It's not Leisure World--it's Laguna Wooks Village.

Really? It's called Laguna Wooks? What is a "Wook?"

Larry, I heard the earthquake story but could not call in then. My engineering specialty is stress, strain and structures. I was in the Northridge earthquake in 94. There was a very deep earthquake a week earlier below Santa Monica. I often thought there might be a strike (angled) plane extending under the mountain between Santa Monica and Northridge, so the two events were connected.

Interesting topic. Joe

Hi Larry,
Republican initiatives led us from a 1 trillion dollar deficit in 1980 and the world's most productive economy to a 12 trillion dollar deficit and growing, when Bush II left office. He and the Republican majority in the House and Senate left us with a totally wrecked economy that will take 4 - 8 years to turn around and rebuild provided we fund adequate stimulus packages and defend against the familiar Republican counter attacks.
Is the Stimulus working? After only 6 months? Only Eric Cantor, one of the Pied Piper’s of disaster himself, could be blowing that horn. The Republican's ignored infrastructure: it must be rebuilt. One step to fight Global Warming in LA would be to build mass transit along the freeways, a true grid, perhaps light rail emulating every other “major city” in the world.
Republicans killed education with the fantasy “No Child Left Behind:” it must be rebuilt but instead the nation is laying of thousands of teachers; these are two of a hundred issues bled to death by the “tax cut” philosophy.
We should go back to the tax base of 1980 and fund the government we need to get the services we deserve. And yes, I’d see my taxes go up.

Robert Nabors;

Why are we missing the basic Economic Principles spelled in the Samuelsons college text anology dealing with guns and butter.

'We are spending for the guns and are buying the butter from China (and paying trillion$ in interest).'

As long as we have a negative balance of trade (& war) we will continue our downward economic spiral. This needs national attention, and unity, to resolve.

Respectfully submitted,
Stu Cooper
PS: Where were all of our Economist when it was obvious that this trend was very predictable?

Proponents of 'globalization' purport that Americans can and should be doing 'better' jobs than manufacturing yet here in SoCal, we've taken monies away from the State Universities and offered our continued support to the ports, essentially replacing only a portion of the lost manufacturing jobs with trucking, warehousing, and distribution jobs many of which are without benefits.

This situation portrays the lack of vision for SoCal and its population. Without vision, utilization of the stimulus money becomes incoherent.

The President's own head of the Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer, and her husband have studied the effect that federal stimulus has had on recessions. In 1994, the husband-and-wife team, Christina and David Romer, released a study concluding that the economy responds when the Federal Reserve acts, for example, by lowering interest rates. They also noted, however, that fiscal policy -- stimulus packages for example -- had not helped lift the U.S. economy out of past recessions. We have taken on a lot of debt for something that does not work. France has been able to get people to work. The President's Plan was a social engineering and environmental plan, not an economic plan. Only 11% was to be spent this year and with an economic spin of 1.2 jobs for each job created, we are well below the standard of 3 jobs generated by the one created. In addition, we are spending $300,000 for each job, which is off the charts.

Here are a few much less costly ideas:

On an annual, we have 1.3 new households created nationally so the demand is there. Sixty percent need affordable housing that is in urban areas. By the government only GUARANTEEING the top 30% of the bonds, affordable housing could be built, at lower costs, and with the trained people that are out of work. This program will add 2.5 million jobs, many of these people are out of work today.

In California, hospitals pay $1.50 per square foot to have the plans reviewed by governmental agencies and permits issued. However, while the money is in hand, the state has a hiring freeze, so it takes two years in the queue and then two years to review and issue the permit. If the employee unions were not fighting this, I would have the plans reviewed by outside consultants that would sign affidavits. This would release $5bn in hospital construction and 100,000 construction jobs.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that by 2020, hospitals will be shy almost 810,000 nurses. That represents a 29 percent vacancy rate, up from 7 percent today.
Nursing schools would have to increase enrollment by 40 percent annually just to compensate for retiring RN s. That's going to be hard, because schools recently had to turn away 26,000 qualified undergraduate candidates for lack of space: They don't have enough faculty.

Here is a place that the government should only provide funds to the nursing schools to increase their student load and the elements outlined below.

By using the community college system, nationwide, you can create 500,000 nurses, who are much needed in 12 to 18 months.

These are real jobs for a lot less investment that will have much more of a stimulus affect.