Enrico Moretti, Professor of Economics, here at UC Berkeley, starts off his book ‘The New Geography of Jobs’ contrasting California’s two cities, Menlo Park and Visalia. Back in 1969, they had comparable income levels and high-paying jobs. But since then, these cities have diverged. Visalia has one of the lowest average salaries in America, while Menlo Park, and the broader Silicon Valley, has the second-highest average salary in the US with its high paying tech employers. Continue Reading

About a year ago, I wrote this article about why the Fed was raising rates in trying to engineer a soft landing. The objective was to prevent an overheated economy and high inflation rates, given the record unemployment levels among other things. The theory goes that tight labor markets lead to wage growth. Wage growth leads to high inflation. Raising rates might prevent that. This was the sentiment at the Fed over a year ago.Continue Reading