Green: Who backed Proposition 13 in 1978. Red: People who watched a ball game instead.

Wow, this is pretty definitive: With all kinds of California newspapers bashing Proposition 13 (often inaccurately claiming that it has starved the state budget -- which has skyrocketed since 1978 even as compared to inflation), 63 percent of California voters are telling Governor Jerry Brown to keeps his hands off the venerable property tax reform.

The Field Poll today found: "(63% to 29%) voters say that if Prop. 13 were up for a vote again today they would endorse it. By a five to four margin (50% to 41%) voters also oppose the idea of amending Prop. 13 to permit business and commercial property owners to be taxed at a higher rate than residential owners." That's another wow.

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So the Great Recession has been over for nearly two years, huh?

The latest U.S. Census data indicates the United States has more people living in poverty than, oh, ever. Well, almost ever. The 46.2 million of Americans below the line are as many as have been recorded in the 52 years government officials have been tracking the number (that doesn't include the Great Depression).

Nearly one in six of the people around you is now officially poor. In California, it's worse:

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hotgirlswithiphones.com

The urge to merge is on-hold.

Republicans are going to have a field day with this.

A day after AT&T announced it would be creating 5,000 much-needed jobs as a result of its merger with T-Mobile -- including local openings in Anaheim Hills and Cerritos -- President Obama's Department of Justice declared that it was challenging the corporate marriage.

No iPhones for T-Mobile customers ... yet:

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Eden

Credit's nearly frozen, so it's hard to buy a house. And heck, even with the real estate meltdown, they're still overpriced around here compared to what you earn, right?

So what to do? You ride it out. You rent. And so does everyone else. And their mother. Which brings us to ...

... 11 straight months of rising rents in Southern California. Awesome, right?

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Them bullions -- so hot right now.

There's a little press in Torrance called the Coin Dealer Newsletter -- though its three editions are better known as the Greysheet, Bluesheet and Greensheet. It's unseen by most of the world, but essential to those who've turned a hobby of coin collecting into a full-time trade.

However, Coin Dealer staff writer Derik, 28, who's been collecting since he was 12, says the crowd of coin hunters is rapidly expanding, and diversifying, as precious metals surge in value -- a panicky reaction to the Great Recession.

Right now, gold is at a record-high $1,850 per ounce...

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'The Jerk'

We hope you're enjoying the economic recovery, what with the stock market taking a stage dive, a real estate Ice Age and yes, lots and lots of people out of work. Good thing 2008 is in the rear view, right?

Wait, California just announced state unemployment has hit 12 percent. That's more than one in 10 people without a job, not counting those who have just given up (that might put us closer to one out of five).

That rate is up from 11.8 percent in June. And in L.A. it's even worse:

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MatM

A free ride for some millionaires?

Southern California has more millionaires than just about anywhere else in the nation, with L.A. coming in at No. 1, Orange County at No. 4, and San Diego ranking No. 6 in cities with the most seven-figure-plus households in 2008.

So maybe we should feel a little guilty, especially as President Obama and the GOP are headed toward draconian federal cuts, the United States' credit rating is down a notch, and the stock market is diving like a conservative congressman in a bathroom stall.

Because many millionaires and billionaires, it was revealed today, don't pay taxes like you and me:

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Temari 09

Reach for the sky, L.A.

So the unemployment rate in America is not quite as bad as we thought, and Wall Street is slightly happy but still schizophrenic.

Because nearly 1 in 10 people out of work this summer is sort of okay, comparatively, and maybe better than last year, but not really (and, in reality, almost 2 out of 10 Americans and maybe more are part of the "long-term unemployed").

Anyway, stop your whining. There's plenty of work out there for you, L.A., and we're not just talking about that temp job you found after standing outside Home Depot, or late-night deliveries to Charlie Sheen's house. A quick glance at Craigslist finds some stellar jobs just waiting for your perky ass:

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It was only last month that L.A. Mayor Antonio Villariagosa waived a wand and erased the city's $336 million deficit (at least on paper), turning in an optimistically balanced budget.

Looks like the folks at the Moody's credit rating service aren't impressed.

This week, according to Bloomberg ...

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Aw, they're broke like the rest of us.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ...

Innit? The U.S. Justice Department last week decided to back off on its costly opposition to married same-sex couples' joint bankruptcies, using an L.A. case to set this precedent.

Last month a federal bankruptcy judge in L.A. ruled that Gene Douglas Balas and Carlos Morales could indeed file a joint bankruptcy petition, according to Reuters. After that ...

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Indeed.

Yes, we've seen the t-shirts: 2010 sucked. It's true. And so far, 2011 isn't exactly sparking the turnaround of the new century. Not yet.

But there's hope.

Thanks to the often sedentary ways of the California legislature, a 2009, one-percentage point sales tax increase will expire tomorrow. That means ...

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Adam Tinworth

Shop for America.

Things were looking up there for a second, right?

Unemployment was creeping down, people were starting buy houses again, you got the new iPhone.

And then, boom: Housing prices went toilet-bound again, unemployment barely budged, and the stock market is experiencing Charlie Sheen-like mood swings. People are talking double-dip recession again.

Now the UCLA Anderson Forecast has to put an exclamation point on that bad news. It's titled ...

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libcom.org

Would you take this job for an extra 50 cents?

While the State Assembly committee readies itself to vote tomorrow on San Francisco Assembywoman Fiona Ma's proposals to 1) increase minimum wage from $8 to $8.50 and 2) allow for nine paid sick days per year in the California workplace, a battle of the studies rages on between businessfolk who think the bills will tank the economy and workers' advocates who insist they won't.

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California's massive budget deficit has shrunk by more than a third -- to Tom Cruise-size, about $10 billion -- thanks to unexpected income tax revenues.

But the taxpayer giveth and she also taketh away.

A 1 percentage point sales tax increase that went into effect in 2009 is set to expire. And if it does, you'll soon be paying a little less for stuff. On the flip side ...

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Via Daily Breeze

DWP general manager Ron Nichols: the customer is always wrong.

Ron Nichols is getting off to an ugly start as chief of DWP, the widely hated utility monopoly, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

KNBC-4's Ana Garcia reports that general manager Ron Nichols allowed his underlings to send out $23,000 and $1,300 surprise bills to shocked Los Angeles residents who had no idea they were "undercharged" by DWP for months and even years.

DWP spokesman Joseph Ramallo in a press release called these shakedowns "delayed bills." Anybody ever see the movie Brazil?

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McDonald's

We're not sure if this is a positive sign of a turnaround, or an image that will be our time's version of a Depression-era soup line.

But it appears that people are making a run on those thousands of jobs that have opened up at McDonald's. Yeah, the restaurant chain that not even American teenagers will work in.

According to USC's Neon Tommy:

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Frank McCourt is poorer than you (on paper).

Ah, tax day.

Don't let the complicated line items and nonsensical deductions get you down. That's all gravy compared to this fact: Nearly half of U.S. households don't even pay income taxes.

And the super rich are paying less than they did a few years ago. This as some of them complain about government overspending and the strong possibility that Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy will come to an end. But wait, there's more:

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racingmix

If you run out of fuel, pull it on over (if you can).

A recent New York Times piece on SoCal's crazy gas prices noted that a Santa Monica station was charging $5.69 a gallon for premium. Wow.

That's enough to make you ride on fumes. And that, Southern California, is apparently what you are doing.

The Automobile Club of Southern California says that in recent months it has seen a near-13-percent increase in "roadside service calls" for drivers who have run out of fuel. Steve Mazor, Auto Club research guru:

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Whatever you do, don't tell them you're a reject

Besides a skimpy check from Obama every month, there are few perks to being unemployed.

Depression. Self-doubt. Existential crisis, underscored by bed sores. And now, according to UCLA researchers, there's an even more degrading downside to going jobless in the Great Recession, proving once and for all that a wannabe hard-working American just can't win:

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From your wallet to El Salvador

You know all those stacks you drop on yardwork, Pico Union ethnic food and the live-in nanny?

Bet you were feeling pretty good about doing your part to stimulate the local economy, or whatever. But there's a good chance your fat Los Angeles dime is instead going straight to the local Western Union -- and onto the streets of El Salvador.

L.A. has the largest Salvadoran population in the U.S. -- over 270,000. They're our second largest group of Latinos, behind Mexicans. Superstar UCLA professor Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda gave us a ring from the newly democratic Latin American country yesterday, where he was chillin' with President Obama and touring the Salvadoran countryside in the name of economic reform. (Yeah, that's right. What did you do yesterday, punk?)

Here's what he told us:

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