The unemployment statistics for October at the state level were released today, and as it turns out California lost the third-most jobs in the nation at 26,400.  Only Washington and Florida lost more.  This puts the unemployment rate in the state at 8.2%.  This is a 2.5% increase from one year ago, the largest year-over-year increase since 1982, the last major recession.  Worse, in regions of the Central Valley, that number is much higher.  Unemployment in Fresno County is 11.2%.  In San Joaquin County, 11.1%.  In Merced County, 11.7%.  In Tulare County, 11.8%.  And in Stanislaus County, 11.8%.  Those are desperate numbers.

The loss of income tax revenue along with the dip in property taxes thanks to cascading foreclosures is leading more cities to the brink of bankruptcy.

Now two more California cities – Rio Vista and Isleton – are considering bankruptcy protection as an option as they face large budget shortfalls and staggering debt.

While experts caution against ringing the alarm bells just yet, they do say tough economic times could push municipalities already on the brink over the edge.

“I think it’s quite possible municipal bankruptcies could become somewhat more common but will still be very rare,” said Jason Dickerson, budget and policy analyst at the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office. “There are more municipalities that will look at what it means.”

We need a massive fiscal stimulus as soon as humanly possible.  And that needs to include aid to state and local governments, particularly here in California.  We are right on the edge.

Crossposted from the California High Speed Rail Blog

California newspapers, the LA Times excepted, have been using their editorial pages to try to convince Californians that somehow, an economic downturn caused by overdependence on oil should not be addressed by job-creating projects that would provide renewably powered transportation and enable economic growth over the long term. Most recently it’s the Redding Record-Searchlight making the argument that somehow Prop 1A would hurt California’s budget and economy, when in fact it is a necessary part of the solution.

This is Shasta Dam under construction in 1942:

It remains a key part not just of the state of California’s overall water storage and provision system, but was crucial to the Redding economy during the 1930s and in the years since.

It was also a Depression-era project. Built at a time when California barely had enough money to balance its own budget. In 1933 California passed a bond measure allowing money to be spent on the dam – $170 million, a significant sum in those days. By 1935 California had secured federal funds to help begin construction on the dam. The jobs created by the dam project and the long-term value of the Central Valley Project were considerable. Redding got badly needed jobs as well as flood control. California got jobs and a base for long-term agriculture, an industry that remains significant to this day in Redding.

Had California rejected the 1933 Shasta Dam bond, chances are the dam would not have been built for a decade or two. Redding would have lost out on those crucial jobs in the depths of the Depression and California agriculture might not have had the stable water source it needed to be productive for these last 70 years.

We can go on. The Golden Gate Bridge funding fell through after the 1929 stock market crash – so voters in the North Coast counties that comprise the Golden Gate Bridge District had to approve bonds, which they did in November 1930. Similar bonds had to be sold for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, also in the depths of the Depression. The two bridge projects not only provided jobs when they were desperately needed but enabled massive economic growth in the Bay Area after World War II.

The argument that we cannot build high speed rail because of the economic crisis or credit crunch simply doesn’t hold water. The economic downturn is an argument FOR high speed rail. Worse, the Redding Record-Searchlight’s reasons for not supporting Prop 1A make little sense:

An alluring investment in 21st-century transportation for a growing state? Yes. It’s also $10 billion that California doesn’t have.

Of course California doesn’t have $10 billion – which is why we’re going to borrow it. The state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst has determined we actually can afford Prop 1A. Repayment lasts over a 40-year term. The jobs, tax revenue and economic activity created by high speed rail combined with the savings on oil consumption and carbon emissions are likely to outweigh the annual debt service cost.

If it were up to HSR deniers like the Redding Record-Searchlight we’d still be in the Depression. We wouldn’t have the dams and bridges that made our late 20th century prosperity possible. And if we follow their advice we will have a hard time getting out of whatever we’re going to call this economic crisis.

We’re all still choking on the speed and enormity of the trillion-dollar bailout about to be given to executives on Wall Street instead of to homeowners who got snookered into teaser rates and ARMs.  It’s important to note that there is another way on this.  Faced with a collapse of the financial markets in the 1930s, the solution was not seen in paying off the investor class for the bad decisions they’ve made, but paying workers to produce and create, and building up the backbone of the economy again, allowing prosperity to trickle up instead of down.  We are at another crossroads across the nation and in California, and yet the answer is so clear.  We have an imminent fight to mitigate the effects of global warming, and whoever solves this puzzle will not only save the world trillions in collateral damage from the disastrous fallout, but make a tidy profit besides.  In fact, as a recent study has shown, the effort here in California will unquestionably improve the long-term prospects for the economy.

Costly as it may seem, California’s mandate to cut climate-altering exhausts from vehicles and industry by nearly one-third in the next 12 years actually will boost the economy, a state analysis released Wednesday predicts.

The improvements in fuel and energy efficiency and extra clean-technology jobs needed to achieve the required 30 percent emissions reduction would result in a net household savings of $400 to $500 a year and a net 0.2 percent or $4 billion gain in the total annual output of goods and services, according to the report.

The view that says we have to freeze short-term cash outlays to stop the catastrophic effects of climate change ought to be discredited on this of all days as reductivist and shortsighted.  The cost of the kinds of damage you would see from a sustained rise in global temperature is so astronomical that investing in green technology is incredibly efficient in the long run.  And it’s a jobs program to boot:

Most sectors of the economy, including transportation and warehousing, agriculture, forestry, manufacturing and construction, would by 2020 see moderate increases in employment and production as a result of investing in the more expensive but efficient building designs, lighting, vehicles and equipment, the study said.

The major exception would be the electric power companies that would experience about 16 percent less production and about 14 percent fewer jobs.

Which of course would be more than offset by the increase in jobs in the same sector through solar and wind and biomass and tidal and geothermal production.

The financial mess puts into stark relief the need for a long-view approach to the economic future.  Investments that seem unaffordable now hold massive potential in just a few short years.  We have to be bold and become the center for green jobs in the United States and around the world.  In uncertain times, it’s the only way to secure California’s future.

The latest economic numbers for the state are over at the Department of Finance, and they are as expected.

From July 2007 to July 2008, the state lost 75,900 nonfarm jobs, a 0.5-percent drop, with the state’s beleaguered housing industry continuing to be the focus of most of the losses.  Employment rose 47,000 in educational and health services; 39,300 in government; 9,200 in leisure and hospitality; 6,200 in professional and business services; and 900 in natural resources and mining. Of the year’s growth in government, more than three-fourths-29,800-was in local government.  Over the year, employment fell by 83,100 in construction; 35,400 in financial activities; 30,900 in manufacturing; 20,500 in trade, transportation, and utilities; 7,800 in information; and 800 in other services.

The state’s unemployment rate rose to 7.3 percent in July-a 12-year high.  July’s unemployment rate was up 0.3 percentage point from a revised June unemployment rate of 7.0 percent and 1.9 percentage points from July 2007’s unemployment rate of 5.4 percent.  This large year-over-year increase will most likely be revised down next February.  The national unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage point to 5.7 percent in July, leaving the gap between the state and national rates at 1.6 percentage points.

And of course, the national numbers in August were even worse, so this has nowhere to go but down right now.

More important, the General Fund numbers for August were $124 million dollars below forecast, with personal income tax revenues down $67 million and sales tax receipts down $222 million.  In essence this means that the deficit is even worse than advertised, and the projections to bring it into balance are likely to be bogus if and when a budget is signed, provided that the economy doesn’t rebound quickly.

I listened to this NPR report yesterday, which put the budget delay into an entirely new context.  In Sacramento it’s a fight between competing ideologies; but in rural health clinics, at community colleges, all over the state, it’s the difference between staying in school and dropping out.  The difference between getting medical care and finding it out of reach.  The difference between keeping your clinic running and having to shutter it.  These are deeply harrowing personal stories, and there are millions of them, and they’re only getting worse.  For some reason, while a few of these stories have been told in Capitol committee hearings, I haven’t seen Democrats amplify one of their voices – not one – through a television ad describing the stakes of the budget delay, Yacht Party intransigence and the need to abolish 2/3 or throw enough Yacht Party members out so that 2/3 is achieved.  What exactly are they waiting for?  At least you could message test this on local cable and the Web.

You can’t just expect people to figure these things out for themselves.

Over-reliance on multiple economic bubbles has led this state to a worse job profile than Ohio and a state government utterly incapacitated to do anything about it.

SACRAMENTO — California’s unemployment rate climbed to a 12-year high last month as the state continued to bleed jobs in the real estate and construction industries.

The rate jumped to 7.3% in July from 7% in June. It was even worse in the Inland Empire, where the unemployment rate is approaching 9%, the state reported Friday.

“The depth and magnitude of the job losses are accelerating, clearly,” said Esmael Adibi, director of economic research at Chapman University in Orange.

Adibi and other economists believe unemployment will continue rising next year even if the economy stabilizes. “Unfortunately, the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator,” he said.

Once the economy improves, people who have fallen out of the job market will jump back in, which will keep the unemployment rate well into the 7% range through much of next year, he said.

California has lost jobs in 10 of the past 12 months, and the rate is 2 points higher than it was just a year ago.  

I think it’s very clear how we got here.  Nationally, multinational corporations have moved manufacturing jobs overseas and narrowed the job market to few options beyond the service sector.  The knowledge economy and the housing boom provided an artificial cushion, but when they went bust there were no alternatives for the middle class.  And when the legislature is so sclerotic and logjammed that they can’t respond to any crisis, the cruelties of the free market take over.

What’s also clear is that they way out of this is with a sustainable new economy based on green-collar manufacturing jobs that stay right here.  The need to innovate our way out of the climate crisis provides a stellar opportunity that is starting to be realized.

Companies will build two solar power plants in California that together will put out more than 12 times as much electricity as the largest such plant today, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale.

The plants will cover 12.5 square miles of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.

The power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The utility said that it expected the new plants, which will use photovoltaic technology to turn sunlight directly into electricity, to be competitive with other renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar thermal plants, which use the sun’s heat to boil water.

“These market-leading projects we have in California are something that can be extrapolated around the world,” Jennifer Zerwer, a spokeswoman for the utility, said. “It’s a milestone.”

This is about 57 times the largest photovoltaic plant currently in the United States.  Without the state mandate it simply would not be built.  So there’s a role to play for the state in encouraging job growth in the green sector.  This is a time with a lot of suffering, but with proper effort that could turn around.  That, and letting the government actually do their job.

By Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

As I wrote the other day, the California Chamber of Commerce has come out with their annual list of “job-killer” bills.  The list only targets bills by Democrats, and the bills are all acts that would help the people of California by improving the environment, worker wage and safety, public health, etc.

The California Chamber of commerce is a lobbying association.  They represent their members: businesses, many of which are large corporations.  This is about private greed vs. the public good.  The Chamber’s job is to convince the legislature to pass laws that enrich the owners of the corporations that fund them.  Nothing more, nothing less.  

If that involves convincing the public of something, then they do that.  Hence the label “job killer.”

But the companies represented by the Chamber are the real job killers.  They outsource jobs to other countries.  They lay people off when they calculate it will maximize their profits.  They employ as many people as needed to maximize the income to and wealth of their owners.  Nothing more, nothing less.

The very idea that the Chamber of Commerce would care if something is a “job killer” is ludicrous when you understand their function.  They are a lobbying association that represents the interests of companies that eliminate as many jobs as they want to, at their discretion, and then use some of the money that would have been paid in salaries to pay the Chamber to convince us to support their interests — and the rest of it to enrich themselves, which is their primary interest.  

That is how corporations work in the modern, “free-market” world that we find ourselves in since the Reagan era.  Not for the public benefit, not necessarily even for the company’s benefit, but for the financial benefit of the executives and (some of) the owners of the company.

Private greed vs. public good.  Nothing more, nothing less.

So there isn’t really an argument about whether the “job-killer” bills on this year’s list really do or do not “kill jobs.”  That is not the point of the label.  Instead it is up to us to understand who we are hearing from.  If we get caught up in arguing about whether these bills create more jobs than they might cost, we’re missing the point.  Their arguments are propaganda with no basis in reality, designed to do nothing more than sway opinion.  The point of the “job-killer” label is to make people afraid for their jobs, not to actually argue that these bills will or will not actually “kill” any jobs.

For example, a bill to require energy efficiency in new housing construction obviously creates many new jobs in the new, innovative “green” industries.  But such a bill might lower the profits that go into the pockets of the executives and owners of some of the companies that the California Chamber of Commerce represents.  (The LA Times on Wednesday said the Chamber’s agenda “seems dominated by development and energy interests”.)  And, again, it is irrelevant whether the bill might or might not really cost jobs in some of those companies.  The Chamber doesn’t care.  That is not their function.

The use of the label “job killers” is about scaring the public.  Nothing more, nothing less.  It is about fear.  It is about creating a climate in which people who are afraid for their jobs will go along with measures designed to enrich the owners of the companies that the Chamber — a lobbying association — represents.

So please don’t be fooled.  Don’t be swayed by propaganda designed to make you afraid.  As I wrote above, it is up to us to understand who we are hearing from.

Click through to Speak Out California

(Congratulations to Asm. Dave Jones for winning the annual “Job Killer” Sweepstakes. Jones leads the pack with 4 bills on the list of bills that protect workers and Californians. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

By Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

The California Chamber of Commerce has released its annual list of what it calls “job-killer bills.”  

Why is it that the Chamber’s job-killer bills hit-list seems to only target Democrats? Not a single targeted bill belongs to a Republican. “Bad bills”, like those designed to protect public health, climate concerns or consumer rights legislation, are all authored by Democrats.  The chamber has always been a lobbying organization, but it has gotten so bad that the Chamber seems to have devolved into little more than just one more fear-mongering Republican Party front group.

The “job killers” on this list are any laws that protect consumers, reduce energy use, require worker protections or anything else that might hinder a very few corporate executives from reeling in another several-hundred-million dollars a year.  The jobs that are “killed” are those of lobbyists for the energy industry.  

The first group on the “job killer” list is bills that ask for any kind of energy or water conservation or environmental standards for new housing construction.  For example, AB 1085.  The bill describes itself as undating,

“building design and construction standards and energy conservation standards for new residential and nonresidential buildings to reduce wasteful, uneconomic, inefficient, or unnecessary consumption of energy.”

But the Chamber’s job-killer list says this

Substantially increases the cost of housing and development in California by implementing significant energy efficiency measures

Now, think about this — if it costs less to heat and cool your house, this saves you money.  If you want to add energy-saving technology like solar electric or water-heating on your house this creates good jobs.  Maybe Exxon won’t benefit as much from this as the new, upcoming solar industry, but heck, the solar companies aren’t coughing up the big bucks and providing the good jobs to the Chamber of Commerce’s lobbyists!

The next group of “job killers” is “workplace mandates” like paid sick leave for employees, disability pay for on-the-job injuries or providing California’s citizens with health insurance.

Ah yes, the money businesses pay out to provide sick leave and disability pay for those pesky employees “kills jobs.”  They could hire so many more people if they didn’t have to actually pay them and keep them from getting injured!  This is one of the oldest arguments in the books.  Slaves are always cheaper.  But why do we have an economy if not to provide US with good jobs and other benefits?  Do we have an economy so a very few corporate CEOs get all the money and benefits, or do we have an economy so the people can also get good pay and benefits and safe working conditions?  The evidence (this, for example) is clear that good wages and benefits do not hurt jobs or the economy.

Then there are “economic development barriers” like asking online retailers to collect the same sales taxes that you local business owner collects, asking the wealthy to help pay for our schools, raising fire standards in high-risk fire areas and protecting our environment.  I guess the online retailers must be paying the Chamber more this year than the retailers who have to actually rent storefronts and pay wages in your town.  I can’t think of any other reason why SOME retailers should collect sales taxes and others should be exempt.  Doesn’t this change the playing field waaayyy in favor of online retailers and harm the prospects of businesses that actually set up in our local communities?  God forbid we ask them to help pay for our schools and police and fire protection!

This “job killer” list is nothing more than the use of fear to scare us into allowing a few rich corporations to have their way.  By saying that protecting workers or the environment might “cost jobs” they are trying to make us afraid to ask these big corporations to live up to their responsibilities to our communities.  How long will we let these lobbyists make us afraid?

Click through to Speak Out California