Tech World Plummet Affects Silicon Valley.

LOS GATOS, California - The $1.6 million Bugatti crouches in the showroom, flanked by Lamborghinis, Bentleys and a Rolls-Royce, all polished to a shimmer. The nearby potted plants, however, are dusty and wilting. With super-luxury car sales here just half of what they used to be, they had to cut something.

"We wash our own windows now, take care of the plants ourselves," says Ryan Dohogne, general manager of Silicon Valley Auto Group. Although they haven't laid anyone off, yet, Dohogne said they're saving everywhere they can.

Eight kilometres away, former indoor plant specialist Michael A. Jones is having what he calls "a humbling experience" at a non-profit food pantry, choosing dented cans of corn and tuna, a crunched box of Rice Krispies and some soon-to-expire milk to supplement his food stamps.

Jones used to gross US$12,000 a month as an indoor horticulturist for high tech companies, restaurants and car dealerships, although not Silicon Valley Auto Group. Then "everyone cut back all at once and we had to shut down," he said. "It happened fast."

Very fast. In fact, nowhere in the US has the bust arrived more abruptly.

The Associated Press Economic Stress Index, a month-by-month analysis of foreclosure, bankruptcy and unemployment rates in more than 3,000 US counties, shows that last year, as the national economy tanked, high tech economic centres from California's Silicon Valley to North Carolina's Research Triangle were apparently "recession-proof" with increasing jobs and stable housing prices.

Then everything changed. When previously invested funds petered out, there was no new capital. Bankruptcies, foreclosures and unemployment in high tech regions spiked, and are now at some of the highest levels in the country.
For example:

- Santa Clara County, home to Silicon Valley, saw bankruptcies soar 59 per cent in the past 12 months, and projections are that they're still climbing;

- North Carolina's unemployment has doubled since early 2008 to a record 10.7 per cent, with close to 200,000 jobs lost in the state, 20 per cent of those in Research Triangle, a high tech hot spot near Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel

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