Friday Fish Wrap

Culling the Chron for the usual suspects turned up more bad news for The Nein Dwarves™ and good news for the Governorator and Californians:

• Signs of turnaround in S.F. real estate Influential analyst says the 3-year slump may be over

  In the world of Bay Area commercial real estate, Ken Rosen is known as a prophet of doom. The UC Berkeley economist correctly predicted the dot- com crash and the resulting commercial real estate collapse in 2001.

  So jaws dropped all over a San Francisco ballroom Thursday when Rosen said that "the real estate recovery is finally happening."

• State tax receipts exceed estimates
  Windfall could ease budget-balancing

  California took in at least $450 million more in taxes than expected during the three months ended in September, state officials said Thursday, a gain which, if continued, could make incoming Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's job of balancing the state budget significantly easier.

• Power payback in court
  Appeals justices sympathetic to refund request
  California took its case for a multibillion-dollar energy refund to a federal appeals court Thursday and got a reception that seemed encouraging

  The remedy the state wants is a $9 billion refund to customers for alleged price gouging during the 2000-01 energy crisis, when California was hit by rolling blackouts and soaring prices and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. filed for bankruptcy.

• Retailers report best sales in 18 months
  GAP figures up 14% over year-ago period;analysts say no one's out of the woods yet.

• Job Losses Stanched, Manufacturing Up
  New claims for unemployment insurance fell last week to their lowest level in eight months, a hopeful sign that companies may be having a bit more faith in the staying power of the economic recovery and thus are easing the pace of layoffs.

  U.S. wholesalers' inventories fell unexpectedly in August while sales of goods posted a solid rise, the government said on Wednesday, in a sign companies may need to build up depleted supplies to keep up with demand.

• 176,000 bad punch-card ballots, ACLU says
  Group not planning to sue over lost votes.
  
  
• Some Democrats mull 'Total Recall II' at polls
  If Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't produce results in the next 100 days, voter anger expressed toward Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday could target the governor-elect. At least that's what Democratic leaders were warning Wednesday as they rued the demise of their top guy in Sacramento.
  

One can only hope the CA Dems create a stink that sticks to their presidential campaign. The bads news schtick so successfully exploited by Clinton-Gore in 1992 will not work in 2004 unless the media again falsely portray the economy as a negative. Cracks are already appearing in the media facade as circulation/ad sales/revenue plummet. While the media pretend they are above the fray, they are captives of the market as much as the business community they detest.

Posted by feste at October 10, 2003 11:10 AM | TrackBack