Future shock: Christopher Thornberg, who tracks economic patterns for the Anderson Forecast, sees education as the key challenge for L.A.This five years at the UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX Anderson Forecast, Christopher Thornberg's predictions have made waves across California. The outspoken, opinionated o·pin·ion·at·ed adj. Holding stubbornly and often unreasonably to one's own opinions. [Probably from obsolete opinionate : opinion + -ate1. economist has became a popular pundit An expert or knowledgeable person. From "pandit" in Hindi. See guru. and media source. It's a role he revels in at the forecast, which, despite its academic association, is a semi-autonomous, financially self-sufficient institution. For more than two years, Thornberg has been among the most vocal in sounding a warning that California's overheated o·ver·heat v. o·ver·heat·ed, o·ver·heat·ing, o·ver·heats v.tr. 1. To heat too much. 2. To cause to become excited, agitated, or overstimulated. v.intr. housing market is in a hyper-inflated bubble. Yet he recently bought a hilltop home on the Westside. Question: Given your predictions, why did you just buy that house? Answer: I will simply say that I had an inside track and got a very good deal. This is kind of a long-run holding. Do we have a real estate bubble This article is about the general phenomenon of housing bubbles. For housing bubbles in various countries, see below. A real estate bubble or property bubble (or housing bubble ? Yes. On the other hand, I'm covered because I sold a place and 1 bought this place. So in a sense I took my ill-gotten gains on one house and rolled it into a new place. I'm also well within my income level; I can afford it. So if the price doesn't appreciate for six or seven years, it doesn't matter to me. And that's the key point. Q: So you're not advising homeowners to stay out of the market because you believe there's a bubble? A: People need to understand that we have gone through an environment where property prices have appreciated at a strong rate and now they are not going to appreciate for a while. We've gotten 10 years of appreciation in three years. If you're in a good place financially and you're not having problems, then don't worry about the bubble. The problem is people buying for the first time, buying second homes or buying property they can't really afford on the belief that appreciation is going to bail them out. And that's what's dangerous. Q: So what got you started in economics? A: I studied business at (the State University of New York (body) State University of New York - (SUNY) The public university system of New York State, USA, with campuses throughout the state. , Buffalo) and came out here for graduate school. I came to UCLA to get a Ph.D. in management. You ask "What the hell is a PhD in management?" It all depends on whom you study under. I was studying under Ed Learner at the UCLA Anderson School Anderson School may refer to:
for all practical purposes, to all intents and purposes I got an economics Ph.D. Q: What came next? A: Clemson University Clemson University, at Clemson, S.C.; coeducational; land-grant; state supported; opened in 1893 as a college, gained university status in 1964. The university includes programs in textile and computer research, wildlife biology, and aquaculture and maintains , in South Carolina South Carolina, state of the SE United States. It is bordered by North Carolina (N), the Atlantic Ocean (SE), and Georgia (SW). Facts and Figures Area, 31,055 sq mi (80,432 sq km). Pop. (2000) 4,012,012, a 15. was my first job. I was on the standard academic track: publish or perish "Publish or perish" refers to the pressure to publish work constantly in order to further or sustain one's career in academia. The competition for tenure-track faculty positions in academia puts increasing pressure on scholars to publish new work frequently. , teach the undergrads This article is about the television show. For the educational term, see undergraduate education. This article or section does not cite its . You can Wikipedia by introducing appropriate citations. , cloistered ivory tower ivory tower n. A place or attitude of retreat, especially preoccupation with lofty, remote, or intellectual considerations rather than practical everyday life. , that kind of existence. Believe me, it was easy to give up. Q: Easy? A: Academics is a strange field. It's lots of people debating vigorously on fairly minor points. You spend six months writing a paper that 12 people are going to read. I don't have any pretensions of being a Nobel Prize-winning economist. So I like working at the forecast. I get to do the academic research I like to do. I get to interact with business people and government officials. I feel my ideas have an influence and that's nice. Q: How did you come to join the forecast? A: In 2000 when Ed Leamer called and invited me back. Ed took over the forecast in 1999 and he needed help. At the time, the forecast was a disaster: it was losing money and had gone through a couple changes of leadership. The people who took it over weren't committed to keeping it going. It just wasn't doing well. When Ed invited me back I said: "But I'm not a macro economist." And he said: "Yeah, that's why you're going to be a good forecaster." It was kind of a shot at the typical, heavy model-driven arcane science of macro economics. Q: Don't you know those models? A: Not really. I studied some of it, but no doubt about it, I'm not a macro economist. I'm much more a micro economist, which means I think about markets and real things. That's not to say I haven't picked up a lot of stuff on macro economics. I'm forced to by definition. My skills and expertise are really more in thinking about real-world questions and thinking about data and how to use data to answer those questions. I'm not a guy who makes fancy theories. I'm the guy who gets dirty with the data. Q: Does Wall Street pay attention to the UCLA Forecast? A: If you think about the West Coast, you don't hear a lot of groups who get a lot of play on Wall Street. We do. I'm not saying we're a major player, but we're not a minor player either. We're a West Coast group and we've taken some controversial stances in the past. Fortunately, we're fight more often than not. (The forecast correctly predicted the 2001 recession and 9/11's relatively minimal economic impact.) Q: Does it frustrate you that Wall Street pays little attention to the largest economy in the nation? A: You always have to be careful about making that claim. Geographically speaking, we're the largest economy. But look at the aggregate New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of area and all the way around. You've got New York, Philadelphia and all six major cities in the northeast. It's no doubt that's where the political and money weight of this nation still lies. You have some big cities out here but we're not quite in the same category as that huge dense Northeast corridor This article is about a rail line. For the agglomeration of metropolitan areas, see BosWash. For the New Jersey Transit line, see Northeast Corridor Line. The Northeast Corridor (NEC . Q: As L.A. becomes a more urban metropolis, will it gain influence nationally? A: It's no longer a suburban city. Kicking and screaming, L.A. is going to be dragged into the era of being a dense city. We're not Atlanta; we're not Houston. We don't have the ability for limitless sprawl. We do have mountains and hills and geographic terrain that slow things down. Certainly a lot of building here is infill. And of course downtown is starting to re-emerge, starting to bloom again. I think downtown will continue to expand and do better and better. Q: By most indications the economy is strong and healthy, so why do many people seem so uneasy about the future? A: You're not seeing incomes rising very rapidly relative to prices, particularly in California. Wages have been stagnant over the last few months. That makes people certainly feel uneasy and part of that is not so much that the economy is bad but because benefit costs are going up. People often forget there's a lot of fungibility Fungibility The interchangeability of listed options, futures contracts, and other instruments dependent upon identical terms. Notes: Fungibility allows buyers and sellers to close out a position through a closing transaction in an identical contract. in that pay package of theirs. If your boss has to pay more for your health care, then you get a smaller raise. Q: Is there any one sector that if it falters, could drag down the overall L.A. economy? A: Not anymore. We have a very non-centralized economy in many ways. Now there are some big industries. Apparel is still a big industry; aerospace still has some oomph in it. Certainly those are drivers. We still have a lot of manufacturing in the L.A. area, although it's spread out quite a bit about and across different industries. Entertainment remains a big part of the area. (But) it's a much more diffuse economy than it used to be. Q: What happens to all those real estate agents if the housing market busts? A: They're like our image of the Internet brat with his $200,000 stock option package rolling into work at 10:30 in sneakers sneakers Noun, pl US, Canad, Austral & NZ canvas shoes with rubber soles sneakers npl (US) → zapatos mpl de lona; zapatillas fpl . When that job collapsed, we sure didn't like the slowdown in the overall economy, but we all had this little tiny smile of comeuppance come·up·pance n. A punishment or retribution that one deserves; one's just deserts: "It's a chance to strike back at the critical brotherhood and give each his comeuppance for evaluative sins of the past" in the back of our head. Like 'OK buddy, now go get a real job.' We're going to see the same thing happen when the real estate guys start losing their jobs. The amount of money pouring into the real estate sector is sick. It's going to get ugly out there; it's going to be bloody in that particular industry. Q: What's the greatest obstacle the future of the L.A. economy faces? A: We are building a dual economy. My biggest concern is our failing public education system. We have massive amounts of new immigrants coming from Latin America Latin America, the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. ; a lot of them don't have skills, they don't have training. You have to think about the U.S. economy. It used to be a low-skilled worker could get a job in manufacturing and do very well for themselves. But those jobs are going away. It's shifting away from traditional industries like textiles and apparel to new high-tech refining and chips where you hire nerds in white coats to run the factory. What we can damn well do is make sure their kids are educated so the next generation is equipped to do well in this economy. Q: How do you think Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, will end up if we don't fix the educational system? A: We're going to end up with a Brazilian economy
Christopher Thornberg Title: Senior Economist Organization: UCLA Anderson Forecast Born: 1967; Rochester, N.Y. Education: B.S. in business, State University of New York, Buffalo; Ph.D. in management, UCLA Career Turning Point: Joining the forecast in 2000 Most Admired Person: Ed Learner, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast Hobbies: Skiing, sailing and traveling Personal: Single |
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