Once upon a time the apprentice
model – a fancy way of saying "learn on the job" – was widespread.   Today,
very few apprenticeships exist outside the building industry.  One of the few fields in which it does, however,
is the business of being a literary agent.

Most
readers will know that a literary agent is the person who sells your
lovingly-written book to a major publisher. 
(To sell to a small or university press you usually won’t need an agent
– you also usually won’t get as much, if any, money.)  This gives an agent prestige among writers,
especially those in the early stages of their career.  Go to a writers’ conference, get a lanyard
that announces that you are a literary agent, and writers will follow you
around all weekend, as if you were a mama duck and they were your devoted like
ducklings.  I’ve been the mama duck and
it’s really fun.

A study released today by Capitol Matrix Consulting headed by former State Finance Director Mike Genest and former Democratic and Republican legislative fiscal consultants, Brad Williams and Peter Schaafsma, claims if the City of Vernon is dissolved there will be a potential of 11,620 jobs lost with a loss in state and local revenue of more than $42 million.

Another study released by the United States Chamber of Commerce yesterday placed California in the lowest tier of states for business friendly environments.

The state takes a one-two punch from these studies on California’s business environment.

VERNON STUDY

It warms my heart that so many politicians in California
want to give me a choice.

Gov. Jerry Brown wants to give me a choice of extending some
particular temporary tax increases for five years. He chose the temporary
taxes, but it’s so cool that it’s my choice.

And if I vote down those tax extensions, well, then, he’s
not going to give me different taxes but $25 billion in cuts. Of course, he
will choose those cuts for me. Which is awfully nice of him, since I hate cuts.

The Republicans don’t want to go along with this yet,
because – isn’t this great? – they don’t think one choice is enough. They will
only put Gov. Brown’s choice on a special election ballot if there’s another
measure on the same ballot – one that gives me the choice to cut taxes by the
same amount the tax extensions would keep them raised. How did they decide that
would be the tax cut?

Cross-posted at CalWatchdog.

The owners of the “Dive Bar,” also known as the Mermaid Bar in Sacramento, are apparently feeling a little testy about all of the criticism they are receiving because of the several million bucks in redevelopment subsidies they used to build the bar on the K Street Mall.

The big splash being made coincides with Governor Jerry Brown’s budget proposal to eliminate redevelopment agencies in the state — just as the 7,500 gallon fish tank bar was being completed, and mermaids were auditioning.

In Wednesday’s Sacramento Bee, a half-page paid advertisement appears along with a cartoon that ran last week, depicting the mermaid bar and pizza joint receiving $6.8 million in subsidies.

Appearing to be paid for by the owner of the Mermaid Bar, the ad states that the bar and restaurant did not receive $6.8 million in subsidies as the cartoon depicts, but only received $3.1 million “derived from the sale of the Sheraton” and “invested $2.8 million of our own money.”

The bar’s owner is San Francisco nightclub owner George Karpaty, who has owned and operated several dance clubs and bars in and around the San Francisco Bay area.

Cross-posted at NewGeography.

Every year, the top officials, policy wonks, and business managers convene at the annual State of the Valley conference to discuss and debate the health of the region. Over a thousand attendees trekked to San Jose, Calif., on Feb. 18 for the release of this year’s report. Published since 1995 by Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network and distributed for free, the new 2011 Index of Silicon Valley reported bleak indicators and a gloomy outlook.

The event provided Valley insiders a moment to reflect on the economic storm, and the mood was darkly optimistic. A persistent phrase tossed out was the “new normal,” old Wall Street jargon describing a repressed economic environment. Growth is too slow to bring down the unemployment rate, and government intervenes to save a struggling private sector.

Tally of the Valley

Certainly Silicon Valley has had its share of troubles suffering from poor state finances and severe global competition. Unemployment has hit nearly 10 percent, higher than when the recession started. The region’s population of three million, comprised of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, has continued to drop as talent leaves for opportunity in cheaper pastures. Foreign immigration, considered a critical factor in the region’s entrepreneurship, dropped by 40 percent to its lowest level in the last decade since 2009 and stayed flat through 2010.

In politics, it’s often more important to pick your enemies than to choose your friends.

Gov. Jerry Brown has known that for years, which is why he’s been so careful picking his fights in Sacramento.

On the budget, for example, it’s not that the Republicans in the state Legislature are evil, it’s that they’re in thrall to a "no vote, no taxes" pledge straight out of Washington, D.C., that’s "not American. It’s not acceptable and it’s not loyalty to California."

Brown’s got no problem putting Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform minions on an enemies list, but he still needs some votes from GOP legislators to get his budget plan on a June ballot.

How do you insure the protection of 50,000 jobs? That is the task Assembly Speaker John Perez has set out for himself as he pushes his bill (AB 46) to see the disincorporation of the City of Vernon in Los Angeles County.

Vernon is an industrial city with only 91 residents but a work force of 50,000. City officials have been caught up in corruption focusing on huge salaries and pensions that rival those in the near-by City of Bell. Additional scandals are centered on the city’s governance. No elections were held in Vernon from 1984 to 2006 and when one did occur, the city clerk refused to count the ballots for six months. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca called Vernon a "rogue city" supported by voters who are picked by elected officials.

Cutting the budget for real is too hard. But making symbolic cuts that produce tiny savings but garner big press coverage is easy – and can be fun.

Now that the Brown administration has gone after employee cell phones and the cars and swag, the low-hanging symbolic fruit is hard. And with deadlines for getting a June special election upon, the Brown administration may have to accelerate symbolic cuts. A glimpse of what the future could be.

March 3 – An executive order requires all state departments must do all of their shopping at Costco. "If you can’t buy it at Costco or make it from something you buy at Costco, you shouldn’t be doing it," the governor said.

Former state senate president pro-tem Don Perata, bicycle racing champion Lance Armstrong and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa kicked off their campaign for a new cigarette tax initiative in Los Angeles yesterday. Unfortunately, it is another example of ballot box budgeting in which revenues are limited for specific purposes with little oversight from outside agencies.

Multiple ballot measures directing how tax dollars can be spent have taken away the ability of the legislature to respond to changing fiscal problems. In fact, one item Governor Jerry Brown wants to see on a special election ballot this summer is a measure to ask voters to take a billion dollars from a segregated tobacco tax fund for childhood development that the voters created by initiative in 1998 and place it in the general fund to deal with the budget deficit.

The new tobacco tax initiative has qualified for the next ballot, whether that is Brown’s special election or a later scheduled election if the special election does not come off. The initiative proponents want to get an early jump on the campaign in case there is a special election.