California faces its own 'Great Depression"

[LongTomH]

An article on the Telegraph UK site paints a grim picture of life in California: Failing Dreams: California faces its own Great Depression

In Skid Row, a grimy pocket of downtown Los Angeles, the prostrate forms of homeless people lie strewn across the pavements.

The lucky ones have tents for shelter but others make do with a sliver of cardboard for a bed and a supermarket trolley to carry their rags.

At the last police count 1,662 people live on these streets, twice as many as a year ago.

And now amid the drug addicts and the drunks there are families who not so long ago had homes and ordinary suburban lives.

“Los Angeles is re-experiencing the Great Depression,” said Rev Andy Bales, who runs the nearby Union Rescue Mission shelter. “This is the worst I have ever seen it and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. This is all these people have as a last resort and I think there’s going to be over 2,000 by Christmas.

There are some more really, really frightening statistics in the article:

• In San Bernardino, east of LA, 34.6% of the population live below the poverty line; in nearby small towns, the poverty rate is around 40%.
  
• 2.2 million children in California, nearly 1 in 4, live in poverty.
  
• Inland California towns regularly show up on lists of place in America where residents are most likely to lose their homes.
  
• There are only 50,000 job openings a year for people with college degrees; yet 150,000 young people a year graduate from California colleges.
  
• According to the California Budget Project, the state has only regained about 1 out of every 6 jobs lost during the recession.
  
• Job growth for the month of August was ZERO; if that's revised downward, it will mean a net loss of jobs for August 2011.

Some more excerpts:

“California is fast becoming a post-industrial hell for almost everyone except the gentry class, their best servants and the public sector,” he said. “The future is pretty grim. If you live in a beautiful area like Ventura County on the coast it’s not hellish in any way, but not everyone is living that dream in California.

<snip>

At Rev Bales’ shelter 100 families who have had their homes foreclosed are now taking refuge. Perhaps the starkest example of how far some people have fallen in the economic downturn is a man in his 50s, who once earned a six figure salary as a producer on television studio sitcoms and small budget Hollywood movies.

How could this happen to the state that once represented the American Dream to so many? Oh, Yeah! Now I remember: Ronnie Raygun (as California Governor and as President) and two Bushes. Plus a lot of economic jiggery-pokery by Wall Street.

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. k&r

[kestrel91316]

2. Tell me about it. I tell all my friends and clients: if you have a job,

any kind of regular job at all, hang onto it for dear life because if you lose it there is simply NOTHING else.

[xchrom]

3. Recommend

[FarCenter]

4. What is the economic basis of Los Angeles?

San Diego has the Navy. Bay Area has Silicon Valley, wine country, and more Navy.

Los Angeles had oil fields, but they are now fairly exhausted. It had aerospace, but that has faded and Northrup and Lockheed, etc. are mature if not shrinking in California. It has the movies and some media, but that is undergoing a transition as digital and new media are impacting the business. It has shipping, but not much employment is needed to move containers off ships and on to trains and tractor trailers. There's a big financial center in Orange Country (e.g. Pimco, et al) but that is tenuous in the current environment.

Building and flipping houses was the big boom, but that is over unless some primary economic activity can be revived.

[KamaAina]

6. World trade (read: China)

not so much the actual shipping as the brazillions of import-export firms, U.S. branches of Asian companies, and so on.

[trackfan]

7. There's the entertainment industry. n/t

[Brother Buzz]

14. Bay Area has Navy???

Mare Island - closed
Treasure Island - closed
Alameda Naval Air Station - closed
Moffett Naval Air Station - the former naval air station is now owned and operated by the NASA Ames Research

Bay Area Navy bases were gutted under the helm of Secretary of Defense Cheney.

Secretary Cheney, claiming that he did not know how many bases were in Democratic and how
many in Republican districts, asserted that: "There is nothing to be gained by a
Secretary of Defense trying to play base closings for some political purpose."

[taught_me_patience]

5. This article is off the mark

and makes it seem like there is no middle class here. Ridiculous... there is a thriving middle class. California is also still the place for entrepreneurs in America.

[Better Believe It]

8. What percentage of business start-ups by "entrepreneurs" fail within two years in California?

And who do they sell their stuff to?

[bluestate10]

11. Failure is an inherent risk of starting a business. That should not stop people. nt

[bluestate10]

10. But, but, tears can't be jerked unless the storyline is overblown.

Haven't you read Teabagger 101 yet? Distortion of reality until it is unrecognizable is how one wins in modern society, be thy Left of gonzo Right. Now, back to the end of the line for you, with your talk of entrepreneurship and really changing things to build the society that many on the Left claim they want.

[Raine]

15. I agree. I think this is just an attack

against "blue state" CA to make us look like failures, yet another slap at liberals. x(

[Raksha]

9. I live in San Bernardino. 34.5% below the poverty line, huh?

I'm one of them, and these statistics aren't the least bit surprising. Depressing - YES. Surprising - NO.

[XemaSab]

12. Right idea; wrong place

The cities on the coast are still doing okay, it's places like Mendota, Stockton, and San Bernardino that are really hurting. :(

[Starry Messenger]

13. k&r

[FirstLight]

16. Vanity Fair has a big article about CA too

...still haven't read the whole thing...

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/11/michael-lewis-201111

Interestingly enough, one of our City Council members held up the magazine today in the meeting, and used it as an indicator of how screwn our little city is...
with a budget deficit of $5.2M...they laid off 19 employees today and made major cuts across the board...

very sad times

edit to add link...oops