California Is Insolvent (Broke) (Sacramento, Stockton: credit rating, employment, high school)

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

Please explain how those things I mentioned (ports, universities, highways, venture capital interest, fertile agricultural valleys, tourist magnets like Yosemite and Hollywood and San Francisco's hills and cable cars, weather and geographical splendor that attract talented residents for lifestyle) can be separated from the state. That was the point of my previous humor if you didn't get it. How are those features and traditions at risk of moving? They are part and parcel, attached to the state. Therefore they are dynamic assets, however incalculable on a balance sheet.

Doesn't have a damn thing to do with communism or socialism.

The point is that the state needs to get its financial act together. What does Yosemite or Hollywood have to do with the state government's unwillingness to live within its means? Some of the things you listed previously are owned by private entities. Its like saying its OK to run up my credit cards because my neighbor has a nice car. Its a complete non sequitur.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

The point is that the state needs to get its financial act together. What does Yosemite or Hollywood have to do with the state government's unwillingness to live within its means? Some of the things you listed previously are owned by private entities. Its like saying its OK to run up my credit cards because my neighbor has a nice car. Its a complete non sequitur.

Forgive my mirth. But speaking of 'non sequiturs', your neighbor's car doesn't contribute to your income. While EVERYTHING I LISTED CONTRIBUTES TO CALIFORNIA'S ECONOMY.

Of course the state needs to live within its means. So does everybody, every company, every place. California's means include a lot of inseparable, incalculable assets to carry it through its necessary adjustments. California has more tangible intangibles than most any place on earth. Can't beat the place with a stick.

Blunt time, so to speak.

[nslander]

Per capita total state pending? Middle of the pack.

Per Capita State Spending - Kaiser State Health Facts

Complex problems often have very simple answers. Which are almost always wrong.

[Tulemutt]

What nslander said.
Also, California has one of the very lowest public employees to population ratios out of the 50 states.
Smoke that.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

I think most of us have just learned to ignore Sunshine.

Whose threads are always about how awful it is in CA....but h/she never comes back to the thread after the original post. (And why live here if one dislikes it so much?)

[04kL4nD]

Been hearing CA is broke/going down the toilet/going to slide off into the sea/etc for YEARS.

Somehow things keep ticking along, in spite of our imminent doom.

[ukiyo-e]

Originally Posted by Tex?Il?

In the meantime I will have faith that California's unique position to provide North America with produce, to handle and ship what comes in and out of Asia, to provide the world with the latest technology, to attract the best and brightest minds to its universities, and people all over the world to recreate, will bring in enough revenue.

I'm basically in agreement, but will point out that agriculture only contributes 2% to California's GDP (Google it; there are lots of sources for this figure), and when I worked in the UC system up until 2010, there was a major brain drain going on because the budget cuts were so deep that departments were unable to fill faculty positions and support research, so highly-regarded faculty were leaving for other systems. My own supervisor left for an out-of-state university that gave her a 50% pay raise, a new lab, and free tuition for her children, which UCs don't offer. A friend of mine who teaches at UCSD said they lost some internationally famous cancer researchers to Rice University.

I'm not bashing the state at all, but some people ignore the problems because they don't personally affect them. I still keep up with the goings on in CA and I'm getting the impression the state is pulling out of the worst of the slump - real estate, for example, is recovering, which will help property tax receipts - but some damage HAS been done. My main concern would be the massively underfunded pension system. In WA the system is 95% funded; in CA last I read it was about 2/3, and it's a much larger system. Something like $181 billion out of whack. That money has to come from somewhere.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by ukiyo-e

I'm not bashing the state at all, but some people ignore the problems because they don't personally affect them.

I don't think anybody ignores or is blind to the challenges of this state. Some of us are just amused at the predictions of doom.
"The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." - Mark Twain

[Fargobound]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

What nslander said.
Also, California has one of the very lowest public employees to population ratios out of the 50 states.
Smoke that.

Care to explain why Stockton did not have enough income rolling in to cover it's pension obligations?

[Ghostly1]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

Also, California has one of the very lowest public employees to population ratios out of the 50 states.

Just for clarification purposes, that statistic pertains to state employees only. It does not include county and municipal employees so they could have much higher ratios.