California Economy - When will it turn around? (sale, 2009)

[Boompa]

Originally Posted by FurnitureMan

When does everyone think the California economy will get better? What will cause it to get better? Pent up demand? Resurgence in housing? The pendulum swings the other way?

Housing is a bad one, they need a moratorium on new houses. Otherwise the builders will be plowing up farmland to glut the market again. California needs jobs producing products. Closing the Nummi Plant in Newark was totally unecessary.

[Den Mathias]

[quote=Charles;9899317]You mean, Californians should work for $0.50/hour?

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Illegals make some things in California affordable to outsiders. Imagine if Dole paid $15-$45/hr to (unionized) Americans to pick oranges and strawberries. Think Homer in Iowa would buy them?


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Nope. It's what the government can do for me; otherwise it's fired.



I believe some of the workers in China just work for room and board. So their hourly rate is zero! Kind of hard to ask a Californian to work for that?

[FurnitureMan]

No, I don't think they just work for room & board. They get room & board, plus a small salary. That's where the newspapers don't correct compare the wages in China to the wages in the US. In the US, the wage may be $12/hr, but one has to pay for his own apartment. In China, the wage may be $2/hr, but that includes the company apartment. Adjusted, that would make the China wage $3.4/hr ($2 plus $250/mo divided 176 hrs/mo, assuming a simple apartment would cost $250/month rent). The cost of living is lower in China, so the rents are lower, thus the comparative advantage for labor intensive products. Unless we close the borders to trade, it would be hard to keep low tech manufacturing jobs in the US/California.

[Den Mathias]

[quote=FurnitureMan;9902843]No, I don't think they just work for room & board. They get room & board, plus a small salary.


Actually, I was referring to the "inmates", I mean citizens, in China that are basically slaves. There are some factories that are glorified prisons.

[Jonotastic]

I think it will start turning around in 2 years, but who knows how long it will take to fully recover...could be 5 or 10 years.

[UB50]

Universal healthcare would lead some companies back to the USA. It's the only thing that makes us noncompetitive with Europe and Canada.

If we had Universal heathcare, I'll bet a lot of "runaway" tv production would come back to the USA.

[Quatermass]

Originally Posted by UB50

Universal healthcare would lead some companies back to the USA. It's the only thing that makes us noncompetitive with Europe and Canada.

Aside from the fact that we're noncompetitive with Europe and Canada only in an alternate reality, universal health care had better bring a lot of really huge companies over here, because the new taxes that will be imposed upon small-to-medium-sized businesses will force them to prune their payrolls to a bare minimum or shutter altogether. This would be shortly after the massive new, unfunded Medicaid mandates blow California-sized holes in the budgets of every state. The idea is to turn the economy around, not smash its kneecaps.

To be fair, the president may or may not have addressed this in his presser last night; we're still waiting for the speech to come back from the cryptographers.

[Weekend Traveler]

The economy of California will never really improve. Demographics is the key. How can the State of California get better when a large amount of the educated middle class is leaving and is being replaced by millions of illegal aliens from south of the border who have a 8th grade education?

[Boompa]

Originally Posted by FurnitureMan

I started to watch my spending sometime last year. Have all of you cut back on your spending, or at least look long and hard before buying something? Have you refused to pay full retail for an item, waiting to buy on sale, coupons, or ask for a discount? Since the consumer is 66% of the US economy, it will be hard for us to pull out of the recession if everyone is cutting back.

Wouldn't it be better for America if you shopped at small businesses rather than saving yourself a nickel by buying foriegn goods or patronizing those big boxes that drive their suppliers to China and Indonesia, like WALMART?

[FurnitureMan]

True, but small businesses still buy goods from China. They just buy the goods from wholesalers. You are helping the local retailer (and their sales jobs), but really do nothing to help local manufacturers.