Recession Update
In my blog post The Three Horsemen of the Grapepocalypse, Part 2: The Coming Recession, I included a probability distribution of when I think the next recession is coming: ■There is a 95% chance that we'll see a recession within the next 3 years; ■25% chance in 2019; ■40% chance in 2020; ■30% chance in 2021; ■5% chance in 2022 or later. ■My probability distribution could be shattered by sudden shifts from a wide range of disruptions from either natural or policy disasters. I
El Dorado Probably has Labor Issues, Too
Well, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is at least a little bit less true than you originally thought. After asking for feedback in my last blog post, I got some. I was wondering why government data showed that, corrected for inflation, labor rates in El Dorado looked to be steady - or maybe even falling - while total grape sales rose. I also pondered the meaning of fewer reported businesses employing vineyard workers. The mystery is not completely solved, bu
Is El Dorado the Secret Land of Non-Existent Vineyard Labor Issues?
On March 20th, I’ll be speaking to the El Dorado Wine Grape Growers’ Association. They’re a great group – they always have a lot of great questions and they're great at sharing their knowledge with each other and me. They also put me up in the Cary House, a nice, old-timey hotel in downtown Placerville, which might be the most underrated town in California. And it's a real place, unlike El Dorado's mythical namesake. Map to a very different El Dorado: My presentation is go
