NBBJ Insider

Abandon Highway 37 to the Bay?

With relatively little public notice, four obscure Bay Area regional bureaucracies, the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission have come together under the Orwellian sounding OneBayArea.org.

Solano index full of promise — and one troubling sign

Solano County, which for years has been considered something of a rest stop between Sacramento and San Francisco, is no more.

Alliance to focus on economic opportunities

Doug Clark, CEO of Metier, and Steven Harrison, CFO of TriVascular, will speak Wednesday at Sonoma County Alliance breakfast, 7 a.m., Santa Rosa Golf and Country Club.

Sutter suit pits public entities, raises specter of CEQA

Sonoma County taxpayers should be happy to know they can now witness one taxpayer-funded entity suing another taxpayer-funded entity.

When the word ‘unexpectedly’ is unhelpful

Here’s a word that should be eliminated from today’s coverage of the economy: “unexpectedly.”

Jobs take their rightful place

The news about a recent surge in orders for North Bay manufacturers like electrical components maker Schurter, reported in the upcoming issue of the Business Journal, is welcome.

June jobs picture remains bleak

Sausalito-based TrimTabs, which accurately forecast very weak job growth for May, estimates the U.S. economy shed 152,000 jobs in June. The investment research firm said private sector hiring remained weak as the Census Bureau laid off 243,000 temporary workers.

May is good for Census jobs, but not much more

If one was hoping for good news on jobs, the latest estimates for May by TrimTabs Investment Research based in Sausalito isn’t it. The investment adviser says Census hiring — which is soon to disappear — is responsible for most job growth and the private labor markets may be weakening.

Green jobs vs. reality

Elected officials today regularly extol the promise of green jobs. It’s a great applause line.

Unfortunately, the reality is something different.

Refusing to put an end to the recession

It has become conventional wisdom among commentators and many economists that the U.S. recession ended in 2009, particularly with that spurt of growth in gross domestic product in the fourth quarter.

So, why, then, did the nation’s arbiter of recessions, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee, refuse to go along with that thinking?