Posted on 06/29/2009 6:26:38 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Are we experiencing the worst economic downturn since the Depression? In most California cities, it looks that way. In most Texas cities, probably not.
That's one story emerging from a new Brookings Institution analysis examining the performance of the nation's largest metropolitan areas over the course of the current recession.
Notwithstanding the attention lavished on the national economic figures emanating from Washington each week, we're not undergoing one uniform recession nationwide. The effects on our 100 largest metropolitan areas -- the combined city/suburban labor and housing markets that collectively represent three-quarters of the U.S. economy -- have ranged from glancing blow to body slam.
Let's start with the Riverside-San Bernardino metro area. As of March 2009, jobs there are down nearly 8% from their peak, and home prices have dropped 28% in the last year alone. On these and other indicators, Riverside ranks among the five hardest-hit metro economies in the nation. The Los Angeles and Oxnard metro areas rank among the bottom 20 in a broad index of recent economic performance.
By comparison, the economy in San Antonio is humming. Jobs are down less than half a percent from their peak, and home prices have risen over the last year. Austin, Dallas, Houston and even the border cities of McAllen and El Paso have seen only small effects from the downturn.
How can these areas perform so differently? It turns out that a lot depends on what a metro area's firms and workers do, and what its housing market did in the lead-up to the crash.
In the nation's manufacturing belt, which rings the Great Lakes from upstate New York to eastern Minnesota, many metro areas have suffered job declines over multiple decades. This recession has accelerated those losses dramatically in areas that depend most on the auto industry.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The author claims that large, economically diversified cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco may recover as the housing market stabilizes and consumer confidence rebounds.
the underlying Q is whether LA and San Fran will recover from being in the land of fruits and nuts..............
Liberal Leadership = Failure. Just look at the economic problems and the voting patterns in the United States. They are one in the same. The biggest problem is that the cancer that is Marxism will spread as the ship sinks and the (Democ)rats abandon the ship.
Well, you can’t have any economic recovery without jobs. It’s really pretty simple. From May, 2008 to May, 2009 the U-6 (unemployment indicator) went from 9.4 to 16.4 across the nation. I’m not saying that some spots don’t have it worse than others, but let’s get real.
“NOTE: Marginally attached workers are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not looking currently for a job. Persons employed part time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule. For more information, see ‘BLS introduces new range of alternative unemployment measures,’ in the October 1995 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.”
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm
It was said that a picture is worth a thousand words.
Look at this map, I think it is:
(look at each month from July 08 thru Mar 09)
Job Loss/Gain 2007-2009 by county by month-
http://www.slate.com/id/2216238/
This explains it graphically.
Not any time soon. a starter home should run about 35 to 40k-
also the bulk of the residential mortgage crunch wont hit til 2010 to 2011.
And Teleprompter’s new taxes havent hit yet
“a lot depends on what a metro area’s firms and workers do, and what its housing market did in the lead-up to the crash.”
Dad’s cousin, I call him an Uncle, was recently pointing out that his home, along the eastern half of the NY/Penn border, as well as most of rural Northeastern America, has been stagnant or near-recessed for so long that Bawney Fwank’s Fannie’s bubble-burst last fall didn’t make that much of an impact. Doubt there’s been any measurable, lasting economic growth hereabouts since the 70s.
Who wrote this, and what have they done with the real LA Times???
texas is a pro-business state.
i was in houston during xmas and observed a lot of new construction.
california is controlled by unions and trial lawyers and is anti-business.
There is a very important concept, and the sooner we realize it, the better off we all shall be.
“Socialism only works when everything must be rationed because of shortage. Since such shortage is usually a rarity, socialists are forced to argue that shortage exists, with little or not evidence, and also to artificially create shortages where none exist, to justify their philosophy.”
This means that almost by definition, socialists embrace *both* pessimism and the belief that people are inherently good.
The pessimism always assumes that “We are running out” (peak oil, minerals, forest, moderate temperatures, etc.), so we must do with less, reduce our prosperity, suffer more, and redistribute the little that remains. Wealth and abundance are, by definition, hoarding. “You should not enjoy water in America, because there are people in Africa that do not have enough water.”
However, their belief that people are inherently good is even more repugnant, because they extrapolate this to mean that, “If people are inherently good, their leaders are the best of them, and so their leaders (and government) should be as strong as possible.”
(Other philosophies, that hold that people, as a rule, are either bad, or at best, weak, prefer very limited government, based on the idea that “The government that governs least, governs best.”)
Once you understand where socialists are coming from, what they do makes more sense, at least in relationship to their worldview, if not common sense, or with any shred of human decency.
Socialists often find themselves backed into a corner. Reality itself disproves their philosophy, over and over again, by creating abundance *and* shortage, prosperity and poverty, success and failure, individuality and community, in a very unequal and powerful way. Socialists try to overcome this by ignoring reality, even when confronted by repeated failure.
Socialists rationalize their failures in several ways. First by blaming those that point out the failure, while insisting that failure is not failure. Second, by asserting that scarcity itself caused the failure, that only with ever increasing funding and support will the failure stop being a failure. Third, that too much is demanded of the failure, so it should do less and less, until it stops being a failure.
And this can be a murderous notion on the part of socialists. Because in their minds, the #1 reason that their ideas fail is because people get in the way. This always seems to be the end result of socialism, that there are too many people. If there were far fewer people, then socialism would work.
So the end result of socialism is invariably mass murder on an immense scale. This is why socialists support abortion, euthanasia, birth control, support genocidal dictators, and pray that a great plague will exterminate billions of people. Importantly, and at the same time, socialists cannot abide killing an individual, even a murderer, because they see him, as an individual, as inherently good.
“Socialism only works when everything must be rationed because of shortage. Since such shortage is usually a rarity, socialists are forced to argue that shortage exists, with little or not evidence, and also to artificially create shortages where none exist, to justify their philosophy.”
As far as artificial shortages go, what faster way to create shortage than by overspending, and making grandiose promises beyond even that?
This is why Obama is more than willing to spend trillions of dollars that the government doesn’t have, and to promise dozens more trillions of dollars in the future, that are *impossible* to repay. By doing so, artificial poverty is created.
Poverty and shortage. In a land of prosperity and abundance. All to justify a philosophy. A philosophy more suited for life on the Moon.
What!
I live in Los Angeles and home prices have been little affected in the inner city. Prices have definitely stalled but homes are retaining their value.
Don’t know where you are coming up with the $35 to 40K figure. But homes in LA begin around $200,000 and up. $200,000 is scraping the bottom of the barrel.
A modest home begins around $400,000.
That statement is false to begin with.
Many products are in shortage all the time. All socialism does is exacerbate the shortage because it removes the natural incentive of profit. The socialized health care facilities of the UK and Canada have LONGER wait times (greater shortage) than does the US system.
Socialism makes shortages worse, not better.
That statement is false to begin with.
Many products are in shortage all the time. All socialism does is exacerbate the shortage because it removes the natural incentive of profit. The socialized health care facilities of the UK and Canada have LONGER wait times (greater shortage) than does the US system.
Socialism makes shortages worse, not better.
That statement is false to begin with.
Many products are in shortage all the time. All socialism does is exacerbate the shortage because it removes the natural incentive of profit. The socialized health care facilities of the UK and Canada have LONGER wait times (greater shortage) than does the US system.
Socialism makes shortages worse, not better.
On the flip side I live in San Antonio and cannot find a job
If this is Monday, I must be on Jupiter, and my roller skates need repair.
The former belief (people are good) does not remotely imply the latter statements. The above are two non-sequiturs.
Most people simply want to quietly live their lives, and treat others fairly and honestly. Most of those drawn to goobermint want to control others, and believe they know the way that others ought to live.
Socialists invariably fall into the latter category, where the "educated" or the "experts" make the decisions based on their superior wisdom for the rest of us to live by. They most assuredly don't believe most people are "good" or they'd leave them the hell alone - "good" people would make the right choices.
“Not any time soon. a starter home should run about 35 to 40k-”
That amount doesn’t even cover the up front fees before building permit fees going into plan check.
Try $250k for a dinky old home in the ghetto!
Funny - I extrapolate people are inherently good to mean that if left alone then the majority of the time they do the right thing. Govt interferes with the “leaving them alone” part so they rebel against the intrusion.
Intrusion and regulation begets avoidance, collusion, and subversion.
This is why I believe I’m more libertarian than conservative - I just want everyone to leave me and mine alone - and I’ll do likewise.
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