This\u2019ll make you think \u2014 National debt numbers, as of Wednesday:<\/p>\n
U.S. National Debt … $21,127,345,356,599<\/p>\n
U.S. National Debt per citizen ….. $64,510<\/p>\n
U.S. National Debt per taxpayer … $174,188<\/p>\n
Social Security liability …….. $16,891,571,273,604788<\/p>\n
U.S. federal budget deficit … $6,002,517,462,993<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Julie, a checker at Save Mart on Howard Road, gave herself and a customer a slight shock Tuesday when she rang up a small basket of groceries. The cost: $30,922.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a little high\u201d said the customer, who was pretty sure she wouldn\u2019t have to pay all that.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, dear,\u201d said Julie. \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to do that. You won\u2019t have to pay that much.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt won\u201dt be a penny over $29,500,\u201d said a wise guy in the grocery line.<\/p>\n
Everybody in the line had a good chuckle. Julie re-rang the groceries and the total was $24 and change.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Human trafficking \u2014 the practice of virtually kidnapping young women and forcing them to work in houses of prostitution \u2014 is still a big-money business in Madera, City Council Member Charles Rigby told a meeting on Wednesday of the Madera Housing Authority, of which he is a member.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the fifth-largest city in California in regard to human trafficking.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrugs don\u2019t make money any more,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople make money.\u201d<\/p>\n
A series published last year in The Madera Tribune told of the trafficking locally, and how pimps treat the young women as they would slaves, not letting them leave the houses where they work, not paying them.<\/p>\n
Reporter Donald Promnitz wrote about why Madera has become a hot spot of sorts for the prostitution business:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Madera alone, you will find at least 20 to 40 prostitutes walking the streets,\u201d said Madera Police Sgt. Daniel Foss on the issue. \u201cIf you go inside the bars, you\u2019re going to find quite a bit more. If you go online, for the Fresno-Madera area, it\u2019s hundreds, if not thousands, every single day (that) are posted.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Foss, Madera, which sits between between the major trafficking and prostitution hubs of Los Angeles and San Francisco, has become a significant spot for prostitution due in part to a lack of resources designed to combat the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just (seen as) a good home base. We don\u2019t have a whole lot of programs, a whole lot of vice units, or programs like that,\u201d said Foss. \u201cso it\u2019s a good area where you\u2019re going to make okay money, but you\u2019re not going to have the heat on you really bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
The primary users of prostitution in Madera are seasonal workers in the fields, but Foss has also stated that the clients can come from all walks of life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen all manner, including college professors, business owners \u2026 Doctors, I\u2019ve seen a medical doctor engaging in prostitution,\u201d Foss said, \u201cso we\u2019ve seen everything.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This\u2019ll make you think \u2014 National debt numbers, as of Wednesday: U.S. National Debt … $21,127,345,356,599 U.S. National Debt per citizen ….. $64,510 U.S. National Debt per taxpayer … $174,188 Social Security liability …….. $16,891,571,273,604788 U.S. federal budget deficit … $6,002,517,462,993 \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 Julie, a checker at Save Mart on Howard Road, gave herself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_angie_page":false,"page_builder":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[26,39,43],"class_list":["post-5726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-business","tag-government","tag-law"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maderatribune.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}