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Washington and Wall Street seem to be treating California as if it were a sideshow in the financial circus of these turbulent times. It’s not. California is home to the largest manufacturing belt in the United States and to Silicon Valley, the nation’s largest high-tech center. California is America’s most populous state with 38 million people. Its GDP of $1.8 trillion is the largest in the U.S. Its economy is bigger than those of Russia, Brazil, Canada, or India. And it’s collapsing. Major California counties are ground zero in the continuing mortgage meltdown: Los Angeles County with 5.32 percent of...

As bad as California's budget crisis is for the state's $1.8-trillion economy, just wait. It could get worse. The spectacle that played out in the national media this week of a state unable to get its fiscal act together is reinforcing the notion that the Golden State is a rotten place to do business, experts say. Corporate leaders and Wall Street investors, watching the daily festival of seeming incompetence, political partisanship and governmental dysfunction, could be persuaded to limit or eliminate their investments here. ... The budget crisis threatens to further weaken the state's job market, which lost 63,700 more...

It looks like California's economy is trying hard to make a comeback. The day after a study revealed the housing market in Northern California is seeing the light, new numbers show the state's unemployment rate also might be emerging from the darkest days of the recession. California's unemployment rate dropped slightly from last month's modern record, falling to 11 percent in April. The state Employment Development Department says the jobless rate fell from 11.2 percent in March. But it is up from just 6.6 percent a year ago. The news comes as the national unemployment rate continues to rise, increasing...

The ostrich does not hide its head in the sand yet people still believe this and have vivid images of this happening. Many think that the California budget disaster is now a thing of the past because the legislature decided that they were going to do the hard thing and handoff the final decision to California residents. The ostrich does not stick its head in the sand but California politicians do this everyday. The problem concisely put is a shortage of money or over spending depending on how you look at it. The state is spending more than it brings...

Looking back three years ago, it is hard to fathom how much has changed from the frenzied pace of development then going forward. Land and housing prices were still rising, ever-larger development projects were being launched, and growth debates were raging across Southern California. That’s all gone now. As key real estate players suddenly find themselves without jobs, as more developers file bankruptcy, and more projects bite the dust, the depth of this “downturn” is sinking in. Many, of course, have “been through this before.” By that they mean, they’ve weathered the cyclical postwar busts that have intermittently interrupted the...

SACRAMENTO — California's jobless rate climbed to 10.5 percent in February, the second month of double-digit unemployment. ... Sharp declines in construction, manufacturing, finance, trade, transportation, professional services, leisure, health and education are blamed for the losses. ... The state has lost more than 600,000 jobs since February 2008, a 4 percent drop.

California's unemployment rate hit double digits last month for the first time in more than a quarter-century, with a half-million fewer jobholders than the state had a year earlier. The state jobless rate of 10.1 percent was topped slightly by the 10.8 percent rate in Los Angeles County ... (snip) "The number of Californians without jobs and a means to provide for their families is a sobering reminder that there is nothing more important than getting California's economy back on track," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "The road to full economic recovery will not be short, but the...

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told UN delegates locked in climate talks on Monday that the world economic crisis should not slow down the fight against global warming. "There are some people who say that we can't afford the fight against global warming while our economies are down, but the exact opposite is true," he told some 10,000 delegates in Poznan, Poland in a video message. "The green rules and regulations that will help save our planet will also revive our economies," he said. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is charged with hammering out for a new...

[California] appears headed, if not for imminent disaster, then toward an unanticipated, maddening, and largely unnecessary mediocrity. Since 2000, California’s job growth rate— which in the late 1970s surged at many times the national average—has lagged behind the national average by almost 20 percent. Rapid population growth, once synonymous with the state, has slowed dramatically. Most troubling of all, domestic out-migration, about even in 2001, swelled to over 260,000 in 2007 and now surpasses international immigration. Texas has replaced California as the leading growth center for Hispanics. Out-migration is a key factor, along with a weak economy, for the collapse...

For more than two years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, leading California Democrats and environmentalists have insisted that AB 32 – a 2006 law requiring California businesses and residents to use cleaner but far more costly sources of energy by 2020 – would actually prove to be an economic bonanza. They asserted it would position the state to lead the world in green technology and reduce societal costs stemming from air pollution. This claim falls apart under the slightest inspection. Sure, some well-positioned industries might thrive. But how could sharply increasing the operating costs of most businesses and reducing the disposable income...

During the Cold War, U.S. presidents paid close attention to the "domino theory" and to how having some country fall to communism on their watch would ultimately affect their place in history. In his final weeks in office, President Bush has another set of dominoes to worry about – namely which financial giant will be the next to topple during his presidency. To help in moving toward a national economic recovery – and to burnish his legacy by doing right in time of crisis – President Bush needs to step in now to help shore up one of the country's...

The state's unemployment rate is the highest in 14 years; it rose half a percentage point in October from the month earlier. In the past 12 months, more than 100,000 jobs have been lost. Reporting from Los Angeles and Sacramento — California's unemployment rate soared to a 14-year high in October, hitting 8.2%, and economists predicted that it could rise substantially over the next year and a half. The state's economy shed 26,400 people from its payroll last month, raising the total number of lost jobs to 101,300 since October 2007, the California Employment Development Department reported Friday. And the...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California's sputtering economy is going to get worse, a report released on Wednesday said. The state's jobless rate will hold above 7 percent through next year as the homes slump grinds on and finance payrolls shrink, according to the UCLA Anderson Forecast. A "strong undercurrent of housing and finance generated weakness" is dragging down growth in the eighth-largest economy in the world, the report said. "Our near term quarterly forecast has things getting worse," it said. "Unemployment will continue to increase to the thin air of 7.4 percent by the end of the year and it...

That's today's message from UCLA experts as they release their quarterly report predicting California's economy will slow to a crawl - but won't sink into negative territory The forecast calls for job growth to pick up next year but remain under 2 percent through the third quarter of 2010. The forecast also notes: In the fourth quarter of 2007, the state added 104,000 jobs from a year earlier. Most were in Los Angeles County and the Bay Area. Both regions have a diversified economy that includes trade and service sectors. Both have established residential areas with less exposure to the...

California takes lead in global warming fight Aug 30, 11:06 PM (ET) By Mary Milliken LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California catapulted to the forefront of U.S. efforts to fight global warming on Wednesday with an accord that will give the state the toughest laws in the nation on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and possibly spur a reluctant Washington to take similar action. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has accused fellow Republican President George W. Bush of failing to demonstrate leadership on climate change, said he reached a "historic agreement" with Democrats to make California a world leader in reducing carbon emissions....

SACRAMENTO Over the past year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has sought to position himself as a leader on climate change issues. He outlined a broad program to reduce air pollution during a speech at a United Nations summit a year ago and last week reached a publicity-generating agreement with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Republican governor now faces a dilemma that threatens to undermine his environmental credentials at the same time he is trying appeal to moderate voters as he seeks re-election. This month, the Democrats who hold a majority in California's Legislature plan to send Schwarzenegger a bill that...

Population trend reversing course for 1st time since '98. For the first time since 1998, the people who relocated from California to other states outnumbered those who migrated in from other states, according to a report released by the state's Department of Finance on Thursday. California, which had a population of more than 37 million in 2005, had a net loss of 28,565 people to other states during the fiscal year that ended July 1, according to report estimates. A department analyst said the loss can't be blamed on a mass exodus similar to one that the state experienced before...

It takes hard work to drive anyone away from California's sunshine and scenic vistas, but politicians in Sacramento have been up to the task. The latest Census Bureau data indicate that, in 2005, 239,416 more native-born Americans left the state than moved in. California is also on pace to lose domestic population (not counting immigrants) this year. The outmigration is such that the cost to rent a U-Haul trailer to move from Los Angeles to Boise, Idaho, is $2,090 -- or some eight times more than the cost of moving in the opposite direction. What's gone wrong? A big part...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The multibillion dollar public works program proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will do more than just help California keep pace with a booming population, the governor told a crowd of business leaders Tuesday. It also will be a boon for construction companies and their workers, providing a long-term boost to California's resurgent economy. Schwarzenegger combined two of his favorite themes in an address to 250 business leaders who gathered at the University of Southern California to hear him promote his $222.6 billion public works package: job growth and the need to rebuild California's aging roads, schools,...

California's housing boom appears to be peaking, and the resultant slowdown is expected to produce "weak growth" in the state's economy during the next two years and a possible recession by the end of 2007. That's the view of economists at UCLA Anderson Forecast, which plans to release its widely watched quarterly outlook this morning. "There are some signs that the housing party is ending," said Christopher Thornberg, senior economist at the University of California, Los Angeles group and author of its California forecast. Thornberg points to an almost doubling of homes on the market in the past six months,...