Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Prime Minister of Yemen’s Houthi Government Killed in Israeli Strike

2 days ago

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Signs Law Redrawing Congressional Maps

3 days ago

US Air Force will Offer Military Funeral Honors to Slain Capitol Rioter

3 days ago

US Republican Senator Joni Ernst Will Not Run for Re-Election, CBS News Reports

3 days ago

Wall Street Falls as Dell, Nvidia Drive Tech Losses

3 days ago

US Denies Visas to Palestinian Officials Ahead of UN General Assembly

3 days ago

Minneapolis Children Revealed Courage, Absorbed Fear During Church Shooting

3 days ago

Ford Recalls Nearly 500,000 Vehicles Over Brake Fluid Leak

4 days ago

Fresno-Bound Passenger Says Delta Attendant Slapped Him, Seeks $20M

4 days ago
California Faces a ‘Big Short’ in Vital Commodities
By admin
Published 4 years ago on
February 27, 2022

Share

 

“The Big Short” was a 2015 film about how some financial whizzes, realizing that the nation’s overheated housing market was on the verge of collapse, made billions of dollars by betting on failure.

California played no small role in the housing debacle during the first decade of the century. Housing construction had surpassed 200,000 units a year, more than the market could prudently absorb, and to fill them, mortgage lenders radically lowered their credit standards for would-be homebuyers.

Housing Bubble Collapse

When the unstable market collapsed, nearly 800,000 California families lost their homes and 10 of the 20 cities with the nation’s highest foreclosure rates were in California.

Dan Walters

CalMatters

Opinion

After the implosion, housing construction plummeted to as little as 10% of the pre-crisis boom and has never fully recovered, even though foreclosed houses eventually became rentals or were resold to new buyers.

Construction is now scarcely half of the 180,000 units a year state officials say is necessary, creating a severe hosing shortage, particularly for moderate- and low-income families, that fuels the nation’s highest poverty rate.

The “big short” in housing is not alone. California, which has always seen itself as a land of abundance, faces critical shortages in other commodities vital to a healthy economy and society.

One is particularly obvious this year — water.

Water and Electricity Scarcity

California once led the nation in developing large-scale water impoundment and conveyance projects as a hedge against its very seasonal and very unpredictable precipitation. But very little has been built in the last half-century as the state’s population doubled and farmers shifted to more water-intensive crops such as grapes and almonds.

The politics of water became ossified — multiple interests fighting over shares of the current supply, which has become even less predictable due to climate change, and politicians going AWOL, seeing it as a no-win political quagmire.

Another big short is less stark than water, but still looms large — electrical energy.

California’s officialdom is bent on making the state carbon-free by converting power generation to wind and solar, by replacing gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles with electric cars and trucks, and by phasing out natural gas in homes and businesses.

This massive conversion would impose huge new demands on an electrical grid that already comes up short on some hot summer days when air conditioning systems run at full tilt — days that climate change will make more frequent, by the way.

The state has already postponed the phaseout of some natural gas-fired electric plants because of shortages but that’s just a short-term fix. Will it also postpone the 2024 closure of the state’s only remaining nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, which generates 8% of the state’s electrical power and 15% of its carbon-free juice?

Making the state carbon-free might be a worthy goal, but only if we have enough electrical power from other sources and at the moment, it’s uncertain it will be there when it’s needed.

Acute Worker Shortage

A fourth major shortage facing California is in trained and/or trainable workers.

California employers are desperate to find enough workers as the state emerges from the COVID-19 recession. A shortage of construction workers is one reason we are falling behind in housing but the syndrome hits virtually every segment of the economy.

We have shortages of auto mechanics, truck drivers, nurses, teachers, farm workers and cops, to name just a few other impacted fields, and they will worsen because California’s population has stopped growing and its potential workforce is declining as the baby boom generation ages out.

All of these shortages are also political issues and it’s high time our politicians pay attention to them.

About the Author

Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He began his professional career in 1960, at age 16, at the Humboldt Times. For more columns by Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Garnet Fire Grows to 18,748 Acres in Sierra National Forest

DON'T MISS

US Judge Blocks Deportations of Unaccompanied Migrant Children to Guatemala

DON'T MISS

Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet

DON'T MISS

Thousands in Australia March Against Immigration, Government Condemns Rally

DON'T MISS

Trump Says He Will Order Voter ID Requirement for Every Vote

DON'T MISS

Greta Thunberg Joins Flotilla Heading for Gaza With Aid

DON'T MISS

Chicago Mayor Says Police Will Not Aid Federal Troops or Agents

DON'T MISS

Post-War Gaza Plan Sees Relocation of Population, ‘Digital Token’ for Palestinian Land: Washington Post

DON'T MISS

Labor Day Quiz: Do You Know What a Knocker-Upper Is?

DON'T MISS

Bulldogs Check All the Boxes in Runaway Win Over Georgia Southern

UP NEXT

California Schools Reverse Truancy Trends. Improving Reading Scores Could Be Next

UP NEXT

Donald Trump’s Assault on Capitalism Is Only Going to Get Worse

UP NEXT

How California Lawmakers Can Trim Up to 20% Off Consumer Electric Bills

UP NEXT

Israel’s Gaza Campaign Is Making It a Pariah State

UP NEXT

Wilted Lettuce. Rotten Strawberries. Here’s What Happens When You Round Up Farmworkers.

UP NEXT

Renewal of CA Cap and Trade Program to Cut Emissions Fraught With Issues

UP NEXT

Joe Castro: A Life Cut Far Too Short, but His Legacy Marches On

UP NEXT

Why Epstein’s Furious Grip on Washington Holds

UP NEXT

I Was Preyed On for My VA Benefits. California Can Stop It

UP NEXT

My Friend Joseph Castro, Former Fresno State President and CSU Chancellor, Is Receiving Hospice Care

Thousands in Australia March Against Immigration, Government Condemns Rally

16 hours ago

Trump Says He Will Order Voter ID Requirement for Every Vote

16 hours ago

Greta Thunberg Joins Flotilla Heading for Gaza With Aid

16 hours ago

Chicago Mayor Says Police Will Not Aid Federal Troops or Agents

16 hours ago

Post-War Gaza Plan Sees Relocation of Population, ‘Digital Token’ for Palestinian Land: Washington Post

16 hours ago

Labor Day Quiz: Do You Know What a Knocker-Upper Is?

17 hours ago

Bulldogs Check All the Boxes in Runaway Win Over Georgia Southern

1 day ago

Judge Blocks Pillar of Trump’s Mass Deportation Campaign

2 days ago

Classic Cars Will Still Need a Smog Test in California After Lawmakers Reject Jay Leno Bill

2 days ago

Visalia Driver Arrested for DUI After Multiple Crashes and Pedestrian Injured

2 days ago

Fresno County Garnet Fire Grows to 18,748 Acres in Sierra National Forest

A lightning-sparked wildfire, the Garnet Fire, in the Sierra National Forest has burned 18,748 acres in Fresno County and remains at 8% cont...

16 hours ago

Photo: USDA - Forest Service Tanker 40 at Fresno Air Attack Base. The Fresno County Garnet Fire in the Sierra National Forest has burned 18,748 acres and is 8% contained as crews make progress on containment lines while bracing for possible thunderstorms early this week. (Sam Wu/USFS)
16 hours ago

Fresno County Garnet Fire Grows to 18,748 Acres in Sierra National Forest

U.S. flag and Judge gavel are seen in this illustration taken, August 6, 2024. (Reuters File)
16 hours ago

US Judge Blocks Deportations of Unaccompanied Migrant Children to Guatemala

Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, August 31, 2025. (Reuters/Amir Cohen)
16 hours ago

Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet

Demonstrators hold a banner during the 'March for Australia' anti-immigration rally, in Sydney, Australia, August 31, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
16 hours ago

Thousands in Australia March Against Immigration, Government Condemns Rally

President Donald Trump walks on the grounds of the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, U.S., August 30, 2025. (Reuters/Nathan Howard)
16 hours ago

Trump Says He Will Order Voter ID Requirement for Every Vote

Activists Yasemin Acar, Greta Thunberg and Thiago Avila attend a press conference before the departure of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a humanitarian expedition to Gaza, at the port of Barcelona, Spain August 31, 2025. (Reuters/Eva Manez)
16 hours ago

Greta Thunberg Joins Flotilla Heading for Gaza With Aid

National Guard troops wear gas masks during protests against federal immigration sweeps, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 12, 2025. (Reuters File)
16 hours ago

Chicago Mayor Says Police Will Not Aid Federal Troops or Agents

A view of tents sheltering Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military offensive, in Gaza City, August 23, 2025. (Reuters File)
16 hours ago

Post-War Gaza Plan Sees Relocation of Population, ‘Digital Token’ for Palestinian Land: Washington Post

Search

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Send this to a friend