California a failed state »
Posted By jovial 6 months, 1 week ago in NewsCalifornia is in crisis. The state is $24bn short of balancing its books this year - and it may run out of cash to pay its bills in a matter of weeks.
It is a local story with global implications. California's economy is the largest in the US and the eighth largest in the world - as big as Brazil and three times the size of Saudi Arabia.
If California fails, the shock waves of this economic crisis will be felt around the globe.
Enter the Hollywood action hero. In his final year as governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger has a radical plan.
He is trying to balance the budget entirely by slashing government spending - mostly programmes for the poor.
Millions of Californians would lose welfare and health care benefits, thousands of teachers and state workers would be fired. State prisoners would be dumped into county jails.
Avi Lewis travels to South Central Los Angeles to learn about the political causes and the human impact of shock therapy, California style - and gets a glimpse of how the next chapter of the global economic crisis is likely to unfold.
Read Full Story at therealnews.com »
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jovial
Grew up In Brooklyn. Joined the Navy in 1976 stayed in 10 years. Aircraft Electronics tech. Worked for Major Govt. contractor then settled in California ...
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jovial6 months, 1 week ago
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California is in big trouble. If California fails as some would like to see, the ramifications will be felt worldwide. This situation is very important to watch. If these service cuts go through, we will see what happens if conservatives were allowed this to happen on a countrywide basis.
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libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned11 Replies
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quackpot6 months, 1 week ago
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A good part of California's economy is based on the scam of giving tax incentives to wealthy real estate developers to pave huge areas for even more shopping malls so as to increase sales tax revenue. A pyramid scheme that has collapsed.
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epiphannyy6 months, 1 week ago
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Actually, this is what happens when a legally elected Governor is unseated and replaced with the "Terminator" with the belief that he would somehow pull out a Hollywood ending. Never mind that the state was in shambles after Enron was allowed to nearly bankrupt it with a manufactured energy crisis, then exempted by the Bush administration from having to pay restitution to the state for the economic devastation they unleashed. The economic drain of the illegal immigration problem is huge too. Billions of dollars being spent annually to birth, feed, educate, and house the children of illegals while NO tax dollars are being paid by their parents to contribute to the state having to birth, feed, educate, and house them. When Reagan opened the floodgates in the 1980's to the illegals by offering amnesty started that mess in California. It only took 30years for the rest of the country to wake up to what California has been facing for decades. But now that they've become entrenched, and the welfare system which subsidizes them has become generational, how will it ever end? It won't. California will never deny illegals these unearned benefits, but they'll fire or demote every state employee, cut or eliminate pensions, close parks and libraries, etc, until there is nothing left to the state of California but an extension of Tijuana north of the Mexican border. Why do you think so many native Californians (like me) have moved east? It's a sinking ship folks. It's only a matter of time before it entirely collapses and Mexico reclaims it.
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And as much as the conservatives want to blame it on the "liberals" they really can't. Reagan (the Hollywood actor-turned-God of the conservative party) opened the floodgates with amnesty. Enron, under the protection of the Bush administration, brought the state to the brink of economic collapse with the fake energy crisis. Gray Davis, the democrat, was "impeached" and replaced with the republican "Terminator" (another actor in republican's clothing) with no real experience to oversee the full collapse of largest economy in the country. That's the time line of the collapse and most all of California knows it. What's scary is that the country will soon follow wherever California goes and right now it looks like its going to hell in a hand basket, fast. -
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Spadecaller6 months, 1 week ago
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It will be sad to see what will happen to the poorest and most vulnerable people of California, but this is the conservative's approach to balancing the budget; slash public education, welfare, and health care for the poor.
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Of course, legalizing marijuana and taxing it as liquor would be too radical for the terminator. The amount of revenue from that one source alone would yield far more revenue for the state than firing teachers and abandoning the poor.
In addition, it would create jobs, establish small businesses, reduce illegal immigration, and Mexican drug smuggling. Though this would not please the rich drug cartels and the corrupt U.S. officials who routinely take payoffs by South American drug lords, it would at least spread opportunity and greatly reduce drug related crime.
Well, I guess, if Arnold has his way, the nation will get a chance to see what "compassionate conservatism" will do to Californians.
To bad Californians were stupid enough to elect another conservative Hollywood star as their governor.
When crime goes up as a result of abandoning the poor and sending them to the streets in desperation, the cost that Arnold thought he would save will be lost on litigating crimes perpetrated by more high school drop outs and the increase in crimes related to drug addiction and alcoholism.
Yes, here's a fine example of compassionate conservatism in action; attack the most vulnerable to free up revenue.
"The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little." ~FDR-
libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned
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Spadecaller6 months, 1 week ago
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All I can see is that libshater2dmax posted a comment directly below mine as a reply; I have libs comments blocked. I can only imagine it is the usual trash and personal attacks.
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So many of us are now blocking this lunatic. Hey, it must be getting lonely hanging upside down from the top of that cave. At least the bugs can hear ya. Ha. -
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Social-Sciences6 months, 1 week ago
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Part One of Three: (Replied to own posts)
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Do be careful of specifically stating groups when speaking of things that are based around the American country and political associate as a whole and not just one state.
The events leading into the election of Gov. Schwarzenegger are not so cut and dry as any who have done proper research on the prior economic conditions, American thought processes and general history of the less than efficient parties and their election policies.
What you need to understand is that people in the political parties are not so far-sighted when it comes to picking who will govern them, but purely by the party in which they are claimed to associate with. This may be obvious, but there is an obvious lack of notation regarding this in your recent comment when it blames Californians and conservatives in general. People in every state tend to vote for their representative regardless of the issues or topics at hand when it comes to them being their future leader; they just want their party in and rarely do they ever think of how it will be shortly thereafter.
This is true with every state and is shown en mass on presidential elections as well. What occurred in the state of California was what the vast majority of Americans of every state would have done; they have an inefficient leader, took him out, and replaced him with another. This was done during the Clinton Administration to some degree as well, just to give a more recent example on a country basis.
California is and has been a Democratic dominated state for a very long time. Before the current GOV. took over the mess that was passed down to it, it was indeed a lead by a Democratic official as well. Though this was not the cause of a Republican being elected but a mix of opinion regarding what democrat would be the next pick as the government leader of the state.
Democrats were split in their decision on who they wanted to appoint as the Republicans knew they had virtual no chance of winning without being 100% united, which has happened few times to either party in history. When it looked like the new seat would be taken by a democrat, as it usual was expected to be such, a new person stepped up that was recognizable, charismatic due to preconceived images and an obvious choice for any who was educated in American History or at least past election processes.
Schwarzenegger was not picked with the people thinking that he was able or capable of fixing any problems - in fact it is completely ignorant to think of such as some of the posts here claim is the case. He was picked because history has shown that the charismatic and different always wins out to the dull or "overused"; if one represents or is believed to represent a past government and a new person arrives on the scene that has something obviously different about him, he becomes a beacon of votes for a party to ensure it's victory.
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jordan116 months, 1 week ago
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What a mess. I moved here (CA) in March to help care for my dad, but kept my home in WA. as a safety net. Having already lost half my 401K, along with the net value of my lifetime savings to the shenanigans of unfettered capatalists, there is no way I'll stay here to have more of my retirement money eroded because this state will reach in and take every dime it can get its hands on for more failed governance.
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Naturally, the poor get cuts because the poor don't vote. It makes me sick to see Arnold take food out of the mouths of children, let alone education that can lift them out of poverty. When the hell does he plan on looking at the often obscene pay of some state workers, along with benefits? They are compensated well above the same pay for private sector employees.-
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nostalgia6 months, 1 week ago
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Jordan
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Do some reading on the state retirement system
If CA is going to survive they need to address that issue
The retirement age for public employees in CA remains as low as 50.
And you are correct about the pay but the problem is immense in the benefits area:
A far more serious problem is benefits, the payments made for not working. In December 2008 average public sector benefits were two-thirds higher than private sector benefits: $13.38 per hour versus $7.98. Moreover this differential is exploding. Since 2002, public employees have averaged $1.17 in new benefits for every dollar of extra salary, whereas private employees have averaged only half of that. Last year, public benefits grew three times as fast as private sector benefits: 69 cents versus 23 cents.
Compounding the disparity, state and local employees typically receive far more secure benefits than private sector employees do. According to a recent study from the Center for Retirement Research at BostonCollege, almost 80 percent of state and local workers age 25-64 have pensions from their employer and 80 percent of these pensions provide strictly defined benefits (i.e., bearing no risk from shortfalls in investment
proceeds). In contrast, only 45 percent of private employees of the same age have pensions from their employers, and only 40 percent of these pensions provide strictly defined benefits.
Moreover, state and local benefits tend to kick in at lower ages, with better cost of living adjustment, and with fewer deductibles for health care than private sector benefits. Indeed, the only part of the private sector offering benefits comparable to state and local employees is older unionized manufacturing, the Chryslers and GMs which have been sinking for years.
While not all states and localities are insolvent, some of our biggest are. California is so far under water that its political class has abandoned most serious budget-balancing discussions in favor of creative gimmicks for borrowing against the future. New York state and New York City, long envious of California surpassing them on the way up, are now racing to meet them at the bottom. When they go, Illinois and New Jersey will likely follow.
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Commodore16 months, 1 week ago
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It's simple. Just quit supporting the 11M of the 12M illegals in the country. I heard that California was once a decent state but this was before my time. Try passing and enforcing some respectful laws instead of making it look like Dodge City.
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jovial6 months, 1 week ago
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By not supporting I take it you mean not employing them. If there weren't jobs in California for illegals they wouldn't continue to come. Employers hire them and pay taxes to the government. The government turns a blind eye to the industries hiring illegals to help those industries prosper and to keep them paying taxes. I think that passing a set of laws that fines individuals and companies that hire illegals would make the immigration problem go away. It has gone on so long, however, that a lot of the illegals have had "anchor babies" and those people are now citizens. The ensuing break up of families, the logistics of enforcement, and the cost to the industries associated with hiring legal workers, has been a long outstanding problem. Another thing to note is if California were successful in passing stringent immigration laws and policies, the people that were illegal here would migrate to other states like Nevada, Oregon, and Arizona. The law has to be a Federal law to really have any real impact.
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jordan116 months, 1 week ago
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It's simple. Just quit supporting the 11M of the 12M illegals in the country. I heard that California was once a decent state but this was before my time. >>>>
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CA can't "quit supporting" illegal immigrants. Federal law, and the SC ruled that they can't be denied emergency medical care, education, or legal representation. And quite frankly, even if they could deny, I'd like to believe that Californians are better than what you would suggest.
It's the federal governments responsibility to keep illegals out. When they don't do their job, then the states affected by the influx of illegal immigrants should be compensated, period. -
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calitennflo6 months, 1 week ago
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Please remember the gains before believing the losses...we here in San Diego are gaining ground...and hope soon to add 140,000 homes powered from the wind...when the Sun, the Ocean and other knowlege too is incorporated into one event...then we will grow leaps and bounds.
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JoseMadreComment removed: Hard Banned
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JoseMadreComment removed: Hard Banned11 Replies
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HateKoolAid6 months, 1 week ago
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It's sad to see all the finger pointing by the California voters. Republican voters blame the democrats and their programs and the democrat voters blame the republicans and their tax loop hole policies and they both blame old Arnie for not coming up with a solution. Funny thing is they fail to blame an equally guilty party...themselves. In California you can, with a little money, put just about any kind of proposition or initiative on the ballot. When you consider the dozens of budget related ballot measures that were approved by the voters themselves over the last three decades MANDATING how the legislature is to budget revenue it is no wonder the state budget is an uncontrollable monster. What they should do is dust off the old 1970 budget and duplicate it. That budget did not have the multitude of voter approved programs and expenditures that it has now.
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JoseMadreComment removed: Hard Banned
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aearthling596 months, 1 week ago
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If California wants to right itself it needs a state ID card. Those who pay taxes are the ones who get the benefits of health care and free education. By using their state as a sanctuary state they have had to pay for those who don't pay into the system. A state ID card can be used at hospitals, schools, and voter registration to verify who is there legally and those who are not.
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memestryker6 months, 1 week ago
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California has been a future failed state since at least the late 1960s, when it created programs that would promise more than taxpayers eventually would be able to support. It became a magnet for people from other states where leaders didn't think they could financially support such programs long term, as well as illegal immigrants.
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I remember people in other states arguing it couldn't work long term, that it was just a matter of time before most natural resources were used up and it would bottom out. I'm surprised people are surprised.
Sustainable population is critical at this point. -
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Wolfster6 months, 1 week ago
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Has anyone given a thought to what will happen to these people and to society once the social programs go? To the people forced into crime, who will be breaking down the doors of the people who selfishly forced others to pay their bills? To the people who will not learn to read and write, who will never develop enough skills to become productive citizens? To the property values when everyone lives next to someone in a desperate situation? Do younger voters realize how they've screwed themselves, because their votes on theseanti-tax propositions mean they pay more in propertytaxes than those who have been around longer? This is part of a social contract, and selfish California voters, with their selfish and shortsighted no-taxes-in-my-backyard propositions, have broken that contract that actually guarantees a safe and decent society for THEMSELVES. Maybe it's time to go reread "The Grapes of Wrath," folks.
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ungles6 months, 1 week ago
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California is a failed state, because we are now Mexifornia, like a Third World Country here with all of the non-English speaking illegal aliens, and the lazy that won't get off their ass and get a job and support themselves. This is a welfare state that has shown how socialism doesn't work, yet Obama and the rest of the People's Socialist Democratic Party insist on making socialism the order of the day nationwide. Mexifornia, or the People's Republic of California is a failed state because it has been run/ruined by the democRATS. And yes, Arnie is a republican, in name only. He is no more a true republican than Comrades Obama or Pelosi.
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mark-stevens6 months, 1 week ago
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Get your San Diego mayor on TV more. His city is the best example, since the wall was built, San Diego crime has dropped 50%. The city is now has money to build wind mill sights to power the city. Those are real jobs that benefit everyone.
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Bopi3656 months, 1 week ago
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Bottom line is that California is forth highest in overall taxes behind NJ, NY, and Conn. It seems this is just another compassionate conservative excuse.
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Cutting off the poor from basic services will force some to migrate elsewhere in the nation requiring other states to take them in. Think Katrina here. And let it become someone elses problem.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/336.html-
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nonparted6 months, 1 week ago
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bopi365
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and who is responsible for the poor being poor? themselves
they have every opportunity as everyone else to better themselves with education . instead they either drop out of high school, they gang bang, or on welfare which makes one dependent on the govt. and that leads to more welfare recipients cause their children will more then likely recieve when old enough.
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ekklesiawarriorComment removed: Hard Banned1 Reply
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mrmilk446 months, 1 week ago
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Its Californians fault. One for putting that jackass in office, when he had NO experience, No idea what he was doing, NO real plan of action. I remember him grabbing a broom and talking about cleaning up, reminds me of 1940's or 1950's campaigns. Becuase he married into a Kennedy doesnt make him the man for the job. And now the poor will pay for the mistakes made by most Californians. I guess he is the Terminator of the poor nowadays. No real surprises, put a rich idiot in office and the only feasible solution he can come up with is to deprive the poor. Wonder what the spike in crimes will be after it takes effect.
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nonparted6 months, 1 week ago
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mrmilky
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"No real surprises, put a rich idiot in office and the only feasible solution he can come up with is to deprive the poor. Wonder what the spike in crimes will be after it takes effect."
u need to wake up for this part of ur comment
news flash almost all politicians are rich and what makes u think the lawyers turned politicians knows how to run states or the federal govt. they dont
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