23 Jul 2008
Sitting on a dock of the bay.

 

Labels: economy, photographs, San Francisco, SanFranciscoBay, Treasure Island

   posted by Sal Towse at  12:23 PM|| |

Yesterday morning I took pictures of three ships leaving within a ten-minute-or-so period, all of them spewing crap into the air. We, of course, need to have our cars smog-checked every two years. Ships coming in and out of harbor. Not.

 

Why not?

Update: Ah. ... A federal appeals court agreed Wednesday [27 Feb 2008] that state air pollution regulators can't order ships arriving at California ports to reduce their toxic contributions to local smog." The Court ruled that the State Air Board's rules couldn't take precedence over the federal Clean Air Act and the state would have to get a waiver from the EPA to allow its rules to go into effect.

OK. So when is =that= going to happen, now that TPTB at the EPA have changed? Soon? Have we asked?

Labels: economy, environmentalism, health, photographs, politics, SanFranciscoBay, ships

   posted by Sal Towse at  5:33 PM|| |

Read an interesting comment yesterday in my alumni magazine. An earlier issue had an article ("Struggling for Words") in which English Professor Jonathan Lovell rued the effects Prop 13 has had on education since it passed in 1978.

Oh, really? (or words to that effect) was the comment.

While the state of public education is deplorable, Prop 13 is certainly not one of the causes. Assessed values, tax receipts and school funding have all increased at faster rates than inflation since its passage in 1978. The provisions of Prop 13, which create a more stable tax base, will provide a relatively "soft" landing during the recession, as not all assessed values will fall from the grossly inflated market values of recent years. Without Prop 13, the decrease in property tax revenues would be even more dramatic than what we're actually seeing. -- Pete Conrad, '82 Business

Something to think about.

Another benefit of Prop 13 for education, which I've never heard mentioned, is that it created an incentive for families to stay put, not to trade up to a bigger house. As a result, our children went from K-12 with pretty much the same set of kids. The parents worked together for years and were gung-ho about working with the schools. We knew each other, our quirks, our pet peeves, our strengths. Instead of people moving in and out and up, we had a stable foundation for volunteerism and fundraising.

But, yeah. I hadn't thought about the precipitous fall in property tax revenues that there would've been without Prop 13.

Oh, you say? But wouldn't we'd've had a mess more money if Prop. 13 hadn't been around? Yeah. We would've. Year to year. And we would've spent every frickin' dime and be left now with unsustainable programs and no funds to run them. Rainy day funds are an anomaly in this state. Alas.

Labels: California, economy, education, politics

   posted by Sal Towse at  11:59 AM|| |

An interactive map of vanishing employment across the country. - By Chris Wilson - Slate Magazine

Stunning visual impact.
January 2007 >>> February 2009

Labels: economy, graphics, mashup

   posted by Sal Towse at  11:14 AM|| |

That's the good news. But there's another less pleasant reality: During 2008 I did some dumb things in investments. I made at least one major mistake of commission and several lesser ones that also hurt. I will tell you more about these later. Furthermore, I made some errors of omission, sucking my thumb when new facts came in that should have caused me to re-examine my thinking and promptly take action.

Additionally, the market value of the bonds and stocks that we continue to hold suffered a significant decline along with the general market. This does not bother Charlie and me. Indeed, we enjoy such price declines if we have funds available to increase our positions. Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that "Price is what you pay; value is what you get." Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.

Read the entire Buffett letter to BRK stockholders here [PDF]

Labels: commentary, economy

   posted by Sal Towse at  3:02 PM|| |

The proposed FY 2010 budget in 146pp of detail. This is a narrative take on the budget, not pages and pages of income/outgo numbers.

Take a look. [PDF]

Labels: economy, government, news

   posted by Sal Towse at  1:52 PM|| |

But not a big surprise. And here's my big "I told you so."

In 2005 Hershey's bought Scharffen Berger chocolate in Berkeley and Joseph Schmidt chocolates here in the city. At the time it was all like "nothing's going to change." My reaction was, Hershey's? Who do you think you're kidding? We've heard it all before, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now the news is that Hershey's is closing down both factories and will "consolidate production at other facilities." "The plant closures will affect a total of about 150 employees from both facilities."

Same chocolates, Hershey's claims. No change at all. Just no longer locally made. The quality will be maintained, they say. Heck they were already making most of the Scharffen Berger stuff in IL anyway. What's the diff?

Nice way to buy the competition and co-opt it, Hershey's.

Chocolate news to cry for.

Feh.

Labels: BayArea, economy, food

   posted by Sal Towse at  11:49 AM|| |