It's the economy, stupid!

That quote has been bandied about since the Clinton days, but it still holds true. My son was a Systems Engineer for Pelco, a security camera / recording technology company in Clovis, Ca. for over 10 years. The founders decided to sell out, and a French company, Schnider Electric, bought it, promising that nothing would change. Since that promise by the damned FROGS, nearly all the employees, including my son, were laid off, (over 600 at my last count, but probably many more by now) and their jobs outsourced overseas. This was a devastating blow to the City of Clovis as well as to the employees of Pelco.The job market here in the San Joaquin Valley is one of the worst in the nation, and my son was forced to take a $14 an hour job as an I.T. Coordinator; a job that would have paid around $25-$50 an hour a few years ago.
California has the slowest growing economy in the nation right now, and that's primarily because the environment is so damned unfriendly to business. Take Fresno, for example... There was a nightclub / restaurant / bar that was doing very well in a high-end neighborhood in North Fresno. The City found that they were selling more alcohol than food for a period of several months, and demanded that they apply for a different license at a much higher cost. This forced the owners to close, putting all the employees out of work, and reducing the taxes flowing into the City's coffers. If you're looking for any MENSA members, you certainly won't find them in Fresno government!
Recently, a friend who owns a successful bar & nightclub in Clovis, ( for those of you on the East Coast, Fresno and Clovis adjoin,) and wanted to move her business to a larger venue in Fresno. She was told that she must submit an application accompanied by a non-refundable payment of $2,500, and there were so many restrictions on the business that she decided to stay in Clovis. This, while Fresno's mayor claims that she wants businesses to locate in Fresno. Typical California thinking. Meanwhile, she's laying off an alarming number of city employees and privatizing City services, and there is even talk of Fresno filing bankruptcy. If the City Council didn't step over dollars to pick up pennies, this would not be the case.
As I said in an earlier post, a lot of the liberal voters who are responsible for this decaying economy have moved to other states where conservatives have kept their economy under control. To them, I say: 'Thanks a LOT, assholes!"