UCSB economist warns of future tax hikes
Higher taxes are an inevitable consequence of ad-hoc policymaking, according to UC Santa Barbara economics professor Peter Rupert. Rupert, who heads the UCSB Economic Forecast Project, told a breakfast audience of Santa Barbara-area business leaders on Dec. 8 that temporary subsidies such as “cash for clunkers” and payments to first-time homebuyers were largely useless. He Read More →
Slow SLO recovery forecast
Like the rest of California, San Luis Obispo County is winding very slowly to a full economic recovery, forecasters at the Central Coast Economic Forecast said Nov. 5. The county’s unemployment rate currently hovers around 10 percent, and will likely stay above 6 percent until sometime in 2015, economists from the forecasting group Beacon Economics Read More →
U.S. should set inflation target, Fed economist says at UCSB
Setting the federal funds interest rate target at zero is a trap, and one the Federal Reserve would be better off avoiding, St. Louis Federal Reserve Economist Bill Gavin said at an Oct. 27 appearance at UC Santa Barbara. Warning of the dangers of the so-called “zero lower bound,” when the federal funds rate is Read More →
