Divergence of economies?

December 2008 Unemployment Rates (change from prev month):

• Arizona - 6.9% (+.06)
• Washington - 7.1% (+0.8)
• Oregon - 9.0% (+1.0)
• California - 9.3%  (+0.9)

Regionally:

• Phoenix - 6.3% (+0.6)
• Seattle - 6.2% (+0.8)
• Portland - 7.2% (+0.9)
• Los Angeles - 9.9% (+1.0)

S&P's Price Index Change (Oct 2007 / Oct 2008):

• Phoenix - (-)45.3%
• Seattle - (-)11.4%
• Portland - (-)11.2%
• Los Angeles - (-)38.7%

RealtyTrac's 2008 Foreclosure Rate by State:

• Arizona - 4.49% (3rd highest)
• Washington - 0.97% (25th highest)
• Oregon - 1.13% (21st highest)
• California - 3.97% (4th highest)

RealtyTrac's 2008 Foreclosure Rate by Metropolitan Area:

• Phoenix - 6.02% (5th highest)
• Seattle - 0.86% (84th highest)
• Portland - 1.22% (65th highest)
• Los Angeles - 2.89% (26th highest)

Tax Foundation's 2008 Local-State Tax Rate:

• Arizona - 8.5% (41st highest)
• Washington - 8.9% (35th highest)
• Oregon - 9.4% (26th highest)
• California - 10.5% (6th highest)

The economy is decelerating much faster in Oregon and California than in Arizona and Washington.

And from the numbers, I don't see the relationship between foreclosure rates and unemployment rates, which leads me to wonder what is really controlling the rapid declination of jobs in Oregon and California?  High taxes?

It may very well be the case, that high tax rates encourage a faster decline, but it would require a much more in-depth study to verify this link, by reviewing the tax rates year by year, alongside the annual unemployment rate AND the employment rate.

It's official: Oregon's economy is in failure mode.

December 2008 unemployment hit 9%, up from 5.4% in December 2007.

That is remarkable how quickly the market has been beaten up locally. A closer examination of the data shows that Construction and Construction-related industries led the way. Nearly every category under Construction has double-digit declines in employment, year-to-year. In manufacturing, wood products have declined double-digits as well, and as expected.

When it comes to figuring out how to prevent the economy from sinking into a Depression, one only needs to understand that the credit markets remain tight, and banks simply won't loan money to expand construction so long as consumer sentiment remains low.

A grand witness to history

For all the grandeur and spectacle, for all the importance of what we witnessed, we could not ignore the discovery of a renewed America, and the hope that every single one of us holds dear, that America's future is once again bright. President Obama is both a symbol of the remarkable opportunities for all Americans, and the shining star upon whom we place our collective trust that America will once again be a beacon of hope for Freedom and Democracy throughout the entire world.

God have mercy on us all, guide us towards a future that honors the best of Mankind, and give us all the Wisdom to go forth and pave a road upon which, is paved with Truth, Justice, and Righteousness for all to travel.

And givee Sasha and Malia a great dog for the White House.

Foggy nights and interesting days.

The past several nights have been foggy, with some evenings quite heavy. This morning I happened to wake up at 4:30, and saw that the fog was thick. Despite being near-freezing, I couldn't help myself to get out there and take a bunch of photos. Same thing happened last Saturday, too.

And now, for something completely different: PeerGuardian2. If you haven't heard of it, it's a piece of software that blocks certain IPs that like to snoop in on what you're doing. This is especially true of torrents. A lot of IPs from China do a lot of snooping on torrents, and of course the copyright enforcers, too (Media Sentry, etc). If you don't want those Chinese snooping to your activities, you definitely need PeerGuardian2.

And we're back. Even though there was heavy fog this morning, it had nearly all burned off in downtown Portland by around 10:00 am. At noon, it's looking sweet outside. Why just a few weeks ago we had freezing temps followed by days of rain. Now we're getting lots of clearing, sun, and lower-50's temps. Strange weather.

Mid-week update: Finished my resume the other night. It's super beautiful. I redid it from scratch, in InDesign. Took me a while, as I just got my CS4, and hadn't played around with InDesign since...eons. I had to update my resume, mostly because my last version was in Freehand, which is no longer supported or sold by Adobe (prev. Macromedia). I wasn't planning on working on my resume, but then I figured I should do it now so that I don't need to rush it if I ever needed it.

Stock market thoughts: It should be lower. There is irrational optimism in the current price, even if it's dropped 12% in the past week or so. It really should be hovering within the 7000-7800 mark, in my opinion, given the depth and scope of the current economy. The most laughable things I read about these days, are technical analysis of the market. Technical analysis doesn't take into account the most basic of fundamental problems with math: human emotions.

Been a while!

To catch up:

1. Got laid off in the second week of November.
2. Got enough savings to last at least a full year, but I'm hoping to keep enough savings to invest in stocks soon.
3. Started producing designs for my Cafepress shop, and will probably produce some designs for my Shapeways shop (not yet set up). Produced three cards, two of which were specifically for Christmas (for friends and family).
4. Bought upgrade to Adobe CS4 Design Premium.
5. Learning Revit.
6. Studying - slowly - the ARE exams, but specifically history first.
7. Got a G1 Android-based phone last October. Works really great, except for some slowness from certain programs.
8. Started subscribing to Netflix right after getting laid off - works well to pass some of the empty time away without going out and spending money.
9. Started subscribing to eMusic last April, but I might be throttling that back to cut down on some expenses. At $19.99 for 75 mp3 downloads, I've already built up quite a lot of music on my computer already. :)
10. Been watching the progress of Clearwire's Clear. Might take the plunge later this year for $30/month for 4 Mbps DL + $4.99/month for modem rental.
11. Back to my Cafepress store...thinking of upgrading it to a professional store, but need to stack a whole bunch of designs to make it worth it.
12. Started taking a whole bunch more photos with my - now old - D70S Nikon camera. Am thinking of buying either the D40X or the D90. Leaning to the D90, as it has 12 megapixels, and I need that much to produce 11x14 high quality prints.
13. Looking to buy a tablet computer or a laptop, but thinking I might have to put that off for another year.
14. Instead, I might just continue to upgrade my workstation with newer hardware...with 2 dual-xeon cores running at 3.2 Ghz / 1066 FSB, I'm still ahead of the curve.


Was that a long enough list to catch up on life?