California needs to be fixed. They are the 8th largest World Economy. America cannot afford to let California die. We obviously can’t afford to let them go down the road they are on. Something drastic has to be done....what is that? I wish I knew. But the bottom line is, We cannot allow them to fail!!!!
That man has talent for putting things into perspective...
When the power grid fails or rotating power outages of significant length become the norm and when the available power is ten times more expensive than today, how long will the veneer of California civilization remain?
While this not the sole reason for CA's demise it is the overwhelming reason. It is also what is facing the US at large. Unless this can be addressed and rectified CA will continue to languish and deconstruct. As mentioned CA going down is no small matter it will effect us all.
Tragic read. Especially coming from Victor, who has witnessed and accurately described the decline and dichotomy of his home state.
This is what they’ll do to the rest of the country if we let them.
-——a small cottage costs more than $1 million-——
There is a caveat however....... My conservative friends own just such a house. Both are now retired and have stirrings of thoughts of moving away from the paradise Silicon Valley to somewhere there is not the continuous liberal whining and stupid laws and taxes.
Who will buy the house?
I drove the length of California in May...... twice.
My take is that the liberals are right. There are just to many people. To survive, people must be purged. However that policy is at cross purposes with the immigration policy. For every one that leaves, at least one slips in. One wonders if a scratched back ( back bloodied crawling under the fence) will buy the $1 million house.
Victor just doesn’t recognize a utopia when he sees it. /s
Timely piece, from where I stand.
The Big One needs to hit the coast of CA hard, giving the government cover to send a newly-printed trillion to that bankrupt state in “emergency aid.” The Meany States couldn’t say anything about that very caring bail-out and the self-inflicted problems of CA would be solved...for a little while.
Barring that scenario, there isn’t a solution.
As someone that lives in California I beg the rest of the country do NOT bail us out. The only way out of this mess is to fail, and fail big time.
What I would like to see is the state divided up. One half the California central valley down to the border and then across to San Diego.
The other half the coastal cities from LA up the coast to Oregon.
Abandoned Sacramento as a capitol let the coastal state use San Francisco at it’s capitol
“Flex alert” is code for: Shortages.
I disagree with this statement:
“A postmodern narrow coastal corridor runs from San Diego to Berkeley, where the weather is ideal, the gentrified affluent make good money, and values are green and left-wing.”
The large majority of people living in that narrow corridor are poor but indoctrinated. They are demanding government give them money, and in a short time that coast will look like the Central Valley. The only difference is that it started with more money, so it is taking longer to use it all up. That, and it has long had the votes to take money from the rest of the state and spend it on themselves...
Mississippi to Massachusetts?
More like Mexico City to Massachusetts
Mexico will eventually take the American southwest without firing a shot...
My wife and I took a trip through parts of California two years ago. We drove out of the Sierras after visiting Yosemite through Fresno, Bakersfield, and other desert towns. (Actually, we were on the interstate, so we didn’t really see a lot of those towns.) I still remember driving into Barstow on old Rte. 66 coming back from Victorville. Southwest Barstow looked like it had been hit by a tornado. Junky houses and trash everywhere. I wonder what it looked like when the song first came out back in the forties.
The demographics and political ideology have shifted even further to the left since then
This isn't even close to the California that GHW Bush won in '88
It has to come to an end at some point--Texas, take note how big liberal cities can destroy the rest of the state...
Maybe it is due to the August recess, but it is really dead.
Three tables were sat at The Broiler steak house last night - being from Texas I am not used to seeing any restaurant that dead, even on a Wednesday.
A harbinger of things to come?
CA should be allowed to fail, if nothing else, to act as a testament to the rest of the nation. A failure of a large economy, large states are not unprecedented. The Civil War left the South in ruins for generations, but overall, the nation as a whole still grew economically. But unlike the South, CA will have no one to blame but itself.
You could divide the state in half and separate all the coastal areas from the interior and have a red state and a blue state, but that would upset the applecart for the Democrats and they would never again win control of congress and the White house, so it will never happen. What is happening is cities all over the state are going bankrupt, the higher education system is going bankrupt, the welfare systems are going bankrupt, all the State dept. are frozen for new hires – furloughing, everywhere cutting back in services. It will keep doing this and crime will keep going up and even the coastal cities will begin to suffer as the whole state begins to crumble, but unlike Detroit there is little snow and all the bums come to California to enjoy the weather. In short we are heading down the path to resemble what is coming over the border. We will be Mexico in another ten years with the very rich few and the very poor minority with the rich in gated communities surrounded by razor wire and gun towers and armed security. When the drug lords move in and the murders and kidnappings increase it will be too late. When the politicians begin to be the targets it will be too late. I would retire in the foothills like some of my family and contend with the pot growers getting in the way of target practice and hunting. I know too many ranchers, farmers, and people who live in the foothills who have to deal with the drug problem and dope growers on a continual basis now and law enforcement can barely keep up with. When the cartels start to buy off American politicians and law enforcement than the SHTF for sure. Turn on an AM radio in California and 80% of airwaves are in Spanish!