Places Advisor

The California unemployment figures for May 2008 constitute some misleading good news. We moved from the third worst state in April to the fifth worst state in May.

The bad news is that California's improvement is due to the fact that a handful of other states' unemployment rates are rising even faster. Michigan -– which used to build cars -– is in the toilet with an 8.5% unemployment rate.

Feel any better?

Did you see the excellent map of gasoline taxes, state by state, across America, May 6 on the front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune? If you didn't look too closely, or read the entire story you might have missed a salient fact -– we're number one!

Yup, California has the highest total taxes on gas of any of the 50 states (not just "among the highest" as the newspaper writes). As of January, we wealthy West Coast folks paid 63.9 cents of federal and state taxes a gallon, vs. the national average of about 47.0 cents.

Public vs. private salaries, California business climate, Republican Party straw poll, make a will, fire fighter jobs, beach booze ban, Second Amendment, Omaha Mall shooting

Six Items – Five on San Diego fires, last one on home prices.

This is devoted entirely to fire fighting in general, and the San Diego County fire disaster in particular. The good news is that -- at TREMENDOUS expense and tragic loss of life -- we had an opportunity to learn from the 2003 massive Cedar fire, with four years to implement needed improvements and reforms. The bad news is that, in some critical matters, our politicians and bureaucrats didn't seem to learn a damn thing.

Boomer Advisor is published by Advisor Media from our home office in the heart of San Diego. For the past three day we've been living the nightmare known as Firestorm 2007. So far, so good. Our office hasn't been threatened (unlike the Cedar Fire of 2003, which burned just a block from us). None of our San Diego-area staff was harmed and their homes all survived.

But I must add, "so far", because fires still rage in various areas of the county, and if new fires start, there's still plenty left to burn.

1. Win a Nobel Peace Prize. Al Gore did it – you can too!
2. Bring Back Gray Davis! He Would Be Better than Arnold.
3. Media bias? Yes, But Perhaps Even Worse Is Reporter Laziness.
4. I Mean It! Gray Davis WAS a Better Governor than Arnold. Just Ask Gun Owners.
5. Further Proof Arnold Is a Terrible Governor. He Lied About Supporting Open Government.
6. The Hidden Cost of Depreciation in Public Works.
7. Trolleys FAR More Crime Ridden than Buses.
8. Portland, the Smart Growth Model for Central Planners, Gets Thoroughly Debunked.