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By Steve Levy

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About this blog: I grew up in Los Angeles and moved to the area in 1963 when I started graduate school at Stanford. Nancy and I were married in 1977 and we lived for nearly 30 years in the Duveneck school area. Our children went to Paly. We moved ...  (More)

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Bay Area Economic Update

Uploaded: Dec 26, 2020
Happy and I hope a better New Year,

Below is the link to my December Bay Area economic update


web link



The highlights:
• The past four weeks have brought discouraging economic news for the near-term as a result of the virus spread and resulting restrictions on activity in the Bay Area. At the same time, news of vaccine approval and distribution, a possible stimulus package and the Biden focus on immigration, infrastructure and job growth point to a better outlook by mid-year 2021. The usual caveats about housing supply and affordability and maintaining a competitive economic environment remain.

• The Bay Area recorded added 17,300 jobs in November down from 32,900 in October. The activity restrictions should limit job growth while they last.

• Between April and November, the Bay Area recovered 42.5% of the jobs lost between February and April trailing the state and nation.

• The regional unemployment rate was 2.7% in February, 13.1% in April and 5.9% in November. However, 79,000 residents left the workforce in November though these numbers fluctuate month to month.

• This update also looks at just released population estimates showing very small growth in 2020 as out migration surged.

I hope that as we pursue the Equity and Environment goals of the Three E triple bottom line that we also focus on the third E the economy.

Successful equity and environmental initiatives usually go more smoothly and with greater support and $$ when the economy is strong.

In 2021 for me the triple bottom line initiatives are around housing (an equity, environmental and economic necessity) and a needed discussion about the foundations for economic competitiveness.

Steve

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Comments

Posted by Steven Goldstein, a resident of Old Mountain View,
on Dec 27, 2020 at 3:09 am

Steven Goldstein is a registered user.

Steven, you need to understand a few things.

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines if we are lucky may be able to provide only 200,000,000 doses by the end of 2021. But there are groups that these vaccines cannot be given to by the instructions of both Pfizer and Moderna. And in order to prevent them from getting COVID is it observed that:

“Unvaccinated individuals will not be allowed in many venues such as airplane travel, schools, most businesses or into most countries."

And

There are according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America page indicating 50,000,000 people per year have been discovered to have allergies. And according to the website as much as 10% of the world will have adverse drug reactions or 33,000,000 in the U.S.

WebMD says as much as 3% of adults have weakened immunity seen here which comes to 9,900,000

Gallup says that only 5% of American adults do not want to have a child, and in fact 19% of women want to have one seen here and there are 166,700,000 women in the country so that comes to 31,600,000 women

According to the website Child trends there are 74,100,000 children in the U.S..)

Now say there are 330,000,000 people in the U.S. and that for the sake of this case (31,600,000 + 74,100,000) cannot be vaccinated due to the VENDORS safety protocol that comes to 105,700,000 out of 330,000,000, that is actually 32% the population.

So, let's just imagine the immune impaired and women alone are to be shut off from the economy, that comes to 41,500,000 people that are permanently cut off from work, right? And that is not counting the allergies.

Since there are only 155,760,000 employable people according to www.statista.com and say you divide 41,500,000 from 155,760,000 you get a permanent unemployment rate of 25%.

And THAT is after all possible people are vaccinated.

You seem to always paint a good picture regarding economics, in fact during the 2007-2009 great recession, you used your position to always put a positive opinion when things were not improving in the way you claimed.


Posted by MM, a resident of another community,
on Dec 30, 2020 at 4:25 pm

MM is a registered user.

"Gallup says that only 5% of American adults do not want to have a child, and in fact 19% of women want to have one seen here and there are 166,700,000 women in the country so that comes to 31,600,000 women

According to the website Child trends there are 74,100,000 children in the U.S..)

Now say there are 330,000,000 people in the U.S. and that for the sake of this case (31,600,000 + 74,100,000) cannot be vaccinated due to the VENDORS safety protocol that comes to 105,700,000 out of 330,000,000, that is actually 32% the population."

Steven Goldstein, can you please clarify the foregoing? Does this excerpt mean that women (read: adult females) who never had children are NOT eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine? Assuming I understand you correctly, what might be the logic behind this apparent vaccine manufacturer's protocol?


Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Downtown North,
on Dec 31, 2020 at 2:05 pm

Mark Weiss is a registered user.

Steve I appreciate that you were a signer of the June 7 petition to open Foothill Park.


Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Downtown North,
on Dec 31, 2020 at 4:00 pm

Mark Weiss is a registered user.

I'm not going to argue with you here, and having perused the report itself and your summary, but roughly speaking if Palo Alto had taxed just the top handful of corporations here, between 2009 when I started following local politics and when Covid-19 hit, as every other comparable City has done, we'd be sitting on a billion dollar surplus and not laying off librarians. Our version of "Triple E" is more like "Eeek!" leaders afraid of landlords like little old ladies afraid of mice, or they've trained us to run thru the maze for a nibble of their cheese, excuse the miced metaphor.


Posted by stephen levy, a resident of University South,
on Dec 31, 2020 at 4:43 pm

stephen levy is a registered user.

Mark,

The fiscal consultant reported that if PA taxed businesses like Mt View, Sunnyvale, Redwood City and other neighbors, we would receive $3-4 million a year. I supported such a tax.

But it is nowhere near $Billions and we would have spent it each year so it has very little if anything to do with our current much larger shortage. We do not have large corporations like Mt View has Google. And we have lost 2 medium size companies HPE and Palantir.

But, again, I do favor a comparable business tax to our neighbors.


Posted by [email protected], a resident of Mountain View,
on Jan 1, 2021 at 12:52 pm

[email protected] is a registered user.

MM,

I was pointing out that the VENDORS do not approve or suggest that those considering children be vaccinated. I have no other information.

As far as the current state of CODE BLUE

As of today we are still at only 8% ICU bed availability, that's with the "Surge" additions.

We increased some beds opening because of the surge of deaths, NOT recoveries, we lost 54 people in the last week according to the SCC Covid dashboards as well.

Lets just face it, that we are not making much progress, and it looks like we are going to be in the CODE BLUE order through the winter.

But what else can be done? What can we do that will reduce hospital utilization WHILE NOT increasing risk of spread of COVID?

We cannot just magically increase the ICU beds and resources can we?

Will someone please give us an answer?


Posted by stephen levy, a resident of University South,
on Jan 1, 2021 at 3:32 pm

stephen levy is a registered user.

I agree that the near term looks grim, both for controlling the virus, distributing the vaccines and the prospect of continued activity restrictions for at least two more months.

But I think we will know more in a month after the holidays have passed and an administration with concern and competence replaces one with indifference and denial

I remain hopeful that we will begin to return to normal over time with more returning after mid year.


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