FRESNO: Not for the Faint of Heart
Here are two interesting stories about the economic crisis and Cranky Greg's adopted hometown - Fresno, California.
The first story deals with the Central Valley's declining dairy industry. Take a drive up and down Highway 99 from Stockton to Bakersfield and you will see and smell dairies all up and down the state. It now costs dairy farmers more money to produce milk than they can sell it for. But notice the government's impact on all of this - the government has been buying excess milk, which is exactly the wrong thing to do. The agricultural industries should be operated under the free market system. Government interference exacerbates the problems. When the government buys excess products, it is nothing more than a payoff to a large political constituency. Thanks to these political payoffs, you have to pay more for dairy products, and you might even find a shortage in the future.
The second story is about Fresno's housing meltdown, which is the subject of a new documentary, Fresno. It may not sound exciting, but CG is thinking about attending the premier of the film. For those of you who don't know Fresno, it's largely an agricultural town with low incomes compared to the rest of the State. Nevertheless, the housing market in the Fresno area was going nuts until about 2007, with people buying houses way above what their incomes could really support. Now the house of cards is starting to fall, and it's going to get much worse in Fresno before it gets any better.







