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Strategies & Market Trends : The coming US dollar crisis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ayn rand who wrote (21889)	8/9/2009 9:14:41 AM
From: ayn rand	1 Recommendation Respond to of 71461

Silicon Valley gets a taste of the grapes of wrath .................................................... In California's Santa Clara county, the local food bank served 17% more people in the year to May than it did in the previous 12 months. That month (May) alone, Second Harvest Food Bank's food connection hotline experienced a 71% surge in first-time callers. Not surprising, perhaps, given the economic problems sweeping America, but all the more so when one realises that Santa Clara county is the heart of America's Silicon Valley. The "Valley" – an area once synonymous with exuberant wealth for a small group of highly educated, youthful technology entrepreneurs and engineers – is experiencing one of the worst economic recessions in America, at times putting some of the problems seen in old industrial areas like Detroit and other parts of the Mid-West to shame. With unemployment now at 11.8% – higher than it was in the last recession, which ironically was in part fuelled by the collapse of the dotcom bubble – the Valley is no longer the economic boomtown that it once was. As a result, Second Harvest is now serving food to more than 207,000 people a month in an area that is typically seen by outsiders as one of the US's – if not the world's – most prosperous economies. Although Second Harvest, which also covers adjoining San Mateo county, does not take details of where people used to work, the hotline's manager said that many will tell his staff that they've been laid off, but they won't say from where. One new recipient, however, admits that he used to work at IBM and has recently struggled even to find work at Wal-Mart, due to the sheer number of people applying for available jobs. "The economy has had a devastating effect on the local population employed by the tech industry who may not be "techies" – but who are the people who keep the buildings running etc," explains Poppy Pembroke, the food bank's communications manager. "With already low incomes in an area with one of the highest costs of living in the country, the loss of one job can bring a family to its knees very quickly." Second Harvest's experience is not unusual. Statistics from Santa Clara county itself show that applications for food stamps are up 60%, applications for general assistance are up 30%, and bankruptcy's soared by 59% in the last 12 months. Silicon Valley is struggling – be it the wealthy-on-paper techies who are not short of cash, or the average joe whose support job no longer exists. 08 Aug 2009 telegraph.co.uk