The New Version of Depression Apple Selling

Anyone who has lived in the southwestern part of the U.S. for any length of time over the past few decades will surely appreciate how grave the situation has become for some Americans when considering that the ranks of day laborers standing on street corners in the morning are no longer restricted to recent immigrants and illegal aliens.

It should be clear to even the most casual observer that the biggest busts have occurred in parts of the country where the biggest booms once flourished - that would be California, Nevada, and Arizona - where tales of woe are now spreading as fast as home prices rose back in the first half of the decade.

The poll to the right from a recent story in the Las Vegas Sun (hat tip EU) reflects the current state of affairs for 551 people in and around Sin City where many are now hoping that the wave of foreclosure sales - homes that once sold for $300,000 now flying off the shelf at around $100,000 - will somehow revive the city's economy to its mid-decade glory.

At this point, they'd probably be happy with simply getting back to a slightly larger fraction of the activity that was seen in the Nevada desert four or five years ago, economic statistics produced during those halcyon days likely to be seen only in history books for many, many years to come.

Anyway, it seems that the Smiths and the Joneses are joining the Rodriguezes and the Hernandezes outside of Home Depots.

To wit:

The new faces of day labor
U.S. citizens are joining immigrants in store parking lots

It sounds like a George Lopez joke.

“Times are so bad that I saw an Anglo day laborer standing outside Home Depot the other day.”

Except it’s true.

In the latest sign of the Las Vegas Valley’s economic free fall, U.S. citizens are starting to show up in the early mornings outside home improvement stores and plant nurseries across the Las Vegas Valley, jostling with illegal immigrants for a shot at a few hours of work.
Experts say the slow-starting but seemingly inexorable trend is occurring nationwide.

“It’s the equivalent of selling apples in the Great Depression,” said Harley Shaiken, chairman of the Center for Latin American studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

But it is not only a sign of the times, they add. If the numbers of citizens among the day laborers in cities across the country continue to grow, it’s likely to increase the ire of followers of TV host Lou Dobbs and others who will see illegal immigrants as stealing food off the tables of the nation’s native-born or naturalized poor.

The whole thing is worth a look, the plight of "americanos" such as 50-year old Ken Buchanan (pictured above) doesn't appear to be all that uncommon around the country with the trend expected to continue for some time.

Comments

[Tom Armistead:]

Put this together with the huge bonuses being paid to those who created this mess.

Radical change is required.

Nov 08 07:04 AM

[tripleblack:]

Elections have consequences...

And so does our current economic policy spewing forth from Washington.

TIme for the national leadership to look outside the Beltway, and start spending more time listening to constituents, and less time partying on K Street.

Nov 08 08:42 AM

[Michael Clark:]

I agree, Tom. And as each day goes by with the government pretending everything is fixed, and pretending that the bankers are really ok and going to make everything like they were before....the longing for radical change gets stronger and stronger.

They think we're idiots out here. I guess they think we're being taken in by all of these lies and all this posturing.

On Nov 08 07:04 AM Tom Armistead wrote:

> Put this together with the huge bonuses being paid to those who created
> this mess.
>
> Radical change is required.

Nov 08 12:05 PM

[abbottmd:]

The day laborers used to be from Mexico and central america. When times were good for the economy, little attention was paid. Now that times have changed and it's Americans hanging out for day labor jobs, we're supposed to feel sorry for them? There were people doing this for years, and we used them for cheap labor as a society. I would like to see our society be a little more consistent in our sympathy.

Nov 08 01:41 PM

[Moon Kil Woong:]

Al loud as the administration would like to clang their bells and symbols saying everything is better the simple facts are that things are not. Prosperity is not valued in GDP but quality of life, economic security, health, and a sense of direction (usually a job). On these points we are failing miserably. Just walking around and talking to fiends and neighbors proves that.

So far, aside from more government spending thanks to a stimulus that's not a stimulus (it's porkus and fattening bureaucracy) I don't see any reason 2010 will be better than this year.The government has yet to come up with a single free market private sector growth catalyst that shows signs of promise for a brighter 2010.

Sure the tech sector is promising as always, but even it is suffering from weak demand as businesses cut into their capital expenditures this time around. A lingering or double dip recession seems more and more a reality in my mind.

Nov 08 11:32 PM

[TCK:]

"Day Laborers"

These are the one million jobs that Obama created last quarter !

Nov 09 05:49 AM

[Wildhawk:]

Tom- while I agree with your point that the number of day laborers standing outside Home Depot has surely increased of late, is there any reason to point out explicitly that there are starting to be "Anglo" day laborers competing with illegal immigrants? What does race have to do with it? Isn't it simply a tragedy to have so many day laborers standing there in the first place regardless of race? I normally like your writing and your no-nonsense perspective, but the implications here could certainly be construed as racist in nature. Nothing says that illegal immigrants are automatically something other than Anlgo in this country (point of fact, in my area of the country there are significant numbers of illegal immigrant day laborers who are from Eastern Europe and would appear Anglo to anyone looking). Better to just stick to the numbers rather than racial characteristics in the future.

Nov 10 08:31 AM