Why California is failing

As a resident of California for almost 40 years now, I concur wholeheartedly with the reasons of the states' demise over these years as expressed in this post here.  California is a perfect example of runaway government programs and the unaccountable political class at every level of government.  Want to know why the Tea Party came about and why it has had such a major impact on the most recent election?,  look no further than the state of California and its disfunctional governing class. Pathetic.

ADDED:  Since the post above yet another "analysis" of the problems confronting California appeared here in this article by Robert Tracinski.  One has to wonder what are the residents of California thinking when they return to office one of the architects of its ruin in the first place, Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown, and his able co-conspirators, Barbara "Call me Senator" Boxer and all the rest of the moonbats who are captive of the all-powerful unions.  The middle class is fleeing the state rapidly and soon it will belong to the wealthy enclaves in S.F. and Hollywood and the "wetbacks" from south of the border, down Mexico way.  Too bad because the state has much to offer in the way of natural resources, natural beauty and climate. However it can not survive the influence and power of the unions and their representatives in Sacramento who have been driving the state over the cliff for 40 years now.

ADDED:  Here is a recent history of the public unions and how they gained and consolidated power over the course of time, as published in the WSJ.  As usual, they are the product of democrat party political strategy and a sad legacy indeed.

ADDED: Here's Moonbeam Brown's so-called solution to the budget shortfall of 25 billions caused, as we all know, by over regulation and sweetheart union contracts for state employees and sundry other reasons.  Anyone see any of those issues addressed by Brown in his state of the state address?

ADDED: Yet another analysis of the "problem" in California.  One has to wonder why Brown would want to be governor considering he has to come to grips with this budget/debt problem sooner rather than later.  It is rough justice that Moonbeam Brown should be forced to deal with this intractable problem since he helped create it with his endorsement and signing of the Dills Act in 1978, which allowed collective bargaining in California state for unions representing state employees.

Indian Pudding recipe

This  is my own personal favorite dessert from childhood.

John Allison

This is a very interesting POV because John Allison is a conservative (free market proponent) who happens to be a senior executive past and preset, of a large bank.  He speaks quite simply and clearly about the problems with social engineering policies of the government and their impact on the financial system.  He gives the impression of one who has seen the impact of big government on the economy up close and personally, so-to-speak, and who believes that the government involvement in markets is always a mistake, long term.  It all seems to come down to there are no short cuts to building a society, country, economy.  Entrepreneurs have to be unleashed one by one and companies have to be built one by one, providing jobs as a consequence of their growth.  Once the government gets into the business of allocating resources, picking winners and losers based upon some social ideal, we end up with a misallocation of credit and resources and the mess we are now experiencing.  Allison is kinda gloomy about the future.  However if the push back against the Obama socialist agenda proves lasting, it is possible the country can regain its footing and move forward.  It the push back is not lasting we'll end up like Europe.

More on the Debt Issue

The description and explanation of the federal debt in the Wikipedia pages here is interesting.  Wikipedia's methodology is suspect among some, but at least it tries to deal with controversial and complicated issues which it has done in this case.  It would appear that the debt load is approaching the critical point at which the economy simple can no longer expand, create new jobs and provide for rising incomes.  Although the exact point at which this happens is not universally accepted, the magic number to one economist quoted in this explanation is about 90% of GDP and by one of two differing measurements of debt we have  already reached this number.  In any case we are on a path to reach the levels of debt Japan has been experiencing for the last decade (130% of GDP) and that country has not seen an expanding economy for nearly two decades now.  So the cause for concern is real and not just a political position being taken by one party.  The reality is that which ever party is in control, they are going to have to make major changes in the level of government spending and debt in order to return us to a growth scenario for the economy.  Bottom line:  Too much government debt chokes off the private sector and results in stagnation.  It's pretty clear that's where we are now.

Two Perspectives on the Looming Election Tsunami

These two articles, here and here, present two reasoned and reasonable perspectives on the coming election this Tuesday and its probable aftermath.  In the first article Pat Cadell and Roger Shoen, two democrat pollsters for a long time, weigh in on why they are so discouraged by the Obama presidency and why he has betrayed true liberals like them with his conduct in the WH.  Essentially they say he has been the most divisive president since Nixon and that he campaigned to be the most inclusive.  It's safe to say this is the view of centrist democrats, which these guys are.  The second article is a particularly enlightening article by WSJ's John Fund.  His subject is Brian Baird, another centrist who represented his district in Washington State for 12 years and is retiring at the age of 56.  Baird has had it withthe rank partisanship in Washington and in particular in his own democrat party.  Baird voted for Obamacare and all the other socialist plans put forth by the dems and proceeds in this article to provide reasons why these were flawed programs in spite of his support for them.  It pretty much sounds like he was pressured by unions and one wonders if he just caved and then decided to retire after having second thoughts.  He sounds like a reasonable sort but his vote for those programs in spite of their flaws makes one wonder if he has a backbone.

Inflation or Deflation?

Seems as though the question for investors is always will there be inflation or deflation as a result of various government policy moves?  From the grave Milton Freidman weighs in here on the subject.  He was what they call a monetarist which I believe means he considered the amount of money available in the system determined whether we experienced price stability and ultimately inflation or deflation.  This article is not a bad primer on the Freidman theory of money supply and its effect on the economy.

Byproduct of Obamacare

Reading this WSJ article, Big Insurance, Big Medicine, one gets a sense of how complicated the healthcare industry is and how it is being impacted, adversely, by Obamacare.  All sorts of consolidations are now going on as providers and insurers position themselves for the future under this nightmarish bureaucratic tsunami that is now descending on them.    This article clarifies some of the issues but doesn't really touch on one of the major ones to most people, what happens to the quality of healthcare once the docs are all salaried government types.  It seems the experiments in Canada and GB indicate that under government auspices the docs no longer have the same incentives to innovate and improve healthcare delivery from the consumer's perspective.  While reforms are necessary all over the place in the industry, one wants to take care not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.