Anyhow disregard this news as a stock trader because "the charts are excellent" but I just like to pass along some stories from "main street" for amusement. [Apr 3: The Current (and Coming) Disassociation Between Economics and Stock Markets] Remember, Wall Street is not Main Street until it comes to bailouts, and then "we're all in this together so please send us your tax dollars".
Via Bloomberg
- The drought in California’s Central Valley is so severe that it’s drying up money for haircuts. One customer waited six months to get a $10 haircut, then asked to have his head shaved so he could wait another six months, said Armando Ramirez, a barber in Firebaugh.
- “People come in and say, ‘Hey Armando, how about I give you a dollar for a cut, it’s all I have,’” said Ramirez, 63, who has owned his shop for four decades. “Saturday is supposed to be my busiest day, but I’m lucky if I get one customer before I go to lunch.” Ramirez, the barber, said he tried to sell his business earlier this year but didn’t find any takers.
- Businesses are casualties of the three-year drought that is forcing farmers to leave hundreds of thousands of acres fallow in the Central Valley, the semi-arid agricultural region running 400 miles (600 kilometers) down the middle of the state. The drought may cost the valley 35,000 jobs and $959 million in lost revenue this year.
- “I’ve never seen a drought this bad,” said Bob Diedrich, who has been farming near Firebaugh, 140 miles southeast of San Francisco, since 1973. “It’s putting a chokehold on us.”
- The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in February cut off water deliveries to Central Valley farmers for the first time in 15 years because reservoir levels were low.
- “Our mom-and-pop shops are hurting,” said Hope Morikawa, director of the Hanford Chamber of Commerce, 30 miles south of Fresno, which has lost dozens of its 700 members this year and began offering its services for free.
- Stacey Marshall can look out the window of her women’s clothing boutique in Hanford and see four empty storefronts. “We’ve lost the scrapbook store, a cigar store and the bakery,” said Marshall, whose sales are dropping at a rate of about 13 percent this year. “The wine cellar and Boogie’s, a restaurant, closed.”
- Snowpack runoff is forecast to be 66 percent of average in the year ending Sept. 30, following years of 58 percent and 51 percent.
- In the heart of Central Valley, half of the 30 communities in Fresno County had unemployment rates above 20 percent in March, when the state rate was 11.5 percent.
- Farmers in the Westlands Water District, which includes Fresno County and part of Kings County, are planting about 200,000 acres, down from 500,000 in wetter years, said Sarah Woolf, spokeswoman. It’s the largest agricultural irrigation district in the U.S., she said.
- California’s agricultural output ranks highest among U.S. states. Now some Central Valley residents are going hungry. “People don’t have enough to eat, and there are no jobs,” said Phyllis Baltierra, 74, the community services coordinator in Firebaugh, where unemployment is 28 percent. More than 1,000 people showed up for a food giveaway in March, compared with 200 in July or August, she said.
- “We’re down to bottom here,” Baltierra said. “People are moving in with each other because they can’t afford to live by themselves.”
- Mayor Robert Silva is helping organize food drives in nearby Mendota, where 85 percent of jobs are related to agriculture and unemployment exceeds 40 percent. “My community is suffering,” Silva said. “There are a lot of tragedies going on here.”
