Long Beach dwtn shoreline, harborwalk and marina

I have posted these beautiful pictures of dtwn long beach harbor shoreline amusement walkable zone. I took them with my cell phone. I posted these pics to illustrate a point. Notice the scarcity of visitors/tourist in these pics. They were taken on Sunday, August 1st on a warm, balmy, hot summer day at peak of summer tourist season. Yet from the pics it is evident that our beautiful scenic shoreline harborwalk is having a severe drastic reduction in tourists and local visitors. This has to be due to the effects of our severe recession/depression. And it was the same the previous Sunday.
I have been here a 1000 times and i have never seen it this slow in August at peak of summer tourist season. Even the local Long beach visitors were scarce.

Greeks rioting in response to EU- imposed austerity measures

'Greeks protest over forced austerity measures after the European Union announced a €110 billion ($145 billion) aid package for Greece on Sunday. Soon after, Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou announced the tough cost-cutting measures to meet European Union and International Monetary Fund conditions for the deal.
The package includes a promise by Greece to cut its budget deficit to 3 percent of the country's gross domestic product, as required by European Union rules, by 2014, according to Papaconstantinou.'

US and especially CA is a greater fiscal train wreak than Greece, yet we happily print and borrow to keep the welfare entitlement gravy train going here. US and at least 10 states are putting off the hard fiscal austerity choices Greece is now confronted with, as no US/state/local politician will make the politically suicidal decisions to drastically curtail or cut entitlement spending , esp the Democrats who depend directly on Government-dependent voters.

On cal meltdown: personal views

The CA government is tied up in knots with a 20 billion budget shortfall. There are dire warnings of imminent calamity with threats of shutting down the vast welfare safety apparatus, upon which est 10-15 million Californians are directly dependent.
Such programs as Healthy Families, home heath care for seniors, medi-cal, Calworks, we are told, face massive budget cuts. I do not think that we will see much cuts at all. Nor do i see CA tackling the state employees pension problem, which is bankrupting CA. The vested interests will fight tooth and nail to protect their benefits and programs.
I truly believe that all this dire screaming coming from Sacramento and their media spin meisters is just that, spin and agi-propaganda, initiated to get the population prepared for more massive tax increases, and to get Obama to bail out CA with a fed bailout of 7 billion. I have seen this dog and pony show last 2 decades: each year we have a budget shortfall and each time CA manages to slime it's way thru their mess with gimmicks, accounting tricks, borrowing from this fund to bolster that fund, use short term borrowing in the Market, ad nauseum.
Here's some solutions: sell more state assets, some state parks, and other prime properties to China. Allow more offshore oil drilling and more resource extraction, deport 2-3 million illegals who drain the CA social welfare net and steal jobs from UE native Californians, have the IRS & state franchise tax board go into LA and start collecting revenues from the 40% black market economy here in Los Angeles. And cut back on the retirement pension benefits of CA State employees to reasonable levels, which would not break out budget.

Summing up 2009 -observations

We end 2009 on a quite dismal note. If u ignore the nonstop happy talk of the MSM and seive/sift beneath the layers of BS you will find a prostate country with record high UE, out of control public debt, record # of bankruptcies, record foreclosures, ect.
It has been questioned whether we are as bad off as the first great depression 80 years ago. Hard to judge as society has altered greatly and the US gov has become much more interwined in the economy with more active assistance to those who have fallen through the gaps.
10-15% of the population is now on food stamps, and the gov keeps extending UE benefits. Also the Fed is printing money non-stop and is throwing bailout money
at everything. At least the banking system appears to be more or less stabilized, with a chosen few mega-banks controlling the credit system, with the active(maybe sinister)assistance of the FED.

In CA( my home state), at least 50% of the population is receiving direct assistance(handouts) from the state and feds, whether in food stamps, section 8, healthcare subsidies(medicare/medical/healthy families),UE bennies, diability pmts,supplemental SS,amd probably a 100 other forms of direct aid.
A significant portion of this aid has to be supplemented by Obama stimulus funds as CA is plain broke and prostate. I will say more about CA being in dire straits in another post.
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In sum, 2009 goes down as a bad year for Joe Public, especially with the dismal UE rate being at 17% U-6. Worse, credit has tightened severely and credit lines are severely constricted for both consumers and small businesses. 2009 was above all a deflationary year, a year of contraction. Everything contracted except maybe movie house receipts. In bad times folks flock to cheap entertainment such as movies in order to escape their bad economic predicament.