About 10% of the population in San Diego have now received the vaccine. A third of these — 100,000 people– were served by a single facility operated by the University of California at San Diego. What’s the secret to their success? Answer: logistics.
Continue reading
Category Archives: San Diego
Reaching for yield
The unfunded liabilities of the San Diego County Employees Retirement Association have increased every year for the last five years, reaching $2.45 billion last year, more than quintuple the level in 2008. The calculation of how big the shortfall is assumes that the fund is going to be able to earn a 7.75% return on its investment after subtracting administrative costs. If it earns less than 7.75%, the shortfall will be even bigger. A 10-year Treasury bond currently pays 2.4%, and a typical stock has a dividend yield under 2%. So what do you do if you’re in charge of the system’s $10 billion in assets?
San Diego economy outlook
The San Diego Daily Transcript invited me to join a group of economists in discussing prospects for the local economy. You can watch the discussion in a series of videos:
Good news on house prices
I was happy and surprised to see that the nominal
S&P/Case-Shiller seasonally adjusted Home Price Index rose by 0.75% in June for a composite of 20 U.S. metropolitan areas.
Mortgage fraud
Why sell crack when taking money from a careless lender is so much easier and more profitable?
Former Bernanke home in foreclosure
A couple of stories that provide some personal perspective on the scope of the current problems.
Housing and the oil shock
The housing downturn and rising gasoline prices are each exerting a significant contractionary influence on U.S. GDP. There is also an interactive effect between the two.
House prices falling and worries rising
Today we received updates on U.S. house prices from two different sources. The OFHEO national house price index recorded a 1.3% decline in the price of a typical U.S. home during the fourth quarter of 2007, while the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index registered a 5.7% decline during the last three months of 2007. Here in San Diego, the respective numbers showed a 2.6% decline according to OFHEO and 9.1% decline from Case-Shiller during the quarter. For the year as a whole, Case-Shiller calculates that home prices fell 9.8% nationally and 15% locally.
Tracking home prices in San Diego
Earlier this week, I explained why real estate prices, rather than interest rates or credit workouts, are the critical determinant of how bad the foreclosure problem is going to become. Today I discuss some of the alternative measures of real estate prices that we might look at, illustrated using the latest numbers for my own community here in San Diego.
A “San Diego-style” recession
Alan Gin is an economics professor at the University of San Diego (a separate institution from the University of California at San Diego, where I teach). His San Diego index of leading economic indicators is sending a pretty strong negative signal.