Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: THE ANT who wrote (90242)	5/15/2012 8:04:07 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 219722

california, i am told, leads the rest of the nation, and the world let us see if that theory holds true

To: THE ANT who wrote (90242)	5/15/2012 8:08:11 PM
From: Metacomet	Respond to of 219722

...there is the lesser theory that instead of a massive state conspiracy to shake down former residents to raise capital, it was some sort of clerical error...

To: THE ANT who wrote (90242)	5/19/2012 7:58:13 AM
From: elmatador	1 Recommendation Respond to of 219722

Jerry Brown may nonetheless be the only politician with the forthrightness to stand between California and a Greek-style debt spiral. citizens to vote themselves vast benefits by referendum but nearly impossible for the legislature to pass the taxes to pay for them. Until recently it required a two-thirds majority to pass a budget. Last year, when Mr Brown reached the end of his ability to compromise, he did what California governors often do: he made an overly rosy estimate of how much the state would get in tax revenues. But Mr Brown is responsible for adding up the numbers. When you do that, things start looking very Greek. Conditions are bad for California, even though it retains an innovative technology sector and proclaims itself the world’s ninth-largest economy. For all its budget woes, no state has higher taxes. Its public education system is among the nation’s worst. Mr Brown now wants state employees to drop to a four-day working week, cutting salaries by 5 per cent. Every possible source of revenue has been tapped. California’s attorney-general is part of a state-directed settlement against banks on behalf of mortgage-holders and Mr Brown wants to devote some of the winnings to general revenues. His latest budget plan shows $1.5bn in tax revenues from Friday’s Facebook IPO. The state is even trying to hang on to billions of dollars in federal stimulus money for a high-speed train network in the absence of any concrete plans to build one. The approach seems to be working – California has seen its credit rating upgraded. The budget plan Mr Brown announced this week has $8.3bn in new cuts. A curious article in the New York Times this week began by noting that “hundreds of millions of dollars meant to provide a little relief to the nation’s struggling homeowners is being diverted to plug state budget gaps”. It used to be thought heartless to deny the state money with which to carry out future responsibilities. Now it is thought heartless to give the state money with which to pay for responsibilities it has already carried out. This bias towards stimulus and away from austerity is what got California into trouble in the first place. California has moved dramatically leftward in the past two decades. This shift has been led by its plutocrats, in both Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Maybe they will pay the surtax. On the other hand, not all millionaires work at Apple, and, according to Joel Kotkin, California demographer, millions of relatively high earners have fled the state in the past two decades, content to pay their taxes to better-run states such as Idaho and Colorado. Will Californians pay or will they go? Passage of the tax rise will demonstrate whether the state’s problems are amenable to exertions of public will or whether they have, like Greece’s, passed the point of no return.