>From time to time I have reported how things are going in Silicon Valley. Are things getting better? No they are not.
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>Our Catholic Church requires weekly collections of about $13,000 a week to meet its budget. For the last year that has been a problem which has worsened. Last week we took in about $8000. September of 2001 our Church helped 200 parish families who were in need. This included food and other means of assistance. The number has climbed to 1700 as of this month.
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>Unemployment is at about 11% with 160,000 programming jobs lost – gone. Hardware houses have also been hit. Housing vacancy is at 8% - the highest in memory. Mortgage defaults are the highest in 30 years.
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>On the “positive side”, the value of a house has increased 25% with sales up 7.5% from last year. Something is wrong and I think the worst is not yet here. Vacant office/RD space continues to increase and passed the 16 million square foot mark.
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>In 1982 Bank of America owned 1 million square feet of Office/RD space that was not leased. That combined with payment defaults caused B of A to go from the worlds largest bank to almost bankrupt. What I see today is much worse than ever before. Perhaps we should go back to being an agricultural community.


That route is not working here in Nebraska. The big corps have a lock on the grain prices. The corn prices reach their highest (which isn't very high compared to prices 40 years ago) during the spring growing season. In early fall the big cereal companies (you know who I mean) dump their stored grain on the market, lowering the price farmers get for their newly harvested crop. They can't "hold on' because they owe the bank and don't want to lose their land. So farmers sell at rock bottom prices and barely eck out a living, assuming their wives are working at a job in towon. After the new grain has been put on the market at bottom prices the grain companies come in and buy it all up again, including enough to flood the market next year. A bushel of corn (52 lbs) sells for less than $3.00, but a box of corn flakes (1 lb) sells for $4.50. The farmer makes $2.50/Bu and Cargil makes $250/Bu. The process to make corn flakes is automated, not manual. Cattle are still around $50-60/CW. Have for years. Steaks are $600/CW at the store. There is money to be made in farming, but not on the land.

What most people don't realize is that modern agriculture is nothing more than a way of using land to convert oil into food. When, not if, the oil stops flowing lots of people are going to starve.

Nebraka is in a depression. Rent for apartments is higher than it's ever been, seventy year old houses with rotten foundations are selling for $100K +, there is little industry to speak of and farming is in a severe depression. There are NO programming jobs to speak of anywhere within 300 miles of Omaha. State tax revenues are down $300M and Nebraska just passed a 10% sales tax on about everything, including services, which is going to add to the 6% that was already on sales in rural towns. The $140M that it is supposed to bring in will more than likely be lost to the "Low Level Radioactive Materials Storage Facility" that a former govenor agreed to, as part of a five state pact to solve a radioactive waste problem. The problem is that Boyd county is in northern Nebraska, in what is called the "sand hills" created by receeding glaciers and setting on top of the northern end of the Ogallala aquifer. Everyone south and east of Boyd county will evently get radiated. That includes 500,000 in Omaha and the surrounding area. The Missouri river will eventually get what doesn't end up in the aquifer. I expect some big environmental lawsuits. They might as well have setup of a storage facility in Rosenblat Ball Park, home of the Omaha Royals baseball club.

Things are looking good. The Patriot Act isn't doing much to cheer folks up, either.


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>I would be interested in hearing how other areas of the country are doing. I do believe that a key indicator of a local area economy is our churches. How well a church does in collecting donations from parishioners and the amount of assistance the church gives to the community may be an indication of economic stability. I began examining this type of information in 1990 during our last recession and it seems to have some degree of validity.
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>Tom