California -- America's first failed state?

Of course, you do understand that the rate fell because the workforce shrunk as permanently unemployed fell off the books, the so-called "discouraged workers".

Those numbers are useless.

 

The real unemployment rate, including discouraged workers, went up this month to 16.7%. It was 8.8% in 2007.

And that's *with* the government borrowing $1.3 trillion a year to pump into the economy. Imagine how awful it'd be without that.

 

Of course I know these numbers are bullshit and cooked to make the New Year seem promising. On the first Friday of every month Hampton Pierce reads the report like it the truth and Steve Liesman and the other touts on CNBC rave about the turnaround.

 

What?

CNBC has been telling us the economy is A-Number-1 for 10 years now. Nothing's changed.

I'm just waiting for it to get so bad we need to go invade a real country to get the economy humming again. That's the remedy for systemic economic problems for 5,000 years.

 

But Tiger, researchers...mysteriously...discovered that Afghanistan is sitting on a trove of minerals and resources that could make it as rich as Saudi Arabia! Better get in there before those Afghanis realize you can go to school beyond first grade so they don't get too raked over the coals!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110112/ap_on_bi_ge/us_illinois_taxes

 

Bump.

In 2008, voters approved a $33 billion high-speed rail project. Cost estimates are now $60-80 billion, perhaps as much as $100 billion. Still not a shovel in the ground.

http://www.mercurynews.com/california-budget/ci_18645051?source=autofeed#

Still, project officials are ramping up to spend billions of dollars to break ground on the rail line in the Central Valley next year and hope to find the rest of the money to pay for the system later.

Finding an extra 11-figure sum? Shouldn't be a problem.

 

How much have they already spent on it?

 

Probably about $500 million -- best estimate I can find is that by end of 2012 it will be up to $630 million.

The political posturing about the route led to a ridiculous starting point near Fresno -- the one part of California where nobody wants to go. It prevents anything close to the coast and makes the population centers more difficult to reach. (The starting point came about because Obama's people promised a huge chunk if the state would start the line out there, just as a Dem congressman was in a tough re-election fight that he won just after the announcement.)

At $33 billion, this project was questionable. At $60 million or more, it should be the subject of a criminal investigation.

 

A tale of two economies:

 

I work in the affluent part and live in the craphole part...and can't argue much with what that story says.

 

My understanding is that San Fran is doing well and San Diego is doing well, but the rest of the state, not so much. My best friend bought a house in LA in 2005 for $850K, and right now he has the place listed for $600K and will be lucky to get that for it.

A relative just sold their place in Riverside for less than half what they paid for it 10 years ago.

Places like Malibu and Palo Alto are fine. But the rest of the Bay Area and Sacramento have taken a complete beating.

I'm guessing things aren't as extreme in places like Fresno and Bakersfield and whatnot, because they never had home prices skyrocket the way they did in the other places around the state.