So Long California: The Valley of Shadows, The End of The Line

California's economy has been a long standing bastion of productivity and commerce, with Six main power growth robust industries:

1. Military - Defense
2. Tourism
3. Agriculture
4. Technology (Computer, Bio,)
5. Entertainment (Hollywood, Music)
6. Construction-Building

This diverse base has allowed California to recover from collapse in any one industry. Now all at once many of these are imploding.

The California we have known for the last 70 years is teetering on collapse.

Vacancies Suppress Southern California Recovery
online.wsj.com...

Hollywood feels the pinch: Film production at standstill
www.guardian.co.uk...

Before the fall
www.economist.com...

There were stores everywhere, there we people everywhere. Now there is nothing!
"Nancy Daniels;Youth Center, Mendota, CA

Today, it is a green expanse of agricultural empires. Most of the water that has irrigated these seemingly endless fields comes from northern California, diverted by an epic system of dams and canals born from New Deal funds. It was one of the most ambitious water systems ever built, and the San Joaquin Valley became, in the words of historian Kevin Starr, "the most productive unnatural environment on Earth."

Towns on the edge:
Slideshow

Playing cards and a small wad of dollar bills sit on a pool table at Los Kiki, a dusty pool hall at the end of the main drag in Mendota, Calif. A breeze blows through a broken window, past six men hunched over the table, beer bottles in their hands. It is middle of a Wednesday afternoon. A year ago, they would have been out planting and pruning in the vast fields of grapes, tomatoes, onions, and nut trees that fan out from the city limits. But this year, many of those fields are lying fallow, and the men at Los Kiki are out of work.

www.newsweek.com...

"But this Wild West financing meant anybody could end up here. That's what this thing did. It scrambled communities."

The Valley of Shadows

The roots of California's financial tangle are in the San Joaquin Valley. How it became the state's (and possibly the nation's) economic ground zero.

The "thing," of course, was the real-estate roller coaster that came screeching to a spectacular halt after a half-decade cycle. As housing prices in the Bay Area skyrocketed, many moved...

www.newsweek.com...

Life at the End of the Line

Just weeks ago, this was the site of the city's sprawling tent cities, a haven where Fresno's homeless population had for decades lived inside walls made of scrap metal and roofs made of plastic sheeting. Now, it is empty, its main tent city dismantled and nearly all of its 130 residents transferred into private apartments and motel rooms.

www.newsweek.com...



[edit on 25-8-2009 by burntheships]

CA is a lost cause and it's due to the 10 million illegals running wild and living off the taxpayers while the gov and legislators and judges are taking bribes to SUPPORT the illegals!!!

Hmmmm. I thought we were supposed to fall in the ocean.
Why do people seem to delight in predicting doom for California?
I'm sitting here looking out my office window at L.A. things look pretty darn good!
Yeah, we have our ups and downs, such is life. But I assure you rumors of death are greatly exaggerated, we ain't going down!

Originally posted by OldDragger
Hmmmm. I thought we were supposed to fall in the ocean.
Why do people seem to delight in predicting doom for California?
I'm sitting here looking out my office window at L.A. things look pretty darn good!
Yeah, we have our ups and downs, such is life. But I assure you rumors of death are greatly exaggerated, we ain't going down!

Agreed. I know here in Oregon we like to tell everyone that it's dark, dreary and rains all the time to scare people away from moving here. It helps keep Property fairly reasonable and the Job Market not as competitive. Maybe some Californians are jumping on the same bandwagon and telling tall tales of Doom and Gloom to discourage any more people moving to the Promised Land of Milk and Honey, where the weather is always warm and sunny (except that Den of Iniquity called San Francisco), the beaches are long, the women are like goddesses, and the finest of wines flow like rivers.

California is having as rough of a time as everywhere else is, but that doesn't mean it's curtains for California. We pay an inordinate amount of attention to California since they are the #1 Contributor to the US GDP (Gross Domestic Product), accounting for over 13% of the Nation's Economy (by comparison, Texas is 2nd at only 8%, while the Median Average for other States is 1-1.8%). What happens to California is going to trickle-down and have an impact on the rest of the United States, as such.

Speaking of the Economic Realities of California, they did experience a .4% Growth last year. That's not too impressive, but it's certainly not a negative figure like many States.

If Detroit and Michigan can adapt to difficult Economic Times and find new and creative ways to reinvent themselves, then it's not the End of the Line for California either.

For starters, I live in CA...and take no delight in predicting doom for the Golden State!

However, by all means she is in big trouble.

Toyota has never closed a U.S. assembly plant, but the suddenly struggling Japanese automaker has said that it would shudder the NUMMI factory in California, the only auto plant in the state, by next March.

news.autoglobe.com...