The current trends in the Golden State point to a failing state…

Who Knew…

What happened to the Golden State?

…To make a long story short, the same political constituencies that have made Brown’s Democratic Party invincible at the ballot box have also made the state unable to compete economically. California public employees, who are represented by the nation’s most politically powerful government unions, benefit from some of the nation’s most generous compensation packages…

…Endangered species of wildlife are now favored over farmers and food. Highways and suburbs are losing out to mass transit and urban centers. The emerging result is a disappearing middle class, and what’s left of the state is split between a highly educated, landed, wealthy and elderly elite, and a poor, government-dependent, uneducated lower class.

The States are the petri dish for the nation – enjoy the decline…

Washington Examiner

 

California – Paying Their Share

About That Surprise California Budget “Surplus”: There is No Surprise and No Surplus Either

Appears that “Generally Accepted Accounting Practices” are to blame…

The report says the extra money was “likely the result of major tax law changes at the federal and state level having a significant impact in the timing of revenue receipts.”

That is: Taxpayers were paying a share of their bill early, getting income off their books in the hope of limiting exposure to the tax hikes that recently kicked in.

The administration was expecting that money to arrive in April. Now, officials are saying it won’t, and that just as January’s receipts soared, they’ll be offset by a spring plunge.

More than offset, one suspects

Who could have guessed...

LA Times via Mish’s

BC Hydro’s Billion Dollar Climate Bill…

Electricity monopoly BC Hydro is set to lose $1billion…

Neither party is, or should be particularly concerned about the climate.

Currently BC Hydro generates hydro electricity for about two cents/kw. Private electricity costs up to 19 cents/kw. BC Hydro is bound to purchase all private power at rates beneficial to the private operator — forever — and B.C. electricity users pay the subsidy.

Typically, higher volume consumption results in a discount. In BC Hydro’s case a premium is charged, and the premium goes to finance the impacts of the Climate Action Plan and the Clean Air Act. Coming soon we can expect “time of use” premiums charged for electricity use during peak use times.

Penticton Western News

Wind Power – “Uniquely Parasitic”

…wind generation is not close to being competitive…

California is having to sign contracts for capacity ahead of when otherwise needed, partly due to retiring facilities. The existing reserves will soon be inadequate.

The contracts being signed provide capacity, something absolutely crucial to grid reliability that wind facilities cannot provide. While all generation is ‘back-upped’ by other facilities on the grid, wind requires but does not provide any backup to others. It is, somewhat uniquely, a parasitic resource.

Wind power, saving the planet one, or two raptors at a time.

 

 

Master Resource, SDA

My Prius is expensive, underpowered and not really all that green….

but we got Free Parking…

Los Angeles Yanks Plug on Free Parking for Electric Cars

“That was a huge reason why I bought the car in the first place,” says the 35-year-old Santa Monica, Calif., postproduction company executive, whose car qualifies for free parking for up to a month at a time in two of LAX’s most convenient—and costly—short-term lots.

Other than that, he says his ride is “expensive, underpowered and not really all that green,” because it can run just 12 miles on electricity before switching to gas…”

John Anthony DiCiaccio, a 37-year-old engineer for Southwest Airlines who bought a plug-in Toyota Prius partly because of the parking incentive, was distraught this week to read the flier left on his car warning that the free parking would be coming to an end.

He says he’s still hopeful the airport could reverse course. “I know in my mind that this can’t last forever, but I’m just crossing my fingers.”

Liberals are so cute…hope springs eternal

And here we thought the idea was all about saving the planet…

If electric-vehicle drivers were to completely fill both lots that are free to them, the airport could lose $120,000 a day, totaling $44 million a year.

WSJ via Junk Science

Dollar Store to Open on Rodeo Drive…

Obama and the moonbats in California are convinced that “taxing the rich” is the path to economic salvation.  To the left, capital flight is a neo-con myth and supply side economics is voo-doo.  Just like climate change and BPA, commies never let a few facts get in the way …

Despite Tax Increase, California State Revenues in Freefall

State bureaucrats immediately ramped up deficit spending far beyond the state’s $6 billion annual tax increase, with the Departments of Health Services and Developmental Services increasing this month’s spending by over $1 billion versus last year. The lower tax collection and higher spending drove the State’s deficit after the tax increase to $2.7 billion for the first 5 months of this fiscal year.

Executives of the 99 Cents Only Stores Inc. proclaimed they would be opening a new location in Beverly Hills on formerly posh Rodeo Drive.  

Breitbart

California’s Carbon Auction Bust

What could possibly go wrong?

A low price for credits and minimal demand for future offsets suggest California will see a mere fraction of the $1 billion that Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers estimated the state would receive this fiscal year.

If demand remains similar in two forthcoming auctions, the state would generate only about $140 million, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated Wednesday.

State leaders erred on another market prediction when they assumed Facebook shares would trade at $35 this fall. The stock has traded below $25 since August, and the analyst estimates that California will see $626 million less than expected as a result.

The LAO said last week the state faces a lingering $1.9 billion deficit, partly because of less Facebook and cap-and-trade money.

Absolutely shocking, shocking I tell ya – that Gerry Moonbeam and Co. could f*ck things financial so badly…

Wonder why demand is so low????

Sacramento Bee

The Rest of the Nation is “Catching Up” With California…

It’s called Capital Flight…

Something liberals just don’t get.  When people feel its better to live in State A, because State A wants them to keep more of their stuff, than in State B, because State B takes more of their stuff – eventually they leave State A… in droves…

One of the best indicators of a state’s economic health, according to John Merline, writing in Investor’s Business Daily, is the “U-Haul Index” (first publicized by economist Mark Perry) to see what people are paying to move into, or out of, the state. Renting a 20-foot truck one way from San Francisco to San Antonio, Texas, for example, costs $1,693. Going in the other direction, however, costs only $983 for the same truck…

It isn’t all about taxes, however. Its regulatory environment and yawning fiscal deficits are chasing companies away to more favorable locales. Part is the state’s determined efforts to increase still further its tax burden on high income earners — now an astounding 13 percent — along with its implementation of policies favored by the Obama administration in Washington. As Joel Kotkin of NewGeography.com put it,

California will serve as the prime testing ground for President Obama’s form of post-economic liberalism. Every dream program that the Administration embraces — cap and trade, massive taxes on the rich, high-speed rail — is either in place or on the drawing boards.

U – Haul has offices in Canada – c’mon up…

The New American, via I Hate the Media

 

If “Urban” is Now Racist…

What are “California” and “New York”?

Paul Ryan was crucified as being “racist” when he pointed out that most “urban” areas went for Obama in the election – because we all know no white people live in cities… Do any white people still live in California and New York? By the logic pushed on Ryan’s comments, the results of the congressional election would suggest not…

A Smart Politics analysis of 83 general election cycles dating back to 1850 finds that the Democratic Party now comprises a larger percentage of Californians and New Yorkers in the U.S. House than at any point since California joined the Union.

When the 113th Congress convenes in January, 29.4 percent of the 201-member Democratic caucus will hail from California (38 members) and New York (21 members).

That marks an increase from the two-state delegation’s collective previous all-time high of 28.1 percent recorded after the Republican tsunami of 2010 (increasing for a few months to 28.5 percent after Kathy Hochul’s win in NY-26 in 2011).

Smart Politics

The Rest of the Country is “Catching Up” with California

Great…

California is Destroying Itself. The U.S. is Next.

What do the Californians get for their taxes? Not much. It ranks 48^th among the states in elementary school rankings in reading and 49^th in science. Not much value for the high rate of per-pupil spending. Its teachers are the highest paid in the nation.

In November, California’s cap-and-trade program kicked in and businesses will be charged for emitting carbon and thus passing the costs along to consumers. It mandates a 30% reduction in emissions from cars, trucks, utilities, and other businesses by 2020.

As a result of the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, the Governor’s Office of Small Business concluded that implementing the law will cost an average $3,857 per household and $49,691 per small business. In jobs alone, it will cost 1.1 million as companies leave and tax revenue as people leave with them.

Enjoy the decline

Warning Signs