Posted on 08/10/2017 5:20:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
Corporate profits at California-based transnational corporations such as Apple, Facebook and Google are hitting record highs.
California housing prices from La Jolla to Berkeley along the Pacific Coast can top $1,000 a square foot.
It seems as if all of China is willing to pay premium prices to get their children degreed at Caltech, Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA or USC.
Yet California -- after raising its top income tax rate to 13.3 percent and receiving record revenues -- is still facing a budget deficit of more than $1 billion. There is a much more foreboding state crisis of unfunded liabilities and pension obligations of nearly $1 trillion.
Soon, new gas tax hikes, on top of green mandates, might make California gas the most expensive in the nation, despite the state's huge reserves of untapped oil.
Where does the money go, given that the state's schools and infrastructure rank among America's worst in national surveys?
Illegal immigration over the last 30 years, the exodus of millions of middle-class Californians, and huge wealth concentrated in the L.A. basin and Silicon Valley have turned the state into a medieval manor of knights and peasants, with ever fewer in between.
The strapped middle class continues to flee bad schools, high taxes, rampant crime and poor state services. About one-third of the nation's welfare recipients reside in California. Approximately one-fifth of the state lives below the poverty line. More than a quarter of Californians were not born in the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
I'm asking you if you still think that would be true if half the state tries to go back?
-PJ
I would happily accept territorial status to escape Sacramento’s totalitarian tendencies.
Rhode Island would have a first world per capita income if it were a separate country.
This North Korea mania is starting to get amusing:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-10/bomb-shelter-sales-skyrocket-california-nuclear-fears-spike
Make sure to invite all your neighbors over to watch while you install your bomb shelter that can only fit one family—what could possibly go wrong? :-)
The pink area should be re-labeled “International Nuclear Test Area—stay out!” :-)
Reefer madness is a real thing!
“But you said “CA, as an independent country, would still have first world per capita income.”
I’m asking you if you still think that would be true if half the state tries to go back”
An excellent point. Three fourths of California’s population is liberal but three fourths of the land which is populated by the remaining one fourth of the population is conservative. So, it’s quite possible that the conservative portion of the state would never agree to secession in the first place and would insist on remaining within the union as a separate state from the liberal portion. Btw, the conservatives would control the water :)
There is no check and balance in California. It is a one party state with the media being nothing more then a PR firm for the Democrats.
Think of an actor, or someone in sports that earns the big payday, or even someone winning big in the lottery. If they do not have something in place to help conserve their wealth they will within a few years find themselves bankrupt.
Yes, California has wealth, but it is being squandered with no thought of the future. With all the promises to the public employee unions it is most likely too late for the State of California. They do not have the money to pay for what they have committed to and unlike the Federal Government they can not print money.
The bottom line is they are spending more then they have coming in and their credit card is maxed out. If the State of California was an individual they would be bankrupt.
There is a lot they could do to save themselves but the only thing they will do is raise taxes and fees.
This solution only works for awhile. Soon more businesses and individuals will leave California which in the end mean less income from taxes and fees.
What is the solution? There is none. The state has to fail before real reform can take place.
If I was thirty or even twenty years younger I would leave California. But my home is paid for, I live in a quite rural community and I am somewhat isolated from the crazies that live along the coast. So I am here until I die or they break away. At that point I will leave.
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