Gov. Brown’s call for a special legislative session to fix California’s crumbling roads, highways and bridges comes as music to the ears of those who build big projects. For months, groups representing labor, contractors, local governments, transportation interests and others worked on legislation to revamp the state’s roads and ease the movement of freight at
Los Angeles entrepreneur Elon Musk has built a multibillion-dollar fortune running companies that make electric cars, sell solar panels and launch rockets into space. And he's built those companies with the help of billions in government subsidies. Tesla Motors Inc., SolarCity Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, together have benefited from an estimated
From the Wall Street Journal, June 2 The private market is putting bubbly valuations on startups. What if the public market doesn’t agree? And there are magnified potential impacts for California’s state budget, which depends in significant part on capital gains taxes from large investors. If a bubble is forming, it could create a chill
Organic produce and $1.50 hot dogs: That’s what Costco does. According to an analysis released Wednesday by financial firm BMO Capital Markets, the free-sample-slinging grocery chain is projected to sell just over $4 billion in organic products this year, edging out $3.6 billion by Whole Foods to take the national lead. To be fair, Costco
The wait at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports has gotten longer and longer, eroding their share of international trade. The ports handled 39% of U.S. container imports in 2002; that fell to 32% by 2013, according to U.S. census data. They have lost business to competitors at a time when, overall, global trade
It is estimated that about 564,000 acres will be fallowed because of the drought, resulting in a statewide reduction in gross crop farm revenue of about $856 million. Livestock and dairies may add another $350 million in direct revenue losses for 2015. Regional economic impacts of these cuts were estimated using the IMPLAN model for
Since taking office in 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown has helped to resolve some of California's toughest fiscal challenges -- mainly huge structural deficits and old, forgotten debts. But this year he appears ready to take on Mission Impossible -- getting Democrats and Republicans to agree to increase the state's gas tax to fix California's crumbling roads
Despite the drought, the number of workers employed in California’s agricultural industry rose to its highest level in at least 24 years, as many farmers shifted toward labor-intensive, permanent crops, according to the latest state and federal statistics. The employment figures paint a more complicated picture than the message from some state officials and agricultural
Gov. Jerry Brown preached fiscal restraint to the region’s top business leaders Thursday, warning that the next economic downturn could be looming. “We know recessions are inevitable,” Brown told a meeting of the Bay Area Council, a regional business group in San Francisco. “We have to plan on a very unpredictable, cyclical flow of money.” Last
Eleven months ago, when Jon Slangerup took the helm of the Port of Long Beach, a critical link in the movement of goods around the globe, he was astonished by what he found. The port, which moves $180 billion in cargo a year, was headed into an epic logistics fiasco, with ships backed up for