California Economy

Housing prices will hit bottom some time next year, but the California economy will be in distress for months to come, according to a closely followed UCLA economic report scheduled to be released today. In a series of dire predictions echoed by experts throughout the state, the UCLA Anderson Forecast says that unemployment will continue to increase, consumer spending will decline and tax revenues will plummet.

The California economy loses about $28 billion annually due to premature deaths and illnesses linked to ozone and particulates spewed from hundreds of locations in the South Coast and San Joaquin air basins, according to findings released Wednesday by a Cal State Fullerton research team.

When we moved to L.A. more than a decade ago, I came out on the train several days ahead of the rest of the family. I hadn't seen very much of the West, and I thought it would be fun to roll into California by rail. I can still remember leaving the vast nothingness of Texas, where we lived at the time, rumbling along the sunbaked U.S. border and snaking into the desert stillness of New Mexico and Arizona.

To hear Arnold Schwarzenegger and other gubernatorial hopefuls tell it, the California job market is totally in the tank. Last week, Schwarzenegger advisor George P. Shultz branded jobs the campaign's "new four-letter word." Fellow Republicans Sen. Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks and Bill Simon Jr., who dropped out of the race Saturday, have spotlighted California's recent steep employment losses as a reason to sack Gov. Gray Davis and bring in new leadership.