Schwarzenegger Makes Fundraising Push for Proposition 14

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Lay of the Budget Landscape as the May Revision Approaches

Due in part to lower-than-expected April tax collections, California now faces a budget shortfall of at least $22 billion, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will announce when he unveils his revised spending plan on Friday May 14.

The GOP governor’s estimate of budget gaps has traditionally been larger than the Democratic majority Legislature because Schwarzenegger includes replenishing a reserve account to deal with unexpected disasters, economic and natural.    Read more »

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Two-Year Ban on Metal Bats in High School Baseball Advances

Legislation to place a two-year moratorium on the use of metal bats in high school baseball was approved May 5 by the Senate Education Committee.

The measure, AB 7 by Assemblyman Jared Huffman, a San Rafael Democrat, was sparked by 16-year-old Gunnar Sandberg, who was hit in the head by a line drive off a metal bat while pitching for Marin Catholic High School in Huffman’s district.    Read more »

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Buffett — The Economy and the U.S. Housing Market’s Future

“There hasn’t been a big pickup in the housing market. That’s the best news you can have.

“If you have too many houses in relation to households you want to stop creating houses for awhile. If you have an excess inventory of purple dresses at the end of the fashion season, you mark them down.    Read more »

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Independent Expenditure Committee Attacks Tom Campbell

(Editor’s Note: This posting has been REVISED. The initial headline said the mailer below was sent by the Carly Fiorina for U.S. Senate campaign. IT WASN’T. It was, in fact, sent by the American Future Fund whose website says that it is a 501(c)(4) “formed to provide Americans with a conservative and free market viewpoint to have a mechanism to communicate and advocate on the issues that most interest and concern them.”     Read more »

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Warren Buffett Discusses Greece and Its Credit Problems

“If you’re some South American country, you can’t print dollars. Greece —  they are a sovereign country in terms of their budget but they can’t print their own currency. They’ve got the Euro. You may be seeing sort of a test case play out here of a country that’s not using its own currency — in effect it’s using a common currency — yet it’s sovereign in making its own promises to its citizens.    Read more »

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Warren Buffett and Charles Munger on California’s Prospects

Asked at a May 2, 2010 press conference the day following the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha Nebraska, Warren Buffett and his business partner, California resident Charles Munger, were asked a question about the Golden State.

The thrust of the question centered on however California goes, so goes the nation.    Read more »

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Ever Quick with a Quip…

“That’s one of the best questions I’ve ever heard.”

— Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders Meeting , May 1, 2010 responding to a German shareholder thanking him for, through acquiring Burlington Northern, “taking the future of American railroads into your gifted hands.”

*****

“You have to call us Great Uncle.”

To a girl from Los Angeles who called Buffett and his business partner, Charlie Munger,  ‘Uncle’ because she said that is the custom for children to refer to their elders in India, where her parents come from.    Read more »

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Warren Buffett Defends Goldman Sachs at Annual Meeting

At the May 1 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, not unsurprisingly, the first question of Berkshire’s CEO, Warren Buffett, focused on the Securities and Exchange Commission fraud lawsuit against investment banking giant Goldman Sachs of which Berkshire owns $5 billion in preferred stock.

Among Buffett’s comments:

“Our experience with Goldman goes back 44 years.    Read more »

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April’s Over: State Falls $3.3 Billion Short on Tax Collections

The final tally for April income tax collections reported by the Franchise Tax Board is just over $7.6 billion — roughly $2.9 billion short of the $10.5 billion Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger expected in his January budget proposal.

Bank and corporations taxes, predicted to total $1.9 billion for the month, were $1.5 billion, worsening the state’s budget hole by another $400 million.    Read more »

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