by Dave McGill

Yesterday, January 29th, Americans woke up to the news that the California teachers’ pension fund, the nation’s second largest, was $43 billion short of meeting its future pension obligations; that a proposal to legalize marijuana and produce billions in tax revenues for the state would be on the California ballot in the fall; that Macy’s was joining the list of recent retailers announcing four-figure-or-more layoffs; and that President Obama’s renomination of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the principle manager of the economy during the orgy of greed leading up to the financial crisis, had been approved by the Senate.

In other news greeting readers of the business pages, the Labor Department announced that 470,000 workers had filed first-time claims for unemployment the previous week, bringing the total for January to over 1.8 million.

During the day, Friday, radio and TV stations carried the news from the Commerce Department that the nation’s total production of goods and services had expanded at a healthy 5.7% annual rate in the final quarter of 2009. However, on closer examination, it was found that most of the growth was produced by an unsustainable increase in inventories. By its close, the Dow had ended January down 3.5%, its worst performance in 11 months.

The news in the Los Angeles region came in hot and heavy. First was the announcement that the venerable Pasadena Playhouse would close due to the economy’s toll on donations. The landmark theater has long been known as the “star factory” for launching the careers of such notable actors as Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte and Charles Bronson.

Then, within hours, the megachurch Chrystal Cathedral (the financing for which, incidentally, brought me to California some 32 years ago), announced that it had sustained a 27% drop in revenue. As a result, it said it would be laying off 50 of its staff members, pulling its Hour of Power show out of eight markets and cancelling its Glory of Easter Pageant which has been seen by tens of thousands each year. The church has had some changes among its leadership recently, but it attributed its financial problems to the recession.

At about the same time, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration announced that it plans to close the 82-year-old Lanterman Development Center in Pomona, just east of Los Angeles. The center currently houses 398 people with severe autism, cerebral palsy and other lifelong disabilities.

And, no sooner was that news out than the Los Angeles City Hall announced that it was increasing the number of planned 2010 layoffs to about 4.000, due to the city’s budget deficit.

All told, it might seem that this was an unusual spate of bad news. But, in reality, it wasn’t the worst 12 hours or so, nor was it the best. It was more like just another typical day in the Great Recession of 2007.