Your Tax Dollars at Work

There is an "Economic Stress Map" out just now, from the Associated Press and while I've never heard of it before, there are a few things on it worth noting of national and local significance.

First, if you see it, I think you'll note right away how most of the top 20 counties on the "most stressed" list are from formerly, famously wealthy but now defunct California. In fact, 6 of the worst 10 are in California and 10 of the top 20 are also from the sunshine state.

Conclusion? It's bad in California and probably getting worse.

The local news from this map, for us?

Check out what County is in the number one spot, nationally.

None other than Riley County, Kansas, home of the Army's Fort Riley.

Truly, your tax dollars at work.

What's also interesting, to me, and of local interest, I think, is that Ellis County (Hays), Kansas also comes up at number 3 on the low economic stress, followed by Ford County (Dodge City) at 7 and Finney County (Garden City) at 13.

It seems that, if you want low stress, maybe it's time to move to Kansas?

We really don't want to consider what's going on with our economy

Another bank went down last night in Illinois.

That's 37 banks this year.

And it's not even July yet.

Let's see.

There were 25 banks that went down all last year.

25.

Do you know how many banks went down in 2007?

3

Yeah, 3.

And there's still more than 6 months to go before we're through with 2009.

And there's still the whole state of Michigan and GM and all those employees in so much trouble, of course, what with the bankruptcy up there this week. That will cause more financial problems, naturally.

And the whole state of California is about, what? 7 days from insolvency (another word for bankruptcy).

And then there are all the states with severely reduced revenues due to all the cutbacks and reduced values of properties and more company/employee layoffs.

Finally, for this column only, it's a widely-held assumption we haven't even begun to feel the full effects of the credit card defaults that are strongly believed to be on their way. That will be many more millions of dollars lost, presumably.

And that just starts the economic conversation.

So there are a great deal of things to consider, when it comes to our near-future economy.

I don't think the average guy on the streets is taking this all in.

That's probably a good thing.

Links to stoies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/business/06bizbrief-SMALLBANKINI_BRF.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1244318975-veyJLaVthRyc4Y3as1DDZw
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/06/bankruptcy-filings-reach-6000-day.html

Things to come

It seems as though, here in the Midwest, most "people on the street" types are all carrying on in our business and personal lives as usual and that's to be expected.

Kind of.

And it's a good thing. Panicking, for whatever reason, doesn't help anything.

But all of the big, bad financial news in the last year, compounded by the most recent troubles of what is now referred to as "Government Motors", GM, and their nearly-unimaginable bankruptcy and the financial wreck that is California portends quite bad news.

And not just for Californians and GM employees.

I'm not going to start making any predictions here about what's going to further happen to whom because of all this but the ripple effects of these two crises alone is so huge it's almost impossible to predict the continued falling out.

The question almost becomes, "Who WON'T be effected by these messes?"

And then there's the credit card defaults and bankruptcies, still to come, we've been warned about.

It ain't over, folks.

The fat lady ain't singin' yet.

Links to related stories:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/03/autos/gm_desperate_final_days.fortune/?postversion=2009060310
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/104622
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/opinion/18kim.html?em