California Goes KAPUT - implications of 2010 Dem election sweep then and now

Post 2010 CA election blues, and what's ahead:

Post CA election blues. I was one of the 40 % who were on the wrong side as the Dems completely swept all CA political offices, and elected re-relected the leftist Dems Jerry brown and Barbara Boxer. After the Nov 2 elections the wind seemed to have been taken out of CA: i even felt a general dampening mood in the streets, as if a stange disease had settled upon CA.

All productive busnesses and middle class productive folks should be depressed and down-spirited by the election results. We all know that CA will see more taxes and fees imposed by the left-wing socialist business-hating green-goon democrat thugsters upon the higher income PPL, while the huge imported 3rd world proletaran welfare-scamming classes pay no taxes.

CA has become a fairly bifurcated third-world banana-republic, with a tiny wealthy elite, a repressive goose-stepping thug-union leftist political ruling elite, and a huge population of poor and welfare dependents. The CA middle class is shrinking and many have pulled stakes and already left for greener pastures in other less-taxed states.

The heavy, oppressive, leftist public-union government thugsters will keep on strangling CA and extracting oppressive taxes and fees upon the few remaining Productive hard-working Californians. That is the unalterable rule and nothing can change it.

The only thing left is to avoid the system, or scam it by becoming a CA entitlement grifter, if u are not yet an official entitled CA welfare dependent. Either you are a beneficiary of CA welfare payouts or a payer. The majority who vote and keep the CA Dems party in power are the receivers and beneficuaries of CA generous welfare entitlement payouts such as illegal aliens, scamming anchor offspring of illegals, scamming CA Works recipients, medi-cal recipents, home-care aide grifters, supplemental SS grifters,ect.

Update: CA has already cut billions from welfare/entitlement payouts due to tough budget problems but, as i long predicted, the shrill cries from CA Government leftist policy wonks for more taxes are already echoing clear across CA's vast landscape. 2012 will witness a bevy of proposals for more taxes, or CA wil fall into the sea or burn up in some greek-type financial inferno. A least that is the cassandra predictions.

Occupy LA Plans to 'Occupy ICE' at Downtown Federal Building: Immigrant Crackdowns to be Protested

Occupy LA Plans to 'Occupy ICE' at Downtown Federal Building: Immigrant Crackdowns to be Protested


Looks like there will be a little-publicized march by pro-illegal alien activist groups this morning starting at 11:30am at Olivera st and ending up in front of ICE building in DWTN LA. This is several blocks east of the original OWS camp at City Hall Plaza Park. I have closely followed the LA OWS rallies and while the OWS hard-core have up to now conducted their rallies separate fron the pro-ilegal alien activist groups, it appears from this article that an open undisguised merging of OWS and pro-illegal alien rights coalitions has occurred.

News report from LA Weekly,

'OWS L.A.'s City Hall encampment might be a thing of the past, but the occupiers continue to return to their Civic Center home for "general assembly" meetings and protests. Today, DEC 15 at 11:30am, demonstrators warn, the tents will return to the neighborhood, this time in front of the downtown federal building(ICE) that's just around the corner from Occupy's former City Hall residence. The target of their ire? Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They're calling it "Occupy ICE." And not the kind rednecks smoke, either....'

'The groups involved, including Good Jobs LA, several SEIU locals, ANSWER Coalition, CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane Immigrants Rights of Los Angeles), and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, claim in a statement that ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have been "doing the dirty work of wealthy corporations by targeting hardworking immigrant families.'

'Quote from writer,
'Huh? We're a little confused. We thought the 1 percent liked their baby sitters brown and their Walmart workers browner.
We guess their point is that the heat put on the allegedly undocumented and the people who look like them results in downward wage pressure (scratches head).'

'Here's what organizers say:
"... Immigrant workers are part of the 99% ... The activists say that ICE agents are doing the work of the 1%, attacking workers like janitors who have sacrificed and struggled in efforts to turn poverty level jobs into good jobs."

'Mike Garcia, president of SEIU United Service Workers West:
"The 1% profits from fear. The fear of not being able to find a job. The fear of losing your house that you have worked hard for. And, the fear that immigrant workers feel that they may be separated from their children. But, we refuse to be afraid. We are going to fight back."

'Starting at 11:30 a.m. demonstrators will march from Olivera Street (at 845 N. Alameda St.) to the federal building at Los Angeles and Temple streets. They promise 2,000 workers will show up and that there will soon be "tents in front of the downtown federal building, which houses local ICE offices.'


[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]
Tags:
County Federation of Labor, downtown federal building, Good Jobs LA, immigration, Occupy ICE, Occupy LA, SEIU

OWS attempted shutdown of Long beach port - observations

Report on Long beach Port attempted shutdown by OWS. I drove down to the protest start location at Harry Bridges Park. I had no problem getting there. Access to harbor area was very easy coming down Pico ave and transferring to Harbor Scenic Drive. Inbound truck traffic seemed very light Time 7:30 AM

It was raining steady in Long Beach as i entered the area of protest. Encountered a small group of hard-core OWS protestors numbering no more than 100-200, clustered at corner of harbor plaza drive and harbor scenic drive. The anarchist element was there and some of them were just starting to leave the area to march down S. harbor scenic drive toward SS Marine terminal at south end of Pier J. There were 20-30 PD cars and motorcycle cops at that intersection keeping the OWS crowd within bounds.
It was not an overly big crowd of OWS there- the rain and dismal cold day and early morning 5 am monday meet time likely kept the crowd small. Tiime now 8:00 am

I left area to attempt to find parking nearby so i could watch protest on foot or by bike but everywhere in dwtn LB/harbor area there is no free available parking. In Entire dwtn LB area you have to pay for parking and I do not like paying for parking. If the weather was dry and sunny i would have parked several miles away, out of the DWTN LB restrictive parking zone and rode my bike to the OWS protests but it was raining and i don't ride my bike well in rain.

After looking for parking and driving a bit i returned at spot of protest to observe from my vehicle. It appeared that port traffic outbound was a bit clogged and tied up by protestors and by PD roadblocks and traffic diversions. I was held up about 10 minites by one traffic seizure which was right at Queen Mary parking entrance and exit. The halt was only 10 minites however and the outbound port truck traffic again moved. There was a 2 mile-long backup of inbound big-rigs coming off the 710 freeway and backed up along S harbor scenic drive but that is nothing unusual on a Monday morning for LOng Beach Port inbound truck traffic. From my observation the 710 long beach freeway truck traffic volume was unusualy light for a Monday starting work week.

.
Report summation- the small band of protestors numbered no more than 400 tops and there were 50-60 cop cars and 50+ motorcycle cops in my immdediate viewable vicinity. At least 200 and likely far more Long beach police personnel plus other Fed/State/local law enforcement agencies enveloped & smothered the port protestors. I even saw 2 unmarked but ominous black vehiciles( Feds. DHS?) observing/ photographing the protestors from a nearby bridge.
As the entire LB port protest group was happening at the huge Pier J shipping terminal and entire LB/LA ports have 12 terminals this protest will not shut down entire port, not even close. They may delay or perhaps block truckers entering/ exiting Pier J terminal but that will be at most a several hr delay for truckers. As the ILWU union is not a participant there is no way to shut down entire port operations by a tiny band of 300-400 protestors. They could attempt as a last ditch drastic move to lay down and block incoming trucks at several vital trucker ingress roads but that is a federal violation of impeding interstate commerce and subject to immediate arrest and removal of protestors on the spot. I do not see that as happening today.

Update: at 1:00 pm i went back to Port of Long Beach Harbor's huge shipping terminal at Pier J to check on progress of OWS port protests. I did not see any sign of the protestors anywhere, even at the original Harry Bridges Park start point. The entire Huge Pier J complex seemed rather empty of trucks or activity except at the Pier J south entrance, where there was a two-block long line of trucks waiting to enter south pier entrance at end of South Harbor Scenic Drive. Police presence was fairly light as well but there were a few squad cars posted at strategic intersections along vital port roads. I apparently had missed the real action early in the morning, in which a small band of 200 or so protestors had marched to Pier J South entrance to block the entrance. Some arrests had taken place and the PD had rounded up the protestors and moved them back to an impound location near the park. All this had taken place between 5 and 7 AM before i got to the scene at 8 am. I looked at LA Times pictures of port protest and they make out the crowd to be bigger than it actually was, due to up-close picture crowding, but the active picketing crowd was never larger than 200 or so any any time. By 1 pm the entire Pier J port complex was cleared and port was operating normally.

RE bubble collapse pre-2008 in LA ghetto areas

This is a look back at fraudulent bubblicious prices pre-2008 in some really nasty LA ghetto zip codes. These are some of the poorest impoverished neighborhoods in US and are 90% populated by minorities and recent immigrants, including illegals. As you can see on the chart, there were already price declines of from 16% to 50% in home prices YOY from peak 2007 prices to mid-2008, the time i wrote the list. And this was just the start of the great SoCal RE bubble collapse. Today the average prices in these hoods is $200,000; perhaps $250,000 for the slightly better hoods. Prices have fallen 100-150% or more in vitually all the listed zips. Today they have scarcely budged from their lows and foreclosures are on the rise again.

Occupy Wall St movement and their ultra-left radical allies decry big banks as being the sole cause of rampant foreclosures in LA inner city areas. In fact it was local neighborhood homeowners, local realtors, local mortgage brokers, local speculators and the homeowners themselves who drove the 200-300 % markups in the LA ghettos. Examination of foreclosure lists back then and even today will reveal a majorty of the foreclosed-upon have Hispanic names. These Minorities and other ethnic minorities, including Blacks, constitute the overwhelming majority in these listed LA zips, and are the ones you see marching at take-back foreclosure rallies and protests against the villanous banks. Google Refund LA and who backs them. It is a coalition of radical groups composed of minorities, similar to ACORN's composition.

It was not solely the big banks who caused the price runups in the LA inner ghettos but local RE speculators who were in fact minorities selling/reselling/ buying homes on margin, and reselling those homes at ponzi-ed prices, then buying higher priced properties in a speculative frenzy for speculative porposes. At every step in the RE sales they took out massive HELOC's, or re-financed each time, and took out yet another HELOC. I delivered and passed thru all these zips in 2004-2007 and saw all the speculation, re-models, teardowns and rebuilds occurring in these ghetto hoods, and marked for sale at %300-%400 markups. Tiny 700 sq foot crackshacks with 1 bdrm/1 bath were listed at $400,000, even $500,000 in such ghettoized ratholes as lennox and Compton.


The list below was written in mid-2008, before the great fall 2008 financial meltdown, of which the SOCAL/LA RE bubble collapse was a harbinger and symptom

These are a few selected areas, maybe 20-30% of the total inner ghetto zips and the ones i have some familarity with. My inclusion of these particular ones is because these are where mortgage fraud was running most rampant, and these contain some of the nastiest gutted hoods in america. Bell and Maywood are for all intents and purposes controlled by the 18th st gang lock stock and barrel. Where mortage price specualtion and fraud activity was the highest you will see the steepest drops in YOY drops. LA inner city price run-ups were in mnay cases based entirely upon fraudulent appraisal and subsequent 200-300% markups. They should revert back to under $200,000 when the smoke clears.

City/ Zip/ # homes sold/ home prices early-2008/ % price drop from peak 2007

Bell 90201 5 $420 -11.6%
Huntington Park 90255 5 $385 -16.3%
Inglewood 90301 2 $400 -22.3%
Inglewood 90302 4 $450 -25.6%
Inglewood 90303 5 $295 -49.1%
Inglewood 90304 1 $417 -16.2%
Inglewood 90305 3 $469 -20.6%
LA 90011 5 $360 -18.2%
LA 90018 4 $343 -43.6%
LA 90047 17 $350 -26.7%
LA/View Park/Windsor Hills 90043 8 $363 -30.3%
LA 90062 9 $380 -23.4%
Long Beach 90805 17 $378 -16.3%
Maywood 90270 2 $325 -29.3%
Norwalk 90650 30 $352 -27.8%
Pacoima 91331 17 $320 -37.9%
Paramount 90723 9 $260 -46.8%
San Fernando 91340 2 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a
Wilmington 90744 5 $355 -20.7%
Winnetka 91306 11 $360 -35.7%

Random thoughts on occupy wall st movement

The occupy movement seems to have mushroomed all over the USA in many towns, cities and communities. The Occupy folks have disjointed and incoherent messages but the messages seem mostly to be about corporate greed and corporate influence in politics. Virtualy all messages also rail against the 1% superwealthy and how they should pay their fair share. I cannot even unravel the other messages which are mainly ultra- left and even veer toward outright soclalist/communist slogans.
This tough economy has indeed bred a growing discontent among many Americans but where does OWS fit in?. It is obvious that many Americans are being ground down and feel dispossessed and left out in the depression- level UE economy but is OWS a harbinger of this growing discontent or is it just a small minority of spoiled college- educated hippies with worthless humanities degrees.

It is obvious that OWS is angry at 'the system'. Is it corporate greed? Corporate domination of America? It is Capitalism? It is corrupt politicians? The messages are somewhat confused and muddled. Is it the growing disparity between the tiny minority of superrich and the rest of the 99%?. If they want to complain about the super-rich why are they not raging against hollywood and sports mega-rich superstars? Where is the middle class in all this?

We are indeed faced with a catastrophic economic meltdown,the worst since the 1930's Great Depresion, but it is not easily resolved by simpistic rants against the rich. Any radical wealth redistribution schemes will only result in totalitarian class warfare disasters like the world witnessed in Red China and the Soviet Union in the 20th century. There the proletariat 'will to power' became a crushing monster which eliminated all 'class' enemies of the state, often by murder and the gulag. Is that what OWS wants?.

Occupy LA update Nov 24 2011

It looks as if LA City will actually shut down Occupy LA within a week and likely sooner. On Thursday the City posted notices against overnite camping at City Hall. That indicates formal/legal intent to evict, sort of like a 3-day eviction notice



href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/city-takes-first-step-in-plan-to-remove-occupy-la.html">

Update on situation at OWS-LA Camp: The camp is poorly situated to have much effect on LA City operations and business activity because most LA pedestrian activity, shopping,and dining occurs well south & west of camp, along 6th st, at fashion district, along/atop bunker hill district, and along Figueroa St. The only way OLA can effect disruption is by going out of their camps to disrupt business activity elsewhere, say along Figueroa st where the big LA mega-corporations, banks and shops are located. Arco Plaza could be a inviting target but it takes a bit of legwork, negotiating arduous stairways and plaza terraces to get to main plaza. Always you have to deal with legions of low- payed mainly Hispanic & African-American security guards posted at every stairwell, building entrance, and behind office bldg desks. OWS-LA would have to deal directly against mostly minority security guards who are barely getting by and have families to support. Another words, OLA disrupts & clashes directly with low-payed 99 per centers

OLA is the most poorly situated large OWS camp in USA and poses little problems in the mammoth, spatially spaced-out and vertically imposing LA dwtn district. They might occasionally get help from the real disrupters, the big LA CA labor unions who can really organize an effective dwtn protest with powerful union muscle like the SEIU and Teachers Unions. However, these unions dislike clashing/confronting the powerful LA police union representing LAPD, who are a legionary imperial guard which protects the powerful city business interests , as well as the sleazly LA politicians who really don't give a crap about OLA but only about maintaining thier power and offices.

Thats why OWS-LA has been allowed to stay at their camp so long. They are regarded more as a minor pestilence/nuisance/embarrassment to LA City and its politician hacks. What really concerns LA City officials and depts are the negative enviromental effects & health/sanitary hazards of OWS-LA. There is no doubt that if the OLA camp was regularly sanitized by LA's health dept it would be allowed to stay. As I have documented all over my blog, LA is a fairly dismal crapped-out third world ghetto-hole anyway so OLA camp really does not mar LA's image in any way. It is solely the issue of health and sanitation which is determining factor over whether LA will or will not evict OLA

It looks as if LA City will finally quit playin games with OWS-LA and we will see OLA camp shut down very soon, perhaps as early as this weekend.

A non-polemical observation of OccupyLA

Preliminary observations of the Occupy LA movement on a Thursday Oct 20 2011. A few polemics mixed with simple descriptions of OLA, it's campsite at LA City Hall, and it's relation to the surrounding LA dwtn landscape.

Abbreviations
(OLA) OccupyLA
(CH) LA City Hall
(Camp) tent city put up around CH
(LT) Little Toyko
(LA) City of Los Angeles

I parked my truck at a convenient fee parking site at Alameda and first st and took my 10 speed bicycle to the OccupyLA site at Main and first st. Biking thru dwtn LA not as problematic as i thought. Traffic in LA Dwtn Civic Area was fairly light. There were police units here and there but not a big presence. The OLA camp itself occupied a narrow green strip at north side of CH and the main south plaza side of CH, which fronted First St between Main and Spring St.

The camp was actually fairly well kept up & not the dirty Pigsty hovel viewed by many commentators on other OWS sites. The entire OLA camp( tucked beneath CH) is overshadowed & surrounded by some large Government agencies such as the massive Parker Center( LAPD), US District Courthouse, General Services, LA Transportation dept, Edward Roybal Blvd, and a host of other massive Gov agencies.

There is a long line of sidewalk food courts set up along both sides of main st next to the OLA camp, and right between the main CH bldg and the adjoining CH annex or East Bldg. Included is a long line of vendors selling fresh fruit. There is also a hamburger/ hot dog stand set up at corner of main and First , complete with heavy-duty portable oven and other grill equipment. These sidewalk food stalls/stands are something normally seen in third world cities and is evidence of LA being transformed into an immigrant-inundated 3rd world megalo-polis.
I had no trouble passing thru the south side OLA camp. It was a collection of mostly youthful folks of all races. I saw idealist hippies reviving the 60's and hippy commune living. Also young beatnick anchor brats of latino immigrants, a few bandanna-clad anarchists, a few older LA street homies & homeless, teenage runaways, even a few high school ditchers. Did not see a lot of over 40 folks. Signs were everywhere and even posted on tents facing the sidewalks. They spouted a variety of leftist slogans which made absolutely no sense and are indeed quite irrelevant in a gritty, illegal alien-overrun ghetto-polis like LA which is already a socialist- welfare city pandering to 3rd world immigrants and illegals.

There are virtually no shops around LA Civic Center for the kids to walk too but the LA Dash Bus System makes it easy to get around LA dwtn very cheap( last time i did the dash bus ride it was a quarter a ride). The closest collection of shops & eateries is in Little Toyko, which is about a block away from south side camp. I don't know if LT will be a Merchant- rich target if the OLA anarchist elements go berserk but LT has lots of low paid(and rather fat) private security guards and has guard kiosks situated at all entrances to the malls.and shop galleries.

It's quite odd to see this OLA camp enveloping CH. LA City DWTN is mostly about really tall fortess-like bldgs and not easily accessble to the public. And Los Angeles gets fairly ragged and impoverished a few blocks north, east and south of OLA camp as you head South toward the old seamy LA industrial district or north into Chinatown or Oliveras St district. A 3-4 block walk south toward the decrepit produce/ warehouse district and you run into legions of homeless.
Directly west of CH along Temple ave or First st it's all hi-rises & apt/condo bldgs, with no shops. South & West of CH more tall inaccessible hi-rises till you get to pedestrian-clogged 5th & 6th streets .

LA dwtn has no main accessible focal point for protestors to mill with the general public, except maybe Pershing Square. CH itself is a monumental, early 20th century fortress of a building as are most other adm blgds around Civic Center. These bldgs are difficult of access as you have to go thru platoons of low-paid security guards( entire LA dwtn has a small army of mostly young low-paid hispanic security guards working in nearly every dwtn bldg).

Summation of OLA: they are camped in a zone literally walled off & hemmed in by LA Civic Center hi-rises ( including the ominous spanking new state-of-art LA Police Headquarters bldg just a block away to the east) and with sporadic interactions with dense dwtn LA pedestrans & crowds. Very poor cramped site for getting out their message, foolish as it is.


This preliminary post on OccupyLA will likely expand and i will insert additional observations and make a few changes to the post to keep pace with the OLA movement, or add some polemical insights onto post. (I may also add more to my observations of OccupyLA in a future separate posting)


NOV 24th 2011 update on situation at OWS-LA Camp: The camp is poorly situated to have much effect on LA City operations and business activity because most LA pedestrian activity, shopping,and dining occurs well south & west of camp, along 6th st, at fashion district, along/atop bunker hill district, and along Figueroa St. The only way OLA can effect disruption is by going out of their camps to disrupt business activity elsewhere, say along Figueroa st where the big LA mega-corporations, banks and shops are located. Arco Plaza could be a inviting target but it takes a bit of legwork, negotiating arduous stairways and plaza terraces to get to main plaza. Always you have to deal with legions of low- payed mainly Hispanic & African-American security guards posted at every stairwell, building entrance, and behind office bldg desks. OWS would have to deal directly against mostly minority security guards who are barely getting by and have families to support. Another words, OLA disrupts & clashes directly with low-payed 99 per centers

OLA is the most poorly situated large OWS camp in USA and poses little problems in the mammoth, spatailly spaced-out and vertically imposing LA dwtn district. They might occasionally get help from the real dirupters, the big LA CA labor unions who can really organize an effective dwtn protest with powerful union muscle like the SEIU and Teachers Unions. However, these unions dislike clashing/confronting the powerful LA police union representing LAPD, who are a legionary imperial guard which protects the powerful city business interests , as well as the sleazly LA politicians who really don't give a crap about OLA but only about maintaining thier power and offices.

Thats why OWS-LA has been allowed to stay at their camp so long. They are regarded more as a minor pestilence/niusance/embarassment to LA City and its politician hacks. What really concerns LA City officials and depts are the negative enviromental effects & health/sanitary hazards of OWS-LA. There is no doubt that if the OLA camp was regularly sanitized by LA's health dept it would be allowed to stay. As I have documented all over my blog, LA is a fairly dismal crapped-out third world ghetto-hole anyway so OLA camp really does not mar LA's image in any way. It is solely the issue of health and sanition which is determining factor over whether LA will or wil not evict OLA