California set for more exports, strong manufacturing

Click on above photo to see a full screen view of ship unloading operations

The outlook for growth in California is optimistic, according to a Beacon Economics report predicting expansion in manufacturing and exports and a job market recovery driven by more than low-wage work.

The report, conducted for City National Bank, notes that 56% of new jobs created in the state in the last year are in industries with average annual wages above $50,000. Most of those positions, according to the report, are full-time.

The findings seem to challenge other economists’ assertions that wages aren’t keeping pace with the job recovery. More low-wage positions will be created or opened by 2020 in Southern California than will mid-level or high-paying jobs, according to the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

But according to Beacon, employers in the professional and business services field added 24,300 new jobs statewide since the fourth quarter. That’s more than half of the 44,200 net nonfarm job gains made in the state in the same period.

That’s more than half of the 44,200 net nonfarm job gains made in the state in the same period. The industry pays $29.11 an hour on average as of May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Beacon report also said that California’s 1.2% job growth in the first quarter trailed the 1.5% nationwide rate.

But Los Angeles and Orange counties each created 12,200 new jobs in the first quarter, helping pull the statewide unemployment rate down 0.3 percentage point from the fourth quarter to 8.1%.

And the Central Valley, often maligned as an economic dead zone, is showing surprising strength, according to Beacon.
The south San Joaquin Valley, which includes Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties, has boosted nonfarm employment by more than 50% in the last 25 years. The population has also swelled at nearly double the overall state rate.

The workforce participation rate in the state ticked up to 62.6% from 62.4% the previous quarter and the proportion of people working part-time due to economic reasons fell 0.6 percentage point to 6.8%, according to the report.

Beacon added that California’s growth slowed slightly in the first quarter due to the frigid, stormy weather bedeviling the rest of the country earlier this year.

Real gross state product, a metric of economic output, grew just 2.8% after surging 4.2% during the fourth quarter, according to the report. But manufacturing, thought by many experts to be a shriveling industry, continues to support a generous portion of the California economy.

The state is responsible for producing a quarter of the computers and electronics made in the country, according to the report. The products, which constitute nearly half of all California manufacturing output, are centered in Silicon Valley and, to a lesser degree, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Beacon estimates that exports leaving California rose 2.8% in the first quarter from the fourth. The effects of a weak dollar, slower growth in China, Europe shaking off its recession and Japan emerging from a decade-long stagnancy will likely propel increasing outbound trade for the rest of the year.

Los Angeles Harbor

L.A. Versus N.Y.C. – The Payoff

City officials closed 7th Street in front of the MacArthur Park-area landmark as crowds lined up for what is known as the deli’s No. 19, its most popular sandwich. Normally, it sells for $15.20.

After the Kings took Game 5 Friday night in a thrilling double overtime win, after the New York Rangers went home, after the cup was kissed and the red carpet removed from the ice, there was still the matter of the pastrami sandwich.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton (a former LAPD police chief) bet a pastrami sandwich that their home team would win the Stanley Cup. At stake was bragging rights over which city’s hockey team was better – and which city’s pastrami.

On Saturday morning, Bratton signaled his intent to honor the bet. He tweeted a photo of Katz’s Deli in New York and tagged Beck’s Twitter account.

“Do you take your pastrami sandwich with or without mustard? Congrats!” Bratton tweeted.

Beck’s response, after telling Bratton he was looking forward to having lunch again soon, was to tweet a picture of L.A.’s most-revered pastrami sandwich, the Number 19 at Langer’s Deli.

The sandwich – tender, hand-sliced pastrami, cool Russian dressing, crisp cole slaw and Swiss cheese between two slices of pillow-soft, crunchy-crusted twice-baked rye bread – is a favorite of the Los Angeles Police Department.

New York City loves it too – the New Yorker magazine once called Langer’s Number 19 “the finest hot pastrami sandwich in the world.” Even Bratton admitted the corned beef at Langer’s was better than any in New York.

“Hold the mustard please, slaw inside, just like @LangersDeli #19,” Beck tweeted along with the picture.

Bratton isn’t the only New York official who will have to make good on his bet. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has to send Gov. Jerry Brown a basket of buffalo wings, Italian sausage and oysters from Long Island. Brown had wagered a book of California history and lightly salted organic brown rice cakes.

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio has agreed to sing Randy Newman’s “I Love LA” on “The Jimmy Kimmel Show,” a relief for those who hoped to avoid listening to Mayor Eric Garcetti sing “New York, New York” on the same show.

Hillary Clinton is the wrong candidate for President

Think words like hubris (Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance; exaggerated pride or self-confidence) and narcissist (Excessive preoccupation with or admiration of oneself) and you have my impression of Hillary Clinton.

Between her new book (Hard Choices) and her appearances on ABC, Hillary Clinton is setting the stage for her presidential campaign. Pertaining to Benghazi, What does “I take responsibility” mean? Mrs. Clinton is not the first person to use those words. Every time there is an error made by government a politician steps forward and tells us he or she is responsible. Eric Shinseki, former secretary of the VA, was responsible for VA hospital care and did resign. The lose his job was the price he paid for his incompetence. Mrs. Clinton? No price was paid. Hillary Clinton is a polarizing figure who will do more harm than good to the Democratic Party. If she is elected president, Bill and Hillary would be a distracting element to managing America’s government. I am certain that there are many other Democrats who could successfully run for president in 2016 but have been warned away by the Clinton machine.

What do you think?

‘FUN Factoids’ of Olde Time Jewish Celebrities

* Who was the First Movie Star?

Maxwell Henry Aronson aka ‘Broncho Billy Anderson’ (March 21, 1880), had three minor roles in one of the first movies, the 10 minute 1903 ‘The Great Train Robbery. Soon Max began to write, direct and act in his own westerns. Founding his own studio in 1907, Anderson acted in over 300 short films but gained huge popularity as Broncho Billy in 148 silent western shorts.

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* Why Did ‘Jack Benny’ write his Autobiography in the 1960’s and then buy the rights back from his publisher and hide it?

His daughter Joan says she found the manuscript after her mother died in 1983¦the story she heard was that Jack’s wife Mary (Sadye Marks) Livingstone objected because Jack (born Feb. 14, 1894) had so many stories of his olde girlfriends in it! Joan published it.

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* Who was a catcher for the Boston Red Sox, spoke 7 languages and a spy for the OSS?

‘Moe Berg’ (March 2, 1902) played 15 seasons in the majors mostly as a back-up catcher¦ In the off seasons he traveled extensively around the worldâ¦.including two trips to Japan. It turned out he had been working for the OSS as a spy for the U.S. on those trips. In 1943/44, and speaking German like a native he was touring Nazi occupied Europe, on a spy mission. He had to determine if the Germans were close to an ‘A’ bomb, in which case he was charged with murdering the Nazi scientists who were developing it!

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* Who was BEST Ventriloquist ever and created the First Artificial Heart?

The most famous ventriloquist was Edgar Bergen he was also the worst. The Best was ‘Paul Winchell’ (Dec. 21, 1922) Paul Wilchinsky who as Paul Winchell with his wooden partner Jerry Mahoney had their own TV Shows in the 1950’s and made many appearances on all the popular variety shows of the time¦.Paul NEVER moved his lips! Paul was also an actor and inventor. He has many medical patents including the device which was exactly the same as the ‘Jarvik’ heart.

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* Who was the FIRST ‘Method Actor’, the FIRST ‘Bad Boy’ Movie Actor & had the ‘Largest Funeral’ of any celebrity since Rudolf Valentino?

Jacob Julius Garfinkle aka ‘John Garfield’ (March 4, 1913) grew up in poverty on the Lower East Side. If I hadn’t been an actor I might have become Public Enemy #1’. ‘Cutting his teeth’ at the Group Theatre. Garfield on Broadway and in the Movies was an early great proponent of the ‘Method’ acting. He was the predecessor of the Monty Clift, Marlon Brando & James Dean school of acting. With a bad heart and the stress of possibly losing his career because of being named to the ‘Black List.’ John Garfield died of a massive heart attack at 39. Over 10,000 people crowded outside the cemetery at his funeral.

***

* What Famous Movie of 1942 cast 4 Jews, an Irishman & a German as California Mexicans?

Tortilla Flat, from the famous book by John Steinbeck, was a movie about a bunch of poor Monterrey, CA. Mexicans that just sit around and ‘kvetch’ all day. The cast consisted of 4 Jews: ‘Hedy Lamarr’ (Nov. 9, 1914) a Viennese Jew with a strong German accent, ‘John Garfield’ & ‘Sheldon Leonard’ (Feb. 22, 1907) both Jews with strong New York accents and ‘Akim Tamiroff ‘(Oct. 29, 1899) a Russian Jew with a strong Russian Accent. In addition the very Irish Spencer Tracy and the German American Frank Morgan!!!…. not a decent Mexican accent in the bunch.

***

* What Film played a N.Y.C. neighborhood theatre in the early 1950’s that put this up on it’s marquee: Starring ‘Bernard Schwartz and Rosetta Jacobs’?

‘The Prince who was a Thief starred ‘Tony Curtis’ (June 3, 1925) and ‘Piper Laurie’ (Jan. 22, 1932). Both were locals born on the lower Eastside of N.Y.

***

* What nice Jewish girl left Darren Aronofsky to marry ‘James Bond’???

‘Rachel Weisz’, born March 7, 1970 and now married to Daniel Craig.

***

* What Jewish girl at 19 hung out with Hitler & Mussolini, married a ‘semi-Nazi munitions dealer, made a ‘semi-porno film’ that got world wide release, ran off to Paris & London where she met Louis B. Meyer & became one of MGM’s biggest stars, was called ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in the World’, helped invent a process called ‘Frequency Hopping’ used in military code machines & cell phones AND sued ‘Blazing Saddles’ for making fun of her name?

Eva Maria Kiesler aka ‘Hedy Lamarr’ born November 9, 1914 in Austria.

***

* What famous stand-up comic saw his first movie, ‘Shane’, as a little kid sitting in the lap of singer ‘Billie Holiday’ at the Lowe’s Commodore, N.Y.C.

‘Billy Crystal’ (March 14, 1948)

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* Who was the first & greatest Swashbuckling Movie Hero Known as the First King of Hollywood?

Thomas Ullman aka ‘Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.’ (May 23, 1883)

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* What two famous actors of the Yiddish Stage became Movie Super Stars playing Italian Gangsters?

Emanuel Goldenberg aka ‘Edward G. Robinson (Dec. 12, 1893) with ‘Little Caesar’ in 1931.

Muni Weisenfreund aka ‘Paul Muni’ (Sept. 22, 1895) with ‘Scarface’ in 1932.

***

* Who was the first ‘Professional’ Baseball Player?

‘Emanuel Lipman Pike’ (May 25, 1845) and in 1866 he accepted $20. a week to play.

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* What Famous Superstarâ¦as a kid in the 1930’s would pee off the roof of the N.Y.C. tenements on top of parading American Nazi’s?

Bernie Schwartz, aka ‘Tony Curtis’ (June 3, 1925).

***

* What famous Hollywood leading lady missed out on playing ‘Scarlett O’Hara’ in Gone with the Windâ¦.over her affair with Charlie Chaplin?

Marion Pauline Levy aka ‘Paulette Goddard’ (June 3, 1910). Producer David O. Selznick was afraid Paulette’s fooling around with Charlie would hurt the box office of the movie so decided against casting her.

***

* What famous TV star hung one of his young writers out an 18 story window until they agreed on whether a joke was funny?

Sid Caesar (Sept. 8, 1922) hung his writer Melvin Kaminsky ‘Mel Brooks’ (June 28, 1926) out the window until the other writers restrained Sid!

***

* What Famous Stand-up once asked Frank Sinatra to stop by his table (in Vegas) to help the comic impress a girlâ¦later when Sinatra stopped to say hello the comic said.. ‘Not Now Frank, Can’t You See I’m With Somebody’???

Only the impish Don Rickles (May 8, 1926) had the guts!

***

* What silent film star, known as ‘The Vamp’, was the first movie ‘Femme Fatale’?

Theodosia Burr Goodman aka ‘Theda Bara’ (July 29, 1885) and at her height she was ranked in popularity behind only Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplain.

***

* What Famous Movie Star had ‘Two’ of the world’s largest and finest privately owned art collections in the world?

Edward G. Robinson (Dec. 12, 1893). In 1956 he was forced to sell his first art collection, as part of his divorce settlement. Missing his art more than his wife of 29 years he immediately began to build a second collection!

***

* What Famous Movie Star ‘Hunk’ wore dresses as a kid?

Issur Danielovitch aka ‘Kirk Douglas’ (Dec. 9, 1916) was the only boy among had 4 or 5 older sisters, they couldn’t afford toys so they treated him as their own private dress-up doll. As a teen he muscled up and become macho to prove his manhood… ‘I am Spartacus’!!!

***

What Current Famous Conductor is the grandson of the King & Queen of the Yiddish Theatre¦Boris & Bessie Thomashefsky?

Michael Tilson Thomas (Dec. 21, 1944)

I take full responsibility!

What does, “I take full responsibility” mean?

Politicians use those words when a government function does not operate as expected. Doesn’t taking responsibility mean facing a punishment?

As reported on AOL.COM General Motors CEO Mary Barra addressing employees at the automaker’s vehicle engineering center said that the company has fired 15 people associated with those failures and disciplined five others. Earlier documents had revealed that GM knew of the Chevrolet Cobalt ignition-switch problems for more than a decade, but had done nothing to fix the problem.

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (aka BP Oil Spill) was one of the worst oil disasters in history. More than 200 million gallons of crude oil was pumped into the Gulf of Mexico for a total of 87 days. BP CEO Tony Hayward was transferred to another job but were any of those working on the oil derrick fired? The answer appears to be NO.

The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5, 2010 roughly 1,000 feet (300 m) underground in Raleigh County, West Virginia at Massey Energy‘s Upper Big Branch coal mine located in Montcoal. Twenty-nine out of thirty-one miners at the site were killed. Was anyone charged with a crime?

Shoddy care in Veteran’s Administration hospitals goes back to at least 1945 when President Harry Truman accepted the resignation of VA Administrator Frank Hines after a series of news reports detailing shoddy care in VA-run hospitals, according to a 2010 history produced by the Independent Inspector General. The latest action was the Veteran’s secretary resigning. Who is responsible for the loss of life?

This is all about people in high places not being held accountable for their actions or inaction. Not in every instance but too frequently when lives are at stake.

Ship captains seem to be the rare exception. Most recently the captain of the ferry, Sewol, sinking off the coast of South Korea, the captain of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy, and the captain of the Exxon Valdez sinking off the Alaskan coast have all faced criminal charges.

Everyone who is connected with the loss of life should be held responsible. To me that means fines, penalties, and some jail time too!

The Monster in the Middle East

Published on May 21, 2014

The way that the media often depict Israel, it is no surprise that people start thinking of the country as a monster. But if they had the facts, they would see things differently. Visit http://www.HonestReporting.com to learn more.

Goodbye Middle Class

The J.C. Penney closing of 33 stores is a reflection of the decline of the middle class. Comments by readers of this Huffington Post article, I believe, accurately appraises this situation. There is nothing being said about how Penney’s will recover.

Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD:US) plunged the most in more than a year after forecasting a fourth-quarter loss and saying sales during the holiday period dropped. The loss in the quarter ending Feb. 1 will narrow to $250 million to $360 million, or $2.35 to $3.39 a share, the Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based company said yesterday in a statement. The net loss a year earlier was $489 million, or $4.61 a share.

If these stalwarts cannot survive the message is clear. The middle class, that was the bread and butter for those retail stores, is shrinking away.

It is not an overnight event. As those middle incomes and retired middle class families die the replacements come in just two categories. They are the poor and the well to do. Evidence of this situation is the age of McDonald’s employees. The average age of a fast-food worker in 2013 was almost 30. That is data published by Bloomberg Businessweek. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that more than 35% of the unemployed have been in that predicament for more than 27 weeks. Most of them had well paying middle class jobs.

Meanwhile the median annual compensation for the CEOs of S&P 500 firms is now reported to be above $10 Million. Carol Meyrowitz, the CEO of TJX, earned over $20 Million in 2013. TJX owns Marshall’s, TJ Max, and Homegoods stores. Anthony Petrello was the highest paid CEO earning more than $68 Million last year.

Of course the board of directors of every company is free to pay whatever they deem a fair salary. Government does not set salaries in a free society. Those CEOs must be worth the pay they receive. Or is it the rich protecting the rich? Does the CEO work harder than the clerk?

So what is to become of most Americans? Look for more food stamps, more housing subsidies, and more broken homes.

Private enterprise does not care about its employees. They are interested in maximizing their profits. Don’t like it? Open your own business. That is the way capitalism works.

Obama: Skilled Politician, Lousy Manager

Doyle McManus’ column in today’s Los Angeles Times on-line edition identifies the reality of the Barack Obama presidency. Given the history of past presidential failures can anyone do this job? What failures? Iran-Contra, Bay of Pigs, Hostages in Iran, Financial Meltdown, etc.

May 24, 2014

We don’t normally expect our presidents to pay close attention to how long veterans are being asked to wait for care in the vast medical system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

But we do expect presidents to appoint Cabinet officers and other aides who can run the federal government well — well enough, at least, to prevent full-blown scandals from erupting.

That’s what the VA’s long-running scheduling problems have turned into after reports that veterans died while waiting for medical care — and bureaucrats apparently manipulated records to make their performance look good when it wasn’t.

No one can read the stories of individual veterans who suffered at the hands of the bureaucracy — like Edward Laird, a 76-year-old Navy veteran who lost half of his nose because he had to wait two years for cancer tests — without feeling helpless fury.

And those stories are certain to keep coming.

It’s an especially dangerous scandal for President Obama because it fits into an established narrative about his presidency: that he’s a skilled politician and speechmaker but a lousy manager.

The biggest problems Obama has faced in the White House — aside from unrelenting opposition from Republicans in Congress — have come not from making policy but from trying to implement it. The calamitous launch of his healthcare plan last fall is the biggest and most painful example, but it’s only one of several.

The 2009 economic stimulus plan’s “shovel-ready” projects that took months to start, the confused response to the 2010 BP oil spill, the flap over IRS scrutiny of conservative organizations, even the State Department failures that led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi in 2012 — all were mainly lapses in management, not policy.

The president’s conservative critics have accused him, often wildly, of every sin they can think of, from diabolical conspiracy (in the case of the IRS) to dereliction of duty (Benghazi). But the charge that’s likely to stick is one that connects all those unrelated events to an underlying truth: Obama has never paid as much attention to the nitty-gritty of management as he has to making policy and campaigning for votes.

“Presidents get elected because of their rhetorical skills, but they succeed or fail based on their managerial skills,” warned Elaine Kamarck, a former White House aide to Bill Clinton who directs a center on public management at the Brookings Institution. “In this administration … somehow, there is no adequate communications system; the White House keeps getting hit by these unpleasant surprises.”

Until recently, Kamarck noted, the White House didn’t have a high-ranking aide assigned full time to monitoring how programs were being implemented. That’s one of the reasons for the failure of the healthcare website; the engineers foresaw it, but nobody high up was pulling that information out of them.

Bad management alienates even a president’s allies, Kamarck noted.

“His popularity can go down and stay down,” she said. “That’s what happened to Jimmy Carter in the last year of his presidency. That’s what happened to George W. Bush after Hurricane Katrina.”

And now “that’s the narrative about Obama. It’s the narrative even among Democrats. They’re beginning to say, ‘Oh, we love everything he says; we just wish he could get something done.'”

In the case of the VA health system, problems many of us are learning about now have long been evident but never quite got fixed.

“This has been building for 10 or 15 years,” said Phillip E. Carter, an expert on veterans affairs at the Center for a New American Security. He said demographic surges of aging Vietnam vets, plus returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan, were straining the system.

Even the specific problems of excessive waiting times and bureaucrats manipulating records aren’t new.

The VA knew that some of its medical centers had piled up huge backlogs in patient appointments by 2011. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, reported in 2012 that VA bureaucrats were fiddling with waiting time records. CNN reported in 2013 that at least six veterans died in South Carolina because of long delays in providing diagnostic tests. Charges of misconduct at the VA medical center in Phoenix, the incident that turned the problem into a scandal, have been percolating through the bureaucracy for more than a year.

So if Obama only learned of the depth of the problems from watching TV, as his spokesman said last week, something is amiss with his administration’s internal communications.

It’s possible to hold out some optimism amid these scandals.

“Every crisis is also an opportunity,” Carter said. “Fixes are available at the VA, and this is the time to put them in place.”

It’s even possible that the White House has learned some management lessons. After the healthcare website crashed last fall, Obama named a seasoned administrator, Jeffrey Zients, to take charge — and seven months later, the health insurance program appears to be working.

And two weeks ago, Obama created a White House post — deputy chief of staff for policy implementation — and filled it with Kristie Canegallo, an aide who worked with Zients on the healthcare crisis. “We have determined we need more senior-level focus on implementation and execution,” White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said in announcing her appointment.

Good call. Too bad it came too late to help some of those vets.

Get the Truth out about Israel

that the settlements are NOT the “bar” to peace (Jews lived on the West Bank – and in “East” Jerusalem, where the “Western” or Wailing Wall, original Hadassah Hospital and the original University of Jerusalem are located – prior to being driven out in 1948)
that 20% of the Israeli population is Arab – and that 20% of the medical students in Israel are Arab (that’s Apartheid?)
that the current “Miss Israel” is Black
that one of the Israeli Supreme Court Justices is Arab
that NO map used by the Palestinian Authority includes any “space” for a Jewish state or area
that only one country in the history of the world bought Black Africans – and brought them to the “buyer’s” country to give them freedom and make them citizens …. (if you guessed the Ethiopians that Israel was forced to “buy” in order to bring them to Israel, you’re correct).
Your silence will only help the hatemongers. Do whatever you can to help!
Israel (and these Jewish students) need our help! The American (and European) public are being bamboozled.

Anti-Semites (and self-hating Jews) do not want anyone to know the truth of history or of what is really happening in Israel.

Israel (and these Jewish students) need our help!

David Bancroft