California's government worker problem

Even though California's government is nearly bankrupt and must pay its bills using IOUs, its workforce continues to grow. A piece in today's LAT by Evan Halper explains how and why that happens. How the piece got published in the left-leaning LAT is a puzzle, but it shouldn't be missed. Meanwhile, California's financial meltdown continues, with union approval.

LAT: GOP a weakened party lacking consensus

A front-page piece in Friday's LAT written by Mark Barabak and Janet Hook argues that while GOP lawmakers in Washington have lots of ideas about how to stimulate the economy, they lack a leader and have not settled on a consensus plan. Besides, they are guilty of a dismal showing in last November's election and the GOP image in is tatters.

That GOP lawmakers have lots of ideas does not seem a bad thing. That they lack leaders doesn't seem that bad either. The Democrats are saddled with leaders like Pelosi and Reid, which suggests they have a bigger problem than the GOP has. Being the minority party, the GOP cannot govern. Consensus is important to the governing party, not so much to the minority party.

Query: Why did such a piece appear on the front page when it belongs on the op-ed pages because it primarily presents the opinions of the authors.

What stimulus?

The House passed the so-called "stimulus" package yesterday without a single Republican vote. Thirteen Democrats deserted their party. Judging from what is being written or said, by people such as Martin Feldstein and George Will among others, the package is in trouble.

Rightly so. Nancy Pelosi and her aides cooked up the "stimulus" package with some help from Obama people. No hearings were held, no outsider input was allowed. Arrogance ruled.

After observing Pelosi since the 2006 election, you have to begin to wonder about her IQ. Much of the stuff she has produced has been idiotic, like repetitive attempts to torpedo the Iraq war and now this "stimulus" package. (And who can forget her visit to Damascus to engage in a photo-op with Syria's dictator in a skirt that revealed her upper thigh.) Did she really think the "stimulus" package, which has only a little stimulus and mostly consists of spending only a left-wing Democrat could love, would pass muster? If she did, she's dumber than dirt.

Not that Harry Reid is much smarter.

LAT re-writes Bush history, daily

The LAT seems to have set upon an objective to discredit the Bush administration. At least a half dozen articles in yesterday's paper either were critical of things Bush did or didn't do or explained how the Obama administration planned to change something.

Expo and other losers

Home Depot yesterday announced the closing of its Expo stores, confirming a theory: When you're in a store in which employees outnumber customers, you can be sure that store will close before long. A variation: When you're in a store and that store has a lot of shoppers who aren't buying anything, that store will soon close. That was Circuit City.

The economy was to blame, some will say. Nah, both chains were poorly conceived and marginally profitable in the best of times.

Word polution

Obama's use of the word "invest" is fraudulent. Obama argues that the stimulus bill includes "investments," a large quantity of it, presumably. But most of the proposed spending in the stimulus bill is simply pork.

Unemployed

California just announced that the unemployment rate slipped to 9.3 percent in December from 8.4 percent in November. The December rate is the highest in 15 years.

So, 90.7 percent of the California workforce is still working. In the best of times, about 95 percent are. Put that way, the 9.3 percent doesn't sound so bad.

The stock market has lost about 40 percent of its value from its peak, and home values are down about that much. Who's suffering more? The unemployed or those who have lost 40 percent of their net worth?