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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (483472)	5/26/2009 6:10:30 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573968

don't pretend that where I live is such a perfect place, but rough spots are everywhere. New York City has its spots, of course. Washington, D.C. has its spots, too; ask any white Congressperson whether he or she even dares to walk 50 paces SE from the Capitol. Even the Puget Sound has its rough spots; how often do YOU go to Tacoma, for instance? I guess the point I was making to you is that there was no where that was safe. Rioting occurred in the suburbs as well as in the city; in good neighborhoods as well as bad. And it was by intent; not by chance. LA is the second largest city in the country and for two weeks, it was under martial law. Going to work was a dangerous proposition. And that cancer has spread to the OC as well as Ventura. Its why I asked you about graffiti. When I first got to LA, there was no graffiti in the OC. By the time I left, I saw it popping up everywhere But what caused me to leave CA is what Chris alluded to. It wasn't just Prop 13 that was the problem.......it was the way CA has structured its political system over the last 40 years. Taxpayers had bought into the notion that gov't was screwing them; that it was spending their hard earned tax monies like it was candy. It wasn't hard to convince them....who wouldn't like a reduction in taxes. That attitude has colored every iniative and proposition on the ballot for the past 40 years. And like Pavlov's dogs, most Californians have voted to hamstring the gov't, placing it on a starvation diet of revenues and cutting it off from any alternative that would allow it to offset the shortfalls. Smart people like Wharf Rat knew it was a mistake......that you don't get something good for free.....but most people went for it. And that mindset began to permeate everything.......banks began to close branches, making going to bank a major chore that could take a whole lunch hour to complete. Housing prices ran up in part because taxes were so low but that has turned out to be fool's gold because there is not a solid foundation underneath it. Following the practice of trying to get something for nothing, people more and more looked for illegals to work on their houses and properties....forgoing licensed contractors. That caused the salaries of professional trades people to spiral downwards, forcing many of them to leave the state. And it goes on and on.....on so many levels bad compromises have been made. And so now 40 years later, CA is between a rock and a hard place. You're right.......it can't unwind this thing even if it wanted to because it would cause a huge financial disruption to way too many people. I guess it will have to be done gradually over a decade or so. Maybe that's the thinking with developing a new constitution. Good luck to getting everyone to sign off. I worry the more likely scenario is what Chris is suggesting........which is that everything has to fall apart before people react in a mature and sensible way.