International associates:

Tavana & Co.
Chartered Accountants
Toronto, Canada
Tel.416-229-2221

• Population growth in California
has slowed to a trickle:
Unemployment and housing crisis
are fueling more departures from
cities and the state.  The state's
population grew by only 1.1
percent last year to reach 38.3
million.  A decade ago annual
growth of 2 percent or more was
common.
 

	Pop in	Growth
	million	%
California	38	1.1
LA County	10.4	0.9
City of LA	4	1.1

some two-thirds of California's
cities reported slower growth in
2008 compared with the rest of the
decade.  Los Angeles County's
population now represents over a
quarter of the state's overall
population.  Even the influx of
illegal immigrants to California
has slowed as the market for
laborers has dried up.  The state's
fractional growth was driven by a
half-million births recorded in
2008 to Roman Catholic Latinos
in California.

• The percentage of births
to unwed mothers in the U.S. has
jumped to 40%.  But that's still far
below northern Europe.

• The recession has cut
the growth rate of U.S. Hispanic
and Asian population.

• U.S. high-school students
haven't made significant gains in
reading or math since the early
1970s.

• Alaska was purchased by the
U.S. from Russia for $7.2 million
in 1867.  That's about 2 cents an
acre.

• U.S. Supreme Court, in 1857,
ruled that slaves were not citizens
on Dred Scott case.  But the
decision was overturned a decade
later by the 14th amendment.

• For more of the Generalist,
please visit ARKCPA•COM.

• theGeneralist, a one-page monthly
publication of the accounting firm of
A.R. Kakhsaz Company, is in its 15th
year of providing information, presented
fairly and accurately, from sources we
can depend upon and trust.

• Housing growth in California
is as slow as it has been in ten
years.  Last year, the state added
87,000 housing units, or less than
half of what was built in 2005
when the market peaked with
198,000 units.  The most notable
decline is in single-family
detached homes, with last year
showing a 70 percent drop-off from
the decade peak in 2005.  Here's
the number of single-family
detached homes increases since
2005:

	2008	39,595
	2007	69,231
	2006	113,604
	2005	132,355

• A century ago, Henry Ford
introduced the first
mass-produced automobile on
the market.  The two-seater
Model T cost $825.  By 1927,
when the Model T was phased
out, production had become so
streamlined that dealers were
able to reduce the price to $300.
While Ford did not invent the
"assembly line," he made it so
much more efficient that it
revolutionized the industry.  In the
very early days, it took 12 hours to
produce an automobile.  By 1913,
when Ford opened his new,
more efficient Model T factory, it
took only 93 minutes to make
one.  And by the time the last
Model Ts rolled off the line in
1927, a car was produced every
24 seconds.  "The Model T is
available in any color you choose,
so long as it's black," said Henry
Ford.

• We see more in numbers
than just numbers...

Ali R. Kakhsaz, CPA, MAcc
www.arkcpa.com