California's economy and key sectors

¶ … economy of California: Discussion

The five major industries of California encompass the fields of agriculture; oil and mining (natural resources), electronics and IT; movie making/entertainment, and tourism (California, 2010, Enchanted Learning). However, despite the legendary prosperity of companies such as Google and the need for staple products such as oil and food around the world, the economy of California has been described as being in a dire state. The state government's budgetary woes have required furloughs, layoffs, and even late paychecks for state employees. The economy was hard-hit by the housing boom and bust, much like neighboring Western states such as Arizona (Hay 2010). Commercial and public construction is lagging in terms of generating job growth in California.

According to Andrew Hay (2010) of Reuters, economists predict that: "Job growth in California, which would rank among the world's biggest economies were the state a country, will be marked by 'fits and starts' until later this year. It will be led by health, professional and business services, export, construction and technology related manufacturing sectors." Despite the hope that green, or environmentally-friendly industries would propel the California economy into a state of growth, the Obama Administration has not been able to finance such initiatives with federal funding to the degree that was promised during the 2008 presidential campaign. "Green business, and information and biotechnology will be growth areas in California over the next decade but objective data does not suggest Green will push growth rates above the U.S. growth rate" (Hay 2010).

In fact, "Proposition 23 on the November 2010 ballot "would suspend California's [current] greenhouse gas emissions law" (Joyce 2010).The emissions law requires a reduction in the state's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and is one of the most stringent and ambitious in the nation. "Proposition 23 would put the law on hold until California's unemployment rate is 5.5% or lower for four consecutive quarters' (Joyce 2010). Given the influence of California upon setting national environmental policy because of the dominance of car travel and its sheer size and population density, if Proposition 23 passes, the effect could be seismic. "Opponents say that [Proposition 23] could hurt the creation of jobs in San Diego and throughout the state, but the Yes on 23 campaign says the measure would save existing jobs" (Joyce 2010).

The war over Proposition 23 has been waged by two of California's major industries. Technology companies promoting environmentally-friendly technology echo the sentiment of the chairman of CleanTECH San Diego. "I was talking to someone from Massachusetts last week and that's probably our biggest U.S.…he tongue-in-cheek laughed and said 'Well, if Proposition 23 passes let everyone know we'll take the jobs in the clean and green technology that California will lose'" (Joyce 2010). Two large Texas oil companies, Valero and Tesoro have funded the public relations media initiative encouraging California's citizens to pass Proposition 23, stating that it will save jobs in their industry and limit the rising price of fuel and thus the input costs of many products.