Results coming in on government by FIRE

The decisions that have created the enormous mess in real estate in the north San Joaquin Valley were made by corrupt local land-use authorities, corrupt state and federal regulatory agencies, with state and federal politicians working the backrooms, all for the benefit of finance, insurance and real estate.

“This year, we’re going to see prices drop in every market across the country for the first time since the Great Depression,” said Steven Smith, a property appraiser and consultant from San Bernardino. -- Modesto Bee, June 3, 2007.

This is the result of all those "win-win, public-private partnerships." This is the result of "One Voice" lobbying delegations. This is the result of public officials making the "hard, right decisions." This is the result of the wholesale demonization of common sense by rightwing radicals at all levels of government. This is the result of "shrinking government to where it can be drowned in a bathtub."

This is the result of a nationwide betrayal of the meaning of public service.

This is the result of American citizens total abdication of the responsibilities of that citizenship.

The possibility of economic depression creates the possibility of real fascism, real resistance, and real social unrest. Nice going, FIRE.

We here in the north San Joaquin Valley have been recently bedazzled by the illusion of "higher learning," as the great American economist, Thorstein Veblen called university education, in the form of UC Merced, the most compelling anchor tenant for reckless urbanization to hit the Valley since the Southern Pacific Octopus.

But, what of the "lower learning"? Those of us of a certain age remember the riverbanks crowded with the campfires of migrant farmworkers whose native language was English. We remember hoboes on our creeks and under our bridges. We remember working tramps passing by on railroad gondolas and in boxcars.

The Great Depression lasted a long time in the San Joaquin Valley and I believe it haunts us even now. And for the fear of it, we may have contributed -- given the interlocking nature of finance, insurance and real estate -- to its return.

The only thing to fear is fear itself, FDR said. Will we be lucky enough to find another such leader, to lead us into world war? Because, when the newspapers say the economy is bad, it is much, much worse than we or the newspaper want to admit.

The "lower learning" is what Roosevelt called the "mother sense" good politicians had in the depths of the Depression, regardless of gender. It was a sense of care and protection for their constituents, which would be about the exact opposite of the economic rape and pillage our politicians have aided and abetted in our communities in the Valley. It would have been the sense that dominated Huey Long, FDR's greatest rival on the left. One of the greatest, most contradictory examples in American history of "mother sense" was Lyndon Johnson, who could never really decide between his heroes Long and Roosevelt and who did so much to complete the New Deal in the midst of the Vietnam War. The greatest of all in our livespan was Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let us turn to song, as they did on the banks of the Tuolumne across from the Modesto Reds ballpark in the Fifties, where I heard them singing every evening during the gigantic Cling Peach Harvest-- so many guitars, so much chat and the sounds of forks and spoons hitting plates, the sounds of children -- the sounds of the human camp in the Great Depression still going on then, for those of us fortunate in our lower learning opportunities.

When I ask memory to speak, I turn to Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel.

Questions of 1934

The tearing up
and moving out
bothered little kids
quite a bit
especially Jody Penshaw
he would ask
every night
Mama,
where will we sleep
tomorrow night
and who could blame him
that question was on
the mind of every
mother
and father too
though the men pretended
it didn't upset them
they had to concentrate
on that Road 66
that was running
through their minds

--Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel, A prince Albert Wind, A Mother Road Production, 1994.

Buy it!

Bill Hatch
---------------------

6-3-07
Modesto Bee
Realty red flags...J.N. Sbranti
http://www.modbee.com/business/story/13651010p-14244449c.html

A bleak picture was painted of the region’s housing market at a recent conference for real estate appraisers...Appraisal Institute’s Northern California Chapter focused on housing trends and the slumping real estate market throughout the Northern San Joaquin Valley. Statistics released recently by building and real estate associations also show a troubled market:
• Home prices falling: The worst of the housing price slump may not be over...home values throughout the country will fall 25 percent to 50 percent below what they were at their peak...the median-priced new home in Merced County was $310,990, which was nearly 22 percent below March 2006...
• Slow home sales: It’s taking much longer for homeowners to sell their property compared with last year, according to the Central Valley Association of Realtors. New home sales also are very sluggish.
• Why home buyers commute: ...prices drop $6,000 per mile
• Investors gone: Many of the homes purchased during the region’s real estate boom years were bought by investors and second-home buyers, but such buyers have disappeared...
• Exotic mortgages: untradi- tional loan terms...“These buyers took shortcuts to homeownership with ‘stated income loan.’ Today they’re called ‘liar loans,’"...“The ‘toxic’ mortgages taken out in 2004, 2005 and 2006 are resetting, causing problems for many who gambled on continued appreciation,” Race said. “They were playing ‘house poker,’ and many are ‘all in’ right now.”
• Subprime loans in trouble: About 18 percent of mortgages in the Northern San Joaquin Valley are subprime loans...
• Foreclosure homes for sale: Homeowners at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure often try to sell before it’s too late...there were 1,733 homes for sale in the Northern San Joaquin Valley that were in process of foreclosure or already had been taken back by the lender
• Loans tougher to get: Rising foreclosure rates on subprime loans are expected to make mortgages harder to get...
• Building permits decline: The Northern San Joaquin Valley building boom is over. Merced County building permits fell 64.6 percent during the first four months of 2007, compared with the first four months of 2006.
• Realtors quitting: Membership is shrinking in the Central Valley Association of Realtors... a drop of 800, or 24 percent.
• Time to buy: “The best time to buy anything is when nobody else wants it,” Zagaris said. “Next year we’re still going to be in this real estate correction.”