Trip Learning 6 - One Economy

When I was in in California in February the conversation there was on the prolonged drought they were having.  Cattle ranchers were selling off their cattle and vineyards were expected very low crop yields or possibly none.

We on the east coast don't generally see this as our problem.  We are removed from the daily news of it.  Some people feel a sense of so what.  They chose to live in that state.

The reality is we have one economy and when a significant segment of our economy is doing poorly we all suffer.  This is more true when it comes to food as we all have to eat and eating is a large part of our family budget.

When there is a large scale problem like the drought in CA we sre all impacted by their disaster as all, yes all our food prices go up.  Small scale problems are generally absorbed by the economy without a significant issue.  

So we are all paying for the drought in CA and will for the foreseeable future.  We can't look at problems such as this as not our problem.  

There are also secondary impacts to the economy from these farms not buying the same things,  they can't employ local and migrant workers.  These people then can't buy the way they normally do resulting in micro economies having difficulties.

Now let me toss out there the question of this drought being possibly caused by global warming.  What if this problem presists for some time to come or what if the weather never recovers and we have a permanent change.  

I learned on my trip that we are all economically linked in some way and what is bad for one it is bad for another.  Even if the Fedeal Government steps in to help the farmers, the help comes from us in the form of taxes.

The other thing we must remember is that the people that are impacted are real people with all the things in their lives that  we have.

So, when you see or read about the continuing drought out west remember we are all affected by it even if it is raining here.