Gloomy economic news for the Valley was presented at the recent annual Turlock Business Conference by Stanislaus State professor of business economics and Foster Farms endowed professor Dr. Gökçe Soydemir, Somjita Mitra of the California Department of Finance and Jessica Bohlen of Retail Strategies.
Soydemir began by sharing parts of his 2024-25 San Joaquin Valley Business Forecast, with one of the main factors in the predictions he and his team made being interest rates. The 30-year fixed interest rates are currently at 7.49% while the 10-year is 4.09% — both the highest since 2000. The Federal Reserve announced late last year that they would aim to have three cuts in 2024, but so far haven’t, thus causing the economic recovery of the nation, the state and the Valley to be slower than anticipated.
According to Soydemir, the Fed is not ready to cut rates because inflation is not…
