These guys have a problem on their hands. (Besides each other!)Below, is a Daily News article, but first: Y'all gotta admit...when it comes to recent local and global economic trends over the past year, Zuma Dogg has been about three to six months ahead of the curve the entire time.
From the subprime/foreclosure predictions (three months ahead of the first newspaper headlines), impending recession, down stock market in January '08 (it was), high oil prices, gold hitting $1000, bank failures...AND THE HIGH PRICE OF OIL CAUSING INFLATION THAT WOULD HAVE PEOPLE UN-ABLE TO DRIVE TO WORK AND PAY BILLS!!!
(It all seems so obvious now. But at the time, ZD was criticized and ostracized WITH EVERY PREDICTION!!! All anyone could spit back in my face is that, "Oh, it's not as bad as the 80's." Or, "Oil prices will stay below $90-$100, because the oil sheiks don't want U.S. demand to drop. (I told you India, Dubai, China would keep demand high and the price high.) I'M NOT REMINDING EVERYONE TO BRAG OR RUB IT IN...BUT TO TRY AND CATCH YOUR ATTENTION AND GAIN SOME CREDIBILITY FOR WHEN I CONTINUE TO MAKE PREDICTIONS AND FOR EVEN MORE CREDIBILITY DURING MY PUBLIC COMMENTS.
(A lot of my predictions seem outrageous at the time, so people may think I was wrong at the time, so I need to remind them when it all comes true in the newspaper headlines.)
AND NOW...Zuma's prediction made just over three months ago on City TV 35, blog and Doug McIntyre's KABC radio show is starting to creep into the news headlines:
DO YOU KNOW WHAT A MAJOR CRISIS IT WILL BE WHEN PEOPLE CANNOT PAY THEIR UTILITY BILLS? The lefty-socialist wackos at City Council will make sure no ones water and utilities are ever shut off (no matter how many months late on payments) -- and DWP/Utility companies will suffer the same problem the banks just went through (are going through) over non-payments on housing.
AND IMAGINE WHAT WILL HAPPEN OVER THE NEXT THREE YEARS AS DWP RATES INCREASE 30%-50% (with a complete doubling of rates a real possibility.)
BUT VILLARAIGOSA AND CITY COUNCIL WANT TO KEEP ADDING NEW BONDS, TAXES AND FEES ON THE BALLOT -- WHILE THEY "UPDATE" (as in "UP-date") existing fees. (Including raising the trash collection fee again even though Laura Chick says there was such a surplus, they were able to use it for other things than hiring new cops.)
SIDEBAR: (People think oil prices dropped because of something George Bush said, or because of slowing U.S. demand. Zuma Dogg has been told it is because IndyMac had to sell-off MASSIVE oil positions to cover recent withdraws. (So it looks as though there is INDEED massive speculation that is keeping oil prices high. Because IndyMac is just ONE financial institution (although a HUGE one).
Overdue utility bills mount in L.A.
EXCERPT:
The DWP and other utility companies say growing numbers of people are falling behind on their water and power bills.
DWP officials said 358,374 customers - nearly one in four of the 1.4 million the utility serves - had overdue bills in May. That was 13 percent more customers with overdue bills than in May of last year, officials noted.
The vast majority of the 358,374 - about 293,000 of them - were homeowners, according to DWP records. But overdue accounts of apartment dwellers also surged - up 40 percent from a year ago to 22,251.
"I think people are feeling the pinch of a difficult economy. They feel very uncertain," said DWP General Manager H. David Nahai.
"When you have abill you can hold onto for a while ... knowing you're being served by a municipal agency that's going to take a humanitarian and caring view of its customers, it's natural to hold onto a bill for a month or so."
Nahai said the utility is closely watching the trend and moving to hire and train workers to help customers meet their payments.
Nahai said the utility's write-off rate has climbed only about 0.1 percent over past year, which will cost the DWP an extra $1 million or so. He said the rate is still less than the industry average. [ZD says, Yeah, but that rate is about to skyrocket as DWP rates skyrocket in the face of inflation and over-fees/over-taxation.]
Disconnections on average have been dropping since Nahai took over: Service was cut off to about 2,160 customers in each of the last four months, compared with about 3,460 per month in the same period last year.
"While disconnecting is a last resort, it's truly unfair to ratepayers as a whole to allow abusers to get away with it, and we'll concentrate to make sure that doesn't happen," Nahai said.
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