Despite all the prattle about large Silicon Valley Internet-driven companies battling to dominate the shift to autonomous electric vehicles, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg told the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, Spain, that Facebook won’t build cars. Rather, he said, the company is focused on actively championing mobile advertising, which is shifting how companies approach their brand marketing strategies.
San Diego, which refers to itself as “America’s Finest City,” seems to have the hottest economy in the Western United States. After years of financial and political turmoil that almost resulted in the eighth-largest U.S. city filing for bankruptcy, the San Diego local economy is off to a roaring start in 2015.
Four patients at Cedars-Sinai have contracted the “CRE super-bug.” One has died and 67 are at risk of exposure, according to a hospital spokesman. The latest outbreak follows the death of two patients, near-death of five, and exposure to 179 patients in a similar outbreak from October through early January at UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center. In both occurrences the culprit seems to have been contaminated body scopes.
Investors celebrated the NASDAQ stock market topping the 5,000 level this week for the first time since March 2000. But there were no celebrations in Sacramento for the anniversary of the last time that California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) were over 100 percent funded.
As the globe’s top venture capitalist, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has funded and mentored tons of start-up Silicon Valley companies that became fantastically successful, including Google, Amazon, Intuit, and Electronic Arts, Twitter, Square and Zynga. But one of his worst bets may turn out to be personally hiring Ellen Pao in 2005. Pao is dragging Doerr into her lawsuit for $16 million for sexual discrimination after 7 years at the firm.
In an exposé entitled “Poor Kids of Silicon Valley,” a CNN reporter seems shocked to uncover a high level of child poverty in the affluent Bay Area. CNN concludes, after consulting with “economists and experts,” that a minimum wage hike to $10.10 would significantly help end child poverty. But if CNN actually talked to the most impoverished families, they would have learned that raising minimum wage, like Oakland just did, results in maximizing single young mothers and their children living in poverty.
As West Coast union dockworkers celebrate a tentative agreement for a five-year contract featuring even higher wages and benefits than the current $1,200-per-day, shipping companies intend to introduce new mega-container-ships and port handling equipment that will help automate away many union jobs.
As Breitbart reported last week in “Teamsters Win Big in Silicon Valley, Target Tech Companies”, after the Teamsters Local 853 organized Facebook contract shuttle bus drivers a week ago, over the weekend they won elections organizing drivers for Yahoo, Apple, Genentech, eBay and Zynga.
China Daily reported that tourism from China to Los Angeles has nearly quadrupled over the past four years. Visitors rose from 158,000 in 2009 to 570,000 in 2013. With over a million Chinese visiting California last year and a projected 2 million by 2020, retailers and restaurants are thrilled at the reported $6,000 spending-per-visit.
The hard-Left publication The Nation and their allies advocated for the FCC’s “Net Neutrality” passage to regulate and tax the Internet as “People Power”. But in politics, it is always best to “follow the money.” For 2014, lobbying expenditures by computer/Internet companies hit $139.5 million. The Left likes to talk about “People Power”, but Silicon Valley lobbying cash is “Corporate Power.”
With the ink hardly dry on Federal District Judge Andrew Hanen’s order slamming the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for trying to grant up to 11.7 million illegal aliens/undocumented workers “green cards,” President Obama just instructed Homeland Security to offer “green cards” to H1-B holder spouses and children under 21 years old.
The City of Stockton emerged from bankruptcy on Wednesday, February 25, after a 31-month ordeal. There were no winners in trying to restructure over $2 billion in debt and obligations. Nearly half of non-safety city employees were dumped, the survivors’ wages were cut by up to 23 percent, and retirees lost $500 million in lifetime medical benefits. Bondholders and creditors are receiving pennies on the dollar. Hopefully the sad lessons about what happened to Stockton might help other California cities to control spending.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted to approve a wildly controversial Net Neutrality policy that will regulate and tax the Internet intensely, much like the old AT&T telephone monopoly. To help secure political support, Chairman Tom Wheeler made last-minute revisions at the request of Google, according to Politico’s sources at the Commission.
The left-leaning ‘Electronic Frontier Foundation’ (EFF) came out with “guns-a-blazin’” Wednesday morning at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in an open letter: “Dear FCC: Rethink The Vague “General Conduct” Rule.”
Farmland prices that had been enjoying a 28-year bull market finally turned down in 2014. Despite real estate, stocks, bonds and commodities crashes over the period, farmland had never had a down year since 1986. However, the Wall Street Journal has reported that farmland suffered a loss of 3 percent last year, “reflecting a cooling in the market driven by two years of bumper crops and sharply lower grain prices, according to Federal Reserve.”
Despite all the mainstream media naysayers “dissing” Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) for designing and building a car, I believe the economics are overwhelmingly favorable for Apple to extend its brand to vehicles.
Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) demanded yesterday that the Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler make public the details of the proposed net neutrality regulations that will regulate the Internet under the same rules as the old AT&T monopoly.
The California Energy Commission is honoring ex-Governor Schwarzenegger’s dream by spending another $20 million to build the supposedly non-polluting ‘hydrogen highway’ through most parts of the Golden State. A high school freshman math class could figure out that the reason
With tech workers still expected to log 70-hour work weeks, shuttle drivers for Facebook voted to become a union affiliate of the Teamsters. After getting a leg in the tech industry door, the Teamsters intend to unionize Silicon Valley and have already scheduled union elections for workers at Apple, Yahoo, eBay, and others.
With the West Coast ports labor dispute involving 13,600 unionized dockworkers inflicting pain on 318 million Americans by causing billions of dollars a day in losses to the U.S. economy settling yesterday, now 30,000 unionized refinery workers across America intend to play the same leverage game by cutting off two-thirds of all U.S. diesel and gasoline supplies.
The Department of Veterans’ Affairs has been involved in a scandal regarding the failure to process valid benefit claims, forcing General Eric Shinseki to resign as Secretary of the department on May 30, 2014. In the latest depressing news, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) published “Review of Alleged Mismanagement of Informal Claims Processing at VA Regional Office Oakland,” confirming allegations by Congressman Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) that the Oakland VA Regional Office had not processed nearly 14,000 benefit claims dating back to the mid-1990s.
Apple Inc. on Friday leaked that the iconic smartphone maker is on a crash program to design an electric vehicle and is bidding big bucks to recruit Tesla employees. Court filings also disclose that electric-car battery maker A123 Systems is suing Apple for illegally poaching top engineers to build a large-scale battery division.
Federal Reserve data published late on February 18 reveals China dumped about $75 billion in US bonds in the last six months of 2014. The action explains why interest rates on US Treasury bonds jumped by 23 percent since January, and economic indicators show the US economy growth is slowing and worldwide deflation is accelerating.
Although the ink is barely dry on the $485.6 million venture capital funding for Snapchat that valued the company at about $10 billion, Bloomberg reports that Snapchat is looking to raise another $500 million at a valuation of up to $19 billion. That would make the messaging platform the third-most-valuable venture startup on the planet, just behind Xiaomi and Uber. It also would value the company at 92.5% of what was considered a jaw-dropping value of $22 billion paid by Facebook to buy WhatsApp.
Google has been reconsidering its iconic motto, “Don’t Be Evil,” which the company adopted for its 2004 public offering. According to the founders, the company has grown so large and diverse that it has expanded beyond its original mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” As a demonstration of its new horizons effort, Google allowed its staff in Budapest, Hungary to design new office space in a very cool aquatic bathhouse theme celebrating the nation’s Cold War triumph.
Another 100-plus tanker oil train carrying crude from North Dakota’s Bakken Field derailed Tuesday morning, causing an explosive fire near the West Virginia state capital of Charleston. Local residents were forced to flee their homes in frigid weather as firefighters battled the blaze.
The increasingly bitter labor strife at West Coast ports between employers represented by the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) and members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), whose members command average wages and benefits of about $1,200 a day, is causing California’s agricultural sector to watch its labors rot away.
On June 12, 2014, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on the company’s web site that “All Our Patent Belong to You.” In adopting an “open source” policy to allow others to use the company’s patented intellectual property for free, Tesla’s stock (NASDAQ-TSLA) went up and the company got lots of publicity. But the statement preserved patent rights by requiring “good faith”, which is definitely not “open source.” Now, in a bizarre move, Musk has announced unlimited free-use of Tesla’s patents. Twenty-four hours later, Apple leaked that it is designing an electric vehicle and is now bidding to recruit Tesla employees.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) unveiled its first commercial drone use regulation for unmanned aerial vehicles under 55 pounds on Sunday, 46 days later than promised. Not to be left out of the headlines, the White House issued a Presidential Directive requiring federal agencies to begin disclosing where they fly drones in the U.S. and what they do with the blizzard of surveillance data they have been collecting.
Breitbart reported in November that in the six years since California legislature approved the High-Speed Rail Authority (HSRA), just 7% of the 1,100 pieces of land needed for the first leg to travel 130 miles across farm country had been acquired.
America’s best-paid union members caused another four day shut-down of the 29 West Coast ports that move 43% of U.S. imports and exports. About 80% of heavy crane operators have been calling in sick in an apparent scheme to delay port activity until the union can force employers to pay double-time for work on the four union contract holidays for “Lincoln’s Birthday” and “President’s Day.”
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock price plunged by -7.4% in premarket trading on Thursday after the company announced that deliveries had fallen short, problems had affected production, and a strong dollar had hurt earnings. Those earnings turned out to be a real
Diana Choyleva of Lombard Street Research, who produces an “unmassaged” calculation of China’s true economic growth, just reported that China’s fourth quarter GDP growth plummeted to 1.7 percent, versus the official 7.4 percent rate.
With the aging B-2 Stealth Bomber’s design dating back to the 1970 disco days of the Carter Administration, the Air Force just opened a competition to build the next strategic bomber. The “B-3” pits teams from Northrop Grumman that built the B-2 versus Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which built the B-52 bomber and F-35 strike aircraft. No matter who wins the bid, the plane will be designed in California’s Antelope Valley.
Ajit Pai, one of two Republican Commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), inferred in a tweet that President Barack Obama’s secret, 332-page “Net Neutrality” document is a scheme for federal micro-managing of the Internet to extract billions in new taxes from consumers and again enforce progressives’ idea of honest, equitable, and balanced content fairness.
The Labor Department announced that 235 union multi-employer-multi-employee pension funds are “endangered,” meaning they lack the assets to pay 80 percent of their promised benefits.
Each member of the Los Angeles City Council now earns more than Governor Brown and more than every U.S. Congressional member, according to a study from the Pew Charitable Trust.
The Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) announced that loading and unloading operations at all 29 West Coast ports would temporarily be suspended this weekend in response to union slowdowns that brought freight movements at the ports to a near standstill.
For the last four months, the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union has been involved in a “work slow-down” to shake-down employers for higher wages. But with 29 West Coast ports handling 43.5% of U.S. containerized cargo shipments and the movement of 12.5% of America’s GDP, a looming strike could cost billions of dollars per day and severely injure the U.S. economy.
Acalanes Union High School in Lafayette, California, is facing infuriated parents after freshman students were reportedly singled out–with the tacit support of teachers–and humiliated if they didn’t subscribe to politically correct views on gay and lesbian issues.
