The Shot Market
Seller expectations versus buyer realities
We see it more and more in the United States, the wide discrepencies between what sellers believe their products, homes, businesses, banks, portfolios, and assets are worth, versus what the core realities of living really are with buyers. Prices and values are under the microscopes of millions today.
Simply put. Is your home really worth $500,000, if the average buyer in your area can only afford $300,000--maybe? Is your bank (like Bank of America) really worth the billions they say they are, when they meet with the Big Bankers, and they say you are facing $266 billion in exposed risk from the mortgage market? Is your business really worth the millions in profit you claim, when you coincidently owe tens of millions of dollars in back taxes--plus interest and penalties?
It all comes down to actual balance sheets, which shape-shift as fast as a mouse can move a cursor to a column. Economists can't put their fingers on the columns yet, so their conventional wisdom is lost on us for the time being. And, at some point, someone in a leadership position will have to call the bluff, and ask everyone at the Big Money Table to show their hands...or take it outside.
Oxymoron=petro-currency
Working ^hard for a Living (part one)
Entering the job market right now is challenging to say the least. It's especially tough if you're looking for anything with the word, "professional" attached to it. Statewide, unemployment is running about 6.2 percent (April EDD figures), nationally it's at 5.5 percent, and locally, it's 4.9 percent in Mono County and 5.8 percent in Inyo County (April's figures). Bottom line is, there are more workers than there are jobs available....
Hap Hazard, Mono County District #2 Supervisor, says he's seen evidence of a "general slowdown across the board" in Mono County. He's also found that in reaction to high gas prices, residents are buddying up and "carpooling more," and citizens are "consolidating their trips to town."
Hazard's district, a regular horseshoe of area, includes Crowley Lake, Tom's Place, Swall Meadows and Paradise, and the Tri-Valley region of Chalfant, Hammil and Benton Valleys. His supervisor beat is perhaps the most diverse as well. Some of his constituents commute to Mammoth, from Benton, and other residents in the Tri-Valley region shop and work in Bishop, and a large number of his residents live geographically separated from the center of their county business--in Mammoth.
This district also has some rich agricultural values, Hazard says, and many of the businesses in the Tri-Valley area are involved with growing row crops and alfalfa. Agricultural revenues are high in Mono County, to the tune of $50 million a year. There is also a large interest in cattle and horse ranching in Hazard's district.
Hazard says, tonight, the residents of Benton will have a hand in shaping their destiny as a community, when they hold a Visioning Session. The idea is to get the citizens to think about what they want in the way of services, roads, walkways up to the year 2020. Mono County planning will follow the resident lead, and try to implement the wish list.
Finally, Hazard notes that people are swapping their bigger trucks in for smaller transportation vehicles, 4X4s are being traded in for 2WDs, and cars are being parked in trade for riding motorcycles. Even Hazard has gotten into the swing of things by riding to work on two wheels instead of in four.
More from the other Mono County districts tomorrow, as we continue our series on Working ^Hard for a Living.
LATE NEWS:
Bud for Sale?
Can it be? Is Budweiser really for sale? Anti-take-over action is underway against INBEV-one of the world's largest spirits owners. After hours, all brewskis stock was doing well on the market=big daah. Bud is to fend off the big dog with Spot, and get local endorsements from fishermen (just kidding).
OIL UP TO $136 A BARREL=STOCK MARKET DOWN 205 POINTS.
Casino Name-Dropping
