in a case called Murray Energy Corporation v. EPA, recently found that EPA failed or refused to implement a statutory requirement to continuously evaluate job losses and shifts in employment caused by its regulations. The court ordered EPA to fully comply with the law. The court further found that due to the impact of its regulations on our economy, and the undisputed widespread employment effects suffered by the coal industry, it would be an abuse of discretion for EPA to refuse to conduct the job loss impacts on the coal industry resulting from its regulations.

The consumption of U.S. finished motor gasoline reached a new high of 9.7 million barrels per day (b/d) in June 2016, surpassing the previous one-month high of 9.6 million b/d set in July 2007. U.S. gasoline consumption during summer 2016 (June through August) increased by 169,000 b/d, or 1.8%, relative to the same period in 2015. . . Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) were also high in summer 2016, setting a new record in June. From summer 2015 to summer 2016, VMT grew by 9.3 billion miles per day, an increase of nearly 3.0%. This is slightly more than the 1.8% growth in gasoline consumption over that period. Compared to summer 2007, summer 2016 VMT increased more than 6.4%, while gasoline consumption only increased 0.5%.

Removing wind and solar power from priority dispatch may be intended to help reform the capacity market system, which currently pays gas generators to remain idle. Ironically though, it could lead renewable generators to demand an extension of the same mechanism to their own sector.

To experience America’s crumbling infrastructure firsthand, look no farther than San Francisco and Oakland — ranked this week by a transportation research group as being home to the worst roads of any large urban region in the country.

Most critical, however, is the clear downshift in the standard of living in my adopted home region, greater Los Angeles. Once L.A. was full of high-wage jobs, many of them tied to aerospace and manufacturing, as well as high-end business services. Those industries have been eroding for well over a decade, replaced, in large part, by lower-wage positions in hospitality, retail and health. Now it is one of the poorest big cities in America, yet one with extraordinarily high costs, particularly for housing. The cost of living in LA is 46 percent above the national average, driving real wage from a respectable nominal average $59,000 to a dismal adjusted $40,400.

Renters always get the same advice: Don’t spend more than 30% of your income on housing. That’s not just an anecdotal recommendation. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, households that spend more than 30% of their income on rent are “housing-cost burdened.” And the heavier that burden gets, the more difficult it is to afford food, utilities, and other necessary living expenses. But how feasible is the 30% rule?

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) projects that between now and 2030 California will fall 1.1 million bachelor’s degrees short of workforce demand. Closing this gap will require substantial improvements in access to four-year colleges, transfer rates from community colleges, and completion rates among college students.

A recent thesis published by the Swedish Uppsala University Department of Earth Sciences department has raised the question of whether the rapid expansion of renewable energy technologies is inherently sustainable. According to PhD student Simon Davidsson, who wrote the thesis — Natural resources and sustainable energy — the key factor to ensuring renewable energy expansion remains sustainable is to take into account the materials used and the sustainability of industries involved. Specifically, even though solar and wind technologies produce renewable energy, the materials used in the construction of every solar panel and wind turbine are not necessarily sustainable in and of themselves, nor are the industries involved in their construction.

Fresh data seem to suggest the U.S. economy is revving up, with growth rising at its fastest pace in two years. Yet a deeper look at the numbers reveals that strength may be overstated. . . Capital Economics estimates that a full 0.9 percent of the GDP gain in the third quarter was driven by the one-off surge in soybean exports alone — a gain the research firm expects be reversed in the final three months of the year. . . Outside of exports and inventories, meanwhile, the news for the economy was less encouraging. Consumption disappointed, residential investment dropped 6.2 percent, and equipment investment fell 2.7 percent.

“That fact illustrates another unknown. Even if California can approach the new 2030 goal, no one knows whether the state’s economy can absorb its costs without suffering. . . the anti-carbon program really didn’t get cranked up until a few years ago, so its economic effects, positive or negative, are not yet known. The impacts of the 2030 reduction goal are a complete mystery. Reports by emission reduction advocates have claimed big increases in jobs and other economic activity from shifting to a low-carbon economy, but they have, in the main, been merely shifts rather than expansions, and some job claims are entirely bogus.”

Economists seeking to explain slowing productivity growth have pointed to a downturn in global innovation. Overlooked in that debate is how hard it is to innovate in services, which are lapping up a growing share of consumers’ budgets as goods prices fall. Technology has transformed many services—think of TurboTax, for instance—but has left many sectors like education relatively untouched.