New Claims: No Sign of Recession (again

Friday, August 19, 2022

We keep looking for signs of recession in the new weekly claims for unemployment benefits in California - and not finding them. The most recent data continue to run at prepandemic/boom levels.

And the most recent unemployment rate data for the state put California below 4%, i.e., very low.

As always, the latest claims data are at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf.

Watch the Regents Health Services Committee Meeting of Aug. 17, 2022

Saturday, August 20, 2022

Most of the attention paid to the Regents meeting of August 17th was on the Big Ten issue, which we have discussed in earlier postings. However, the original purpose of the August 17th meeting was to have a regularly scheduled off-cycle session of the Health Services Committee.

The meeting began with public comments that included the Big Ten issue, and various labor relations concerns including a COVID bonus. Following public comments, there were opening remarks by President Drake. Then Executive Vice President for UC Health Carrie Byington took note of a new collective bargaining agreement with the California Nurses Association. She gave an overview of the COVID and Monkeypox situations. One point she made was that the Monkeypox vaccine is of the weakened virus type. As a result, it can't be given to persons with compromised immune systems.

Regarding COVID, Byington thought that we are likely heading to a situation in which there will be annual booster shots, perhaps starting in the fall.

A report was made by the Clinical Quality Committee. Although various metrics were presented, Regent Park in particular pushed for specific goals to be set by the Committee.

As always, we have preserved the recording of the meeting since the Regents - for no reason - delete their recordings after one year. You can see the video at the link provided below:

https://archive.org/details/board-health-services-committee.

We are experimenting. You can listen to the text above at the link below:

The Big Ten/UCLA Train Seems to Be Leaving the Station Without the ...

Saturday, August 20, 2022

Although some of the Regents have asserted the possibility that they could kill the UCLA Big Ten deal, nobody else is behaving as though that will happen. For example, there's nothing on the UCLA news website about the Big Ten matter.

As noted in a prior posting, if you view what is happening in public as a de facto negotiation, then one strategy might be to create the impression of a done deal which can't be unraveled.

From the LA Times: ... The Big Ten, which officially adds USC and UCLA in 2024, announced the long-awaited media deal Thursday. The seven-year pact that begins in 2023 is worth more than $1 billion per season. In fact, the total value of the deal is nearly $8 billion, with financial escalators that could push it to nearly $10 billion, according to individuals with knowledge of the negotiations but not authorized to speak about it on the record. The massive deal could give UCLA some high-caliber ammunition in its bid to secure Big Ten membership and ward off the University of California regents who have openly raised the possibility of blocking the school’s planned move from the Pac-12...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2022-08-18/big-ten-reaches-tvagreement.

* http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/08/big-ten-affair-if-it-quacks-like.html.

We're experimenting. Click on the link below to hear the text above: