Monday, January 10, 2005
Our Decennial Rain
It's been raining here in Los Angeles for more than a week. It's not just a gentle rain with a few sprinkles, or maybe a heavy mist, like most of the rains here. It's been a determined, heavy rain, as though the rain god is determined to give us enough rain this year to maintain our historical average. This year the rainfall is above average. Most years it is below average. About every ten years or so we get a series of rain storms like this.
The first one I remember must have happened in 1931 or 1932. Of course, I wasn't living in California then. I was living in Michigan and my uncle, aunt, and cousins from San Diego were visiting us. One of my cousins made light of the rain we had in Michigan. He said that when it rains in California it rains for a whole week without stopping. In Michigan it rains every summer, usually about once a week or so.
The next Southern California rain I remember occurred after my wife and I moved here in November, 1955. A couple of years later we had a week of rain. Roads were flooded. There were mud slides. I was working for Atomics International at the time. Atomics International was a division of North American Aviation. Neither Atomics International nor North American Aviation exist any more. North American was bought by the Rockwell Company and became Rockwell. Later it was sold to Boeing. So now I am retired from Boeing, without ever having set foot inside a Boeing facility.
About ten years later, while I was still employed at Atomics International, there was another rain storm that lasted several days. At the time we had a proposal we were sending to federal government and we were a bit late. Our sales department used the excuse that the rain delayed the transportation of the proposal from our plant in Canoga Park to the office in Pasadena of the federal department involved. Of course, we were used to the decennial rains, but the excuse worked. It worked so well that we received a comment later that we must have had a real rainstorm.
And now, this year, another rain. The cycle of rain is almost like the business cycle. One year there is plenty of rain - so much that it becomes a problem. Then we have nine years to dry out before the next storm. Also, the business cycle provides us a boom or bubble every ten years or so. During the bubble, which can last two or three years, the State of California takes in so much tax revenue that tax rebates are mailed to us taxpayers. Tax rates are reduced so that the State won't accumulate surplus money. Then we return to the normal drout, both of water and tax revenue.
A California farmer would be foolish to plan his work on the assumption that a rain like the one we're now having is normal. Instead, he plans for years of little or no rain. He has irrigation ditches dug in his property to provide water for plants. When we have a rain like this one, he hopes that the water will be stored in the mountains as snow to provide water to fill the aqueducts later in the year. He hopes that soil erosion will not damage his fields.
I wish our Governor and other elected officials thought like successful California farmers. They would then realize that during the decennial boom or bubble in the business cycle they should put aside money for future years, instead of refunding it to the taxpayers. They would also set the tax rates high enough to raise enough money during the lean years to avoid the huge deficits the State is now enduring. However, they do not have the incentive of the farmer. Unlike the farmer, they must leave office forever at the expiration of their terms: six years for the Assembly, eight years for the Senate and other elected officials. If a farmer had similar term limits, he would have no reason to plan for the distant future, but would operate his farm to make a killing during the few years that it was his.
The first one I remember must have happened in 1931 or 1932. Of course, I wasn't living in California then. I was living in Michigan and my uncle, aunt, and cousins from San Diego were visiting us. One of my cousins made light of the rain we had in Michigan. He said that when it rains in California it rains for a whole week without stopping. In Michigan it rains every summer, usually about once a week or so.
The next Southern California rain I remember occurred after my wife and I moved here in November, 1955. A couple of years later we had a week of rain. Roads were flooded. There were mud slides. I was working for Atomics International at the time. Atomics International was a division of North American Aviation. Neither Atomics International nor North American Aviation exist any more. North American was bought by the Rockwell Company and became Rockwell. Later it was sold to Boeing. So now I am retired from Boeing, without ever having set foot inside a Boeing facility.
About ten years later, while I was still employed at Atomics International, there was another rain storm that lasted several days. At the time we had a proposal we were sending to federal government and we were a bit late. Our sales department used the excuse that the rain delayed the transportation of the proposal from our plant in Canoga Park to the office in Pasadena of the federal department involved. Of course, we were used to the decennial rains, but the excuse worked. It worked so well that we received a comment later that we must have had a real rainstorm.
And now, this year, another rain. The cycle of rain is almost like the business cycle. One year there is plenty of rain - so much that it becomes a problem. Then we have nine years to dry out before the next storm. Also, the business cycle provides us a boom or bubble every ten years or so. During the bubble, which can last two or three years, the State of California takes in so much tax revenue that tax rebates are mailed to us taxpayers. Tax rates are reduced so that the State won't accumulate surplus money. Then we return to the normal drout, both of water and tax revenue.
A California farmer would be foolish to plan his work on the assumption that a rain like the one we're now having is normal. Instead, he plans for years of little or no rain. He has irrigation ditches dug in his property to provide water for plants. When we have a rain like this one, he hopes that the water will be stored in the mountains as snow to provide water to fill the aqueducts later in the year. He hopes that soil erosion will not damage his fields.
I wish our Governor and other elected officials thought like successful California farmers. They would then realize that during the decennial boom or bubble in the business cycle they should put aside money for future years, instead of refunding it to the taxpayers. They would also set the tax rates high enough to raise enough money during the lean years to avoid the huge deficits the State is now enduring. However, they do not have the incentive of the farmer. Unlike the farmer, they must leave office forever at the expiration of their terms: six years for the Assembly, eight years for the Senate and other elected officials. If a farmer had similar term limits, he would have no reason to plan for the distant future, but would operate his farm to make a killing during the few years that it was his.
