Sonoma County has not been spared by the national economic recession, but economist Steve Cochrane says its effects should be less severe here, with recovery underway by this time next year.

Even though unemployment is up for Sonoma County, and other economic indicators reflect the local effects of the global recession, Cochrane says that, so far at least, our area is weathering the downturn better than many other regions.
     
It will likely take most of the next 12 months for the Sonoma County housing market to stabilize, Cochrane predicts, with joblessness following a similar arc back toward more acceptible levels late this year and in early 2010.

 

Cochran also conducts research for the Sonoma County Innovation Council , which has recently released its own economic forecast, viewable here.

The Sonoma County Economic Development Board hosted the 6^th annual State of the County breakfast Wednesday morning, with Supervisor Paul Kelley delivering the centerpiece address. KRCB was there to record and bring you his talk.

Supervisor Paul Kelley

Two Sonoma State students who were among the thousands present for the inauguration of President Barack Obama share their impressions of the historic event.

A crowd of well over one million people flooded into the Capitol Mall to hear and perhaps see a glimpse of the inauguration. Some 240,000 free tickets to the event were officially distributed beforehand.

You can read the full text of President Obama's inauguration speech here.

Not one but two Project Censored stories this past year came from the work of Matt Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine.

 Matthew Rothschild (below) the Editor of The Progressive magazine spoke last night at Sonoma State University, as part of Project Censored's Modern Media Censorship lecture series. Rothschild had two of his own stories selected by Project Censored for their Top 25 of th4e past year, including one about a shadowy partnership between the FBI and American businesses called InfraGard. You can read it here.

President Elect Barak Obama is on the cover of the current edition of The Progressive, but editor Matt Rothschild is openly skeptical about the cabinet picks and other early moves by the new chief executive.

Newspapers across the country are struggling to reinvent themselves and survive in the Internet age, but Rothschild suggests that the situation for niche magazines such as The Progressive is not so dire.

Much of Rothschild's other recent reporting has addressed the erosion of civil rights in this country over the past eight years, stories he has compiled in his most recent book, You Have No Rights:  Stories of America in an Age of Repression.