169-4-769
The immediate cause for this cataclysm was the recession. The housing bust and foreclosure crisis struck hardest in the “sand states” of the south-west—California, Nevada and Arizona—and in Florida. At 12.2% as of February, California now has the second-highest unemployment rate (after Nevada) of all American states, compared with a national figure of 8.8% in March.
At first blush, the current crisis might appear to be just another iteration in the endless Californian story of boom and bust. To count just the gyrations since Mr Brown’s previous governorship, there was the defence boom of the 1980s that made swathes of southern California (an aerospace centre at the time) prosper, which turned into a bust (the “peace dividend”) in the early 1990s from which the region never fully recovered. There followed the dotcom boom in the late 1990s, which promised to make silicon the new gold in the San Francisco Bay Area. It became the dotcom bust after 2000. Then came housing.
Culturally, Californians seem to accept such feast-or-famine living more than others. Their northern neighbours like to remind visitors of the famous fork (somewhere in today’s Idaho) in the Oregon Trail that led the wagon trains to the Pacific coast. The builders and settlers, goes the story, followed the Snake and Columbia rivers and became Oregonians and Washingtonians. The gamblers and risk-takers turned south on the California Trail over the Sierra Nevada, ready to strike it big or not at all.

A. 어휘
cataclysm 격변, 대변동, 대홍수. housing 주택. bust 가격의 폭락, 파탄, 파산.
foreclosure 저당권의 반환권상실, 流質處分(유질처분)〈소유권상실처분〉
as of February 2월 현재. figure 數値(수치).
blush 紅潮(홍조), 얼굴 붉히기. At first blush 첫눈에, 一見(일견)하여.
iteration 반복. To count 계산해 보면. gyrations 旋回(선회), 회전.
defence boom 국방(방위산업)호황. swathes of 많은. cf. 풀을 한번 벤 분량.
aerospace centre 항공우주센터. dividend 배당(금).
feast 祝宴(축연). famine 기근. fork 分岐點(분기점), 支流(지류), 쇠스랑.