If California were a big furry dog, its owner would have a clogged vacuum cleaner. That's because California is SHEDDING JOBS at a fast and furious pace.
What's left behind is just as worthless as a bunch of dog hair on your carpet: a big fat mess that needs to be cleaned up.
Oh if it were only as easy as plugging in the vacuum. But instead, our State Controller has warned that California is down to "PLAN D" on the checklist of paying bills.
- Cash reserves are piddling
- Special funds that have been borrowed from are tapped out
- No one in the private sector will lend the state money at a reasonable rate (I wonder why?...we call this having "no assets" in the mortgage world).
Since a state cannot file bankruptcy, part of plan D is to issue IOU's. Not only to vendors and landlords and schools, but also for taxpayer refunds.
Upon hearing this, most Californians have wondered aloud, "Can we pay our taxes with an IOU?"
You wish. Not happening.
And just like a rampaging disease, everyone you talk to either is either sick, knows someone who is sick, or is afraid they will be the next to catch the highly feared "no jobitis".
Where will it end?
- College graduates so discouraged they have stopped trying to find a job
- Older Americans who got the axe first... because they could easily be replaced with someone younger who needed less benefits, and who would work for less money
- The thousands out of work because their company just shut its doors. Forever.
- Those industries that are still around, but operating on a skeleton crew after laying off most employees
- People near retirement age who had no intention of taking retirement, but either threw in the towel, or were forced to retire early
If we believe in free market economics, we must also believe that these people will somehow eventually be re-distributed to jobs that will serve our battered economy in a better way. That will fit better in a new era of constrained spending.
Already, enrollment at our colleges and universities is soaring.
I am wondering what those NEW jobs will be?
Just like the guy who can't figure out why his big furry dog keeps dropping gobs of hair. And how long his vacuum cleaner will last.
Do you think those jobs should be "created" by the government? Or do you think creating jobs is the REALLY the first cousin to the bailouts (handouts?) being bestowed upon the companies of America?
Written by Janet Guilbault, Mortgage Lending Expert Based Out of the San Francisco Bay Area
Comments(41)