I have mixed feelings about this. As an Amazon affiliate (I send clicks to Amazon and when someone buys something via that click, I get a percentage of the sale - about 4%-6%), it makes me angry that I won't be able to collect any revenue from recommendations I make re: products for sale on Amazon. However, as an Amazon customer, I'm happy that I can still buy stuff from them without the 9.5% sales tax that would otherwise be charged. Here's a great open letter stating the case against Amazon for shutting own it's affiliate program in California. In total, I've made less than $500 from being an Amazon affiliate. I have probably saved three times this amount though in sales tax from stuff I've bought from Amazon. Could I have bought the same items from another out of state retailer? Of course, but I won't get the same customer service and feeling of security I get when ordering from Amazon. In the end, it doesn't affect me as much. I'll still buy from Amazon but I will no longer be an affiliate of any body. It's just too much hassle since there's no "all-in-one" online retailer I can link to as easily as Amazon.

Last month, I wrote a post about California's absurdly high unemployment rate (9.3%). Today, news is released that the unemployment rate is now up to 10.1%. I guess my hope that last month was the bottom was wrong. Another thing wrong was my calculation of how many people were actually unemployed. I originally said 3.5 million Californians were out of work (9.3% multiplied by the population of California or 35M). However, it seems the EDD calculated the number for January as 1.7M and the number for February as 1.8M. What I should have done was multiplied the unemployment rate not by the total population but by the labor force. Still, 1.7M and 1.8M people not working is a huge number.

This is a pretty scary statistic - I guess that translates to almost 3.5 million people. It's always been the case that California leads in boom times but I guess the same can be true during the bust. Not only is unemployment at the highest point in about 15 years but home prices have been sliding, as well. On top of all of this, there are reports that the state only has about a month of cash left while the politicians argue about a budget. Let's hope this is the low point.