California, Golden State of Constant Crisis
California, the media like to tell us, faces an unprecedented fiscal crisis. The budget deficit is $40 billion and growing. The state is so short of cash that, within days, it may issue IOUs, rather than checks, to pay its bills. The Legislature, bitterly divided, seems unable to agree on a way out. The governor warns of “financial Armageddon.”
How should we prepare for apocalypse?
Before you hide under your bed, check out a few books by some of California’s leading journalistic interpreters of the last 160 years.
You probably won’t have to read very long before you’re reminded that big deficits and threats of fiscal crisis aren’t exactly new here. In fact, the notion of California as a place where current resources don’t meet present needs is at least as old as the Donner Party. And the state’s leaders have always been — in the eyes of journalists — fools and knaves, unable to resolve persistent financial problems.
Shine the Jewel, Don’t Smash It
I attended an event last week at the Los Angeles hotel everyone still calls the Century Plaza, and I was reminded of what a truly nice structure it is.
Walk into the interior, and you’re quickly put at ease. That’s a bit surprising, since the décor is sleek and the space is cavernous. Instead of being put off, you want to linger in its comfortable formality. You’d be forgiven if you sat and ordered a martini because there’s an honest mid-’60s glamour to the place that survived the hotel’s recent and very expensive makeover. Shaken, not stirred, please.
But outside is where the hotel is at its best. It’s a building that’s not ashamed to be simple. The front of the building makes that perfect arc, a curve that seems to reach out and embrace visitors. The room balconies form nice symmetrical rows. The entire appearance makes the hotel seem sturdy yet graceful.
And the building fits perfectly amid its neighbors. It faces and complements the 2000 Avenue of the Stars building directly across the street. The horizontal mass of the hotel nicely offsets the towers that have sprung up, and continue to spring up, in Century City.
How bad is this recession?
The worst since the Great Depression? Since the early 1980s? In our lifetimes? It’s too early to tell, of course, but so far in California this recession has been neither the mildest nor the worst during the past several decades. However, none of the economic signs on the horizon are encouraging; most of the leading indicators point south.
Employment is a lagging indicator of recessions, so the worst is probably yet to come. One-year into the downturn, California’s employment losses have been material, but not nearly as bad as the two most recent recessions. Ultimate job losses from the 1990–93 recession amounted to a stunning 4.1 percent of employment from the 1990 peak. To reach that level of employment, California would have to lose another 365,000 jobs, about half-again the number lost so far.
Just A Local Hero – “Sully” Comes Home
This past Saturday, the Town of Danville welcomed home Captain C.B. “Sully” Sullenberger for the first time since that heroic day when this courageous and talented pilot performed a “near miracle’, making a perfect landing in New York’s Hudson River that saved 155 lives.
My town rolled out the red carpet for Sullenberger, his family, and the several thousand guests who packed the town green. With the usual flourishes about to begin, I stood with my 11-year old son, an aviator-to-be someday, whose father, grandfather, and two uncles are pilots. In a family like this, you learn a lot more about the pinpoint precision, steady hand, and clear mind required with all flights – this one being nothing less than remarkable.
As Springsteen’s “Local Hero” passed through my head, the ceremony began. I thought about what “Sully” would say, how he would say it, and what the crowd’s reaction might be. I thought about when Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s Iron Man record appearing in the most consecutive games (then 2,130) in Major League Baseball history.