Posted on 05/10/2012 12:14:05 AM PDT by Mark Landsbaum
It was alarming the first three or four times California was ranked last among 50 states for business environment. Now, Chief Executive magazine's annual ranking, based on a survey of 650 chief executives on taxation, regulation, workforce quality and living environment, again places California dead last, 50th of 50 – for the eighth year in a row.
Eight years in a row ceases to be alarming. It now is a defining status.
...In magazine’s CEO survey, state “appears to slip deeper into the ninth circle of business hell.” ...
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
If it wasn’t for Obama’s buddy’s in Silicon Valley, CA would be 57th.
The demographics, and the demographic future here are firm, there will never be a return to even the moderate side of the GOP.
For better or for worse, California will be the liberal experience writ large, not Detroit, or New York, but a massive, giant state, with a well known sunny, outdoorsy, and largely Republican history, and with what was thought of as an impossibility of ever failing or becoming grey and thread bare.
California is doomed to become a state where the entire coast is a gorgeous, healthy, surfing, California version of Manhattan, and the rest of the state is “the help” and the unionized government employees that make up the small middle class, live as the giant, taken for granted that they were eternal and growing, middle class of the past used to live.
There is no way out of this prediction, the demographic voting data shows that.
You can write the spiral of the situation. First, cities and counties will default and go to bankruptcy situations. They believe they can cut pensions and pay this way. Friendly judges for the unions will say no...forcing the counties and cities massive services. Local citizens react to this like the Greeks currently do....suing to have the services restored. Judges will again find a way to order the services restored. No one will be able to grasp a way to survive.
Companies and better-off citizens will then start to leave the state. Lesser tax revenue occurs. Again, judges order status quo to continue but they can’t really explain how you can pay with nothing.
Acceleration of those leaving occurs at this point. The folks in DC will be worried over this and try to dictate national policy toward California, but again face judges who won’t allow that to happen.
It’s a lose-lose-lose scenario.
At some point, I think that blue states and the democrat party will turn to striving to legislate a form of quietly mixing state government/union, pension debt, with our nationally paid taxes.
Governor Christie was elected here in NJ to head off that exact scenario (which was already unfolding); companies and the American taxpayers that worked for them were fleeing the tax increases, so he instituted property tax caps to slow the exodus (which brings a different set of problems if the spending isn’t reigned in).
Without the caps, we’d continue down the road to where all that is left are illegal aliens, the permanent underclass, and the gubmint workers to feed, clothe, house, and school them all.
The California Liberals can only keep the secret for so long. Bankruptcy and implosion are inevitable . Most public union pensions are general obligation and must be covered with revenue increases (I.E taxes), and/or reduction in spending elsewhere.
What does a failing city look like? Take a look at Detroit’s 30% population decrease since 1980. House values are around $8,000 in downtown Detroit. Whole sections are ghost towns. I’m surprised the Chinese haven’t bought the whole city and started calling it a renegade province.
That’s the future of California.
Whether that's right or wrong, the books will be written.
An newer concept is what they call HOME RULE. Occurring primarily in Eastern cities the city council gets power to pass whatever laws they think are needed and the state stays out of local affairs. (NOTE there are variations on this).
Still both ideas are more than a century old (home rule runs back to medieval charters). Might be time to come up with something new for municipal government so they don't keep going broke.
I pray San Francisco and Los Angeles are leveled to the ground by a massive earthquake, and the degenerate criminal inhabitants are trapped under the rubble.
Progressive state = business hell
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