For two decades, the California Chamber of Commerce’s annual descriptions of certain legislative bills as “job killers” have framed the Capitol’s sharpest economic conflicts. The chamber, working in concert with other business and employer groups, has been remarkably successful in modifying or killing the two or three dozen measures that...
Walters: Is San Joaquin Valley California's Poor Stepchild?
Technically, California’s San Joaquin Valley – the drainage plain of the San Joaquin River – begins a few miles south of Sacramento and ends a few miles south of Fresno. However, in political and economic terms, it stretches even further south to the Tehachapi Mountains, south of Bakersfield. The 300-mile-long...
US Consumers Rattled by Shutdown, Roiling Markets
WASHINGTON — U.S. consumer confidence tumbled this month to its lowest reading in a year and a half, tested by the partial government shutdown and roiling financial markets. Still, consumer spirits remain robust by historic standards. The Conference Board, a business research group, said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index...
Jerry Brown: Cal Democrats Likely Will Overspend
SACRAMENTO — Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown helped make his party even more powerful in California during the last eight years and now, less than a month before leaving office, he predicts that dominance will make it difficult for his successor to control Democrats' hunger for spending and regulations. The leader...
US Mortgage Rates Slipped This Week
WASHINGTON — U.S. long-term mortgage rates slipped this week, reflecting the stock market decline and rush by investors to Treasury notes. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage fell slightly to 4.62 percent from to 4.63 percent last week. Rates averaged...