Here's another explanation for the improving fiscal outlook: Property is gaining in value. This is good news for local governments, as well as for homeowners who are seeing the value of their properties creep back up after several down years

Government is needed a lot more in bad times than in good times. With the economy getting better, albeit slowly, that reliance is not only starting to recede, but it's being replaced by more money coming in.

That's still up from 1991 when it was just 57, according to a Gallup survey, and much of the increase came after the recession. Those still in the workforce expect to retire well past 61.

April's unemployment rate was 9 percent, down from 9.4 percent the previous month and the lowest level since late 2008.

The problem is that adding two and two gives you four, not 18, as the attack dogs in Congress and the media would want you to believe. Government wrongdoing is not the same as presidential wrongdoing.

Perhaps because the flying experience, while not always wonderful, is a bit more tolerable these days, thanks to greater efficiency and reliability.

Those workers lucky enough to earn the "living wage" of nearly $12 an hour are pulling in several thousand dollars a year more than those getting only $8.

Delays, cost overruns, inconvenience - it's all on tap, thanks to the boneheaded notion that a subway extension to Westwood (not the beach) is the answer to our transit woes. Look at what's happening in SF.

Forget about what you've been reading the last few days. The prevailing narrative about Democratic-leaning tax investigators going after the Tea Party and other right-wing groups is not quite what's going on.

In laying out his latest budget plan. Gov. Brown is sticking to his old penny-pinching self. Matter of fact, he's proposing $1.3 billion less in general fund spending than what was first laid out in January.

But i's still a case of too many buyers going after too few homes. Properties that are priced right routinely receive multiple offers that are often well beyond asking.