Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > California
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 12-16-2013, 04:33 PM
 
Location: Florida
2,011 posts, read 3,536,133 times
Reputation: 2747

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gentoo View Post
Caraway, do you understand the frustration behind montclairs post?
I do. This argument has been going on for a loooong time. However, you can never let yourself get baited into an irrational rant.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 12-16-2013, 04:39 PM
 
Location: Florida
2,011 posts, read 3,536,133 times
Reputation: 2747
I assume the excitement over the Democratic super majority is because everyone knows that the more liberal an area is, the less expensive it is? What is it they say about being careful for what you wish for?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-16-2013, 04:44 PM
 
Location: San Francisco
9,030 posts, read 10,412,221 times
Reputation: 5751
Quote:
Originally Posted by CarawayDJ View Post
everyone knows that the more liberal an area is, the less expensive it is?
Two words: San Francisco.

Ultra-liberal, and ultra-expensive.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-16-2013, 05:53 PM
 
Location: Los Altos Hills, CA
36,623 posts, read 67,123,456 times
Reputation: 21154
Quote:
Originally Posted by USDefault View Post
Correction: the Fed's balance sheet has grown, by trillions of dollars. And I don't know what you mean by the state economy "growing" by a trillion, given California had to slash and burn its bloated budget just a few years ago. And your statement also is in direct contradiction to the California government's own pronouncements, who regularly were issuing dire warnings about "revenue" shortfalls, i.e. tax confiscation wasn't enough to pay liabilities.

Three things that have grown in California: (1) unfunded liabilities and debt burden, now in the hundreds of billions of dollars; (2) taxes, including sales taxes and income taxes, thereby taking even more money out of the wallets of ordinary Californians; (3) bankrupt cities, and many more are on the way.



Correction: Quantitative easing, Federal Reserve money printing, and highly distorted interest rates have taken over the world economy. Think Twitter, a company that has never turned a profit as a public company, yet is accorded a whopping $30+ billion in market capitalization.



The hubris of the defeated.

Now, I would ask you to think logically and critically, relying on basic math skills, to answer the following questions:

1. If California's economy has really "grown by a trillion dollars," why did Stockton declare bankruptcy?

2. If California's economy has really "grown by a trillion dollars," why did Vallejo declare bankruptcy?

3. If California's economy has really "grown by a trillion dollars," why did San Bernardino declare bankruptcy?

4. If California's economy has really "grown by a trillion dollars," why did Mammoth Lakes declare bankruptcy?

5. If California's economy has really "grown by a trillion dollars," why did Desert Hot Springs not only declare bankruptcy once, but now has declared a second financial emergency and may declare bankruptcy for a second time?

Are these the signposts of a healthy and growing economy? Is this the imprimatur of a robust middle class?

Politicians lie. Pension fund boards lie. Bankers lie. Bankruptcy tells the truth.
I am just giddy over the fact that I apparently struck a nerve.

And my entire statement is 100% correct.

California's economy has grown by 1 trillion dollars since the mid 1990s and that is a statistical fact.

In fact, I cant wait for the day when all of these whiny trolls pack up and leave once and for all.

California needs you like we need a cancerous tumor.

Id rather have 10 milliion hard working immigrants than 10 million windbags who are stuck in tje 1950s.

Be gone with you already, we're too busy looking ahead to care.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-16-2013, 07:17 PM
 
1,014 posts, read 1,561,144 times
Reputation: 2630
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair View Post
I am just giddy over the fact that I apparently struck a nerve.
It is hard to understand why a recitation of facts is, in your mind, striking "a nerve."

Quote:
And my entire statement is 100% correct.
But incomplete, and thus highly misleading.

Quote:
California's economy has grown by 1 trillion dollars since the mid 1990s and that is a statistical fact.
And you repeat the same error made by so many others. Whether it is intentional, I do not know, but, accounting should be a basic requirement in high school. Looking at only one side of the income statement and/or balance sheet is fatal error.

This also is why you have no response to my correctly pointing out a number of cities have declared bankruptcy. The answer is: debt. Once again, debt. This is why I say, politicians lie. Union leaders and pension funds lie. Bankers lie. But bankruptcy always tells you the truth.

You may be right, the "economy" grew by a trillion, if by "economy" you mean GDP, hard to know using your terminology. But what else grew by a conservative $850 billion? California's unfunded liabilities.

You don't have to take my word for it:



You can read their excellent report here. Their conclusion is sober reading, for anyone who cares about math and accuracy in financial statements:

Quote:
Conclusion

Based on our investigation, the reported $848.4 billion in total state and local government debt in California is a low estimate. Adding $21.9 billion in new long-term debt incurred by K-12 schools, cities, counties, special districts and redevelopment agencies over the past two years, $66.4 billion in rolling short-term debt accruing to these same entities, $121 billion in additional unfunded pension liabilities based on a 4.5% discount rate, and $68.5 billion in additional liabilities for future retirement healthcare, and that $848.4 billion swells to a whopping $1.13 trillion. That's about $30,000 each for every resident of the Golden State; over $80,000 per household.
This kind of debt is akin to a black hole, swallowing any purported gains you seek to rely on.

What does over $850 billion in debt mean? It means Detroit. It means Illinois. It means bankrupt California cities like Stockton, and Vallejo, and San Bernardino, and Mammoth Lakes, and Desert Hot Springs.

Why do I repeat this ad infinitum? Because there's no disputing bankruptcy. The thing speaks for itself -- and these cities are out of money. Broke.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-16-2013, 07:22 PM
 
Location: Boulder Creek, CA
9,197 posts, read 16,764,910 times
Reputation: 6373
[Sigh] Oh, the repetition. We get it, you got one point, and only one painfully minute point.

Perhaps it's the one windmill you feel must be perpetually jabbed at before moving on?

Last edited by bigdumbgod; 12-16-2013 at 08:32 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-16-2013, 07:30 PM
 
Location: Boulder Creek, CA
9,197 posts, read 16,764,910 times
Reputation: 6373
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair View Post
I am just giddy over the fact that I apparently struck a nerve.

And my entire statement is 100% correct.

California's economy has grown by 1 trillion dollars since the mid 1990s and that is a statistical fact.

In fact, I cant wait for the day when all of these whiny trolls pack up and leave once and for all.

California needs you like we need a cancerous tumor.

Id rather have 10 milliion hard working immigrants than 10 million windbags who are stuck in tje 1950s.

Be gone with you already, we're too busy looking ahead to care.
+1

Texas awaits. Not sure why they insist on living in such an awful place that's "Bein rund ovah bah dem danged fariners! Deys takin' are jobs!!"
The rants against Hispanics are quite translucent in their intent, who apparently are chasing God's chosen middle-class white people away from the Chosen Land with their dastardly laziness and uneducated ways (actually, if the paranoids would like to characterize this as some sort of historic epic battle, those who they profess to be 'winning' it must be fairly clever, no?)
Pretty easy to lay the blame on immigrants, especially those of significantly less wealth, for all of CA's budgetary issues. But last I checked, they do a lot more working than whining.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-16-2013, 08:27 PM
 
1,014 posts, read 1,561,144 times
Reputation: 2630
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigdumbgod View Post
Perhaps it's the one windmill you feel must be perpetually jabbed at before moving on?
Because it is the one irrefutable, irreducible fact that lays waste to the smoke and mirror brigade. Bankruptcy simply destroys all the nonsense arguments about debt and pension viability and inviolability. When the money is gone, the money is gone.

Bankruptcy also is the ghost of Christmas future, unless a drastic reduction in unfunded liabilities is undertaken. When liabilities exceed assets for a long enough period of time, Chapter 9 is the only outcome. The only outcome. Math cannot be fooled or politicked. See Detroit. And Illinois. And California cities.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-16-2013, 08:33 PM
 
Location: Boulder Creek, CA
9,197 posts, read 16,764,910 times
Reputation: 6373
Quote:
Perhaps it's the one windmill you feel must be perpetually jabbed at before moving on?


Quote:
Originally Posted by USDefault View Post
Because it is the one irrefutable, irreducible fact that lays waste to the smoke and mirror brigade. Bankruptcy simply destroys all the nonsense arguments about debt and pension viability and inviolability. When the money is gone, the money is gone.

Bankruptcy also is the ghost of Christmas future, unless a drastic reduction in unfunded liabilities is undertaken. When liabilities exceed assets for a long enough period of time, Chapter 9 is the only outcome. The only outcome. Math cannot be fooled or politicked. See Detroit. And Illinois. And California cities.
So...that would be a "yes".
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-16-2013, 08:53 PM
 
Location: Northeast
1,886 posts, read 2,210,535 times
Reputation: 3758
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair View Post
I am just giddy over the fact that I apparently struck a nerve.

And my entire statement is 100% correct.

California's economy has grown by 1 trillion dollars since the mid 1990s and that is a statistical fact.

In fact, I cant wait for the day when all of these whiny trolls pack up and leave once and for all.

California needs you like we need a cancerous tumor.

Id rather have 10 milliion hard working immigrants than 10 million windbags who are stuck in tje 1950s.

Be gone with you already, we're too busy looking ahead to care.
Exactly so the Elite Left Libs left there can tell these people how to live, what to eat, who to screw etc!!

Personally not that concerned as i think those major fault lines under the ground are there for a reason..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > California

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top