California is Bust

I talked to my best friend last night and he said something not so shocking but alarming. California is bankrupt! The link says "may" but it's true.
My buddy got an IOU for his state income tax refund!
They have no money. They took the citizens money and lost it all..
Only in California..
Has anyone else gotten an IOU yet??
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28448852

 

Yeah my Dad's in Cali and he's told me the same thing.

 

Thats some bullshit man i would be pissed.

 

hahaha! so sorry but thats real american!

 

I live out here and at last count, the state is 40 Billion in debt. 'Ahnold' is basically slashing everything in sight.

Lemme' rant for just a minute while we're on the subject. I'm from TN originally, and let me tell you- this state is screwed up royally in so many ways it isn't funny. First of all, the middle class is dead here. You want a house near a major metropolitan area? Prepare to shell out some major change. During the housing boom, you couldn't touch anything near where we live for under 600k. Not even young families making six figure incomes could afford it. Now the prices are down a bit, but mostly in crappy places like ghettos and suburbs an hour from the city and work areas. Hence My Wife and I rent because its a lot cheaper.

Income tax is ridiculous. Over 1/3rd of my income goes to taxes. There's also taxes that make no sense. Old ladies owning a now million dollar house only pay $1,200 a year in property tax while her neighbors who bought more recently might pay $10-15,000 for the same house. This is cause' of prop 13 and if you buy a home, you only pay what the house was worth at the time of purchase. Hence a lil' old lady might have paid 40k for a now million dollar house and only pays taxes on the 40k. That's screwed up.

I don't have kids, but the schools here are terrible. My Mom is a teacher and in TN, you can pretty much send your kids anywhere and they're ok. Not here. In some cities, you have to put your kids in "lotteries" to get into good schools. Stupid!

Businesses also get he hell taxed out of them. Is it any wonder that half the damned state is moving to TX? California basically does everything possible to ensure young families will move away because at least from my perspective and comparison, the quality of life here is rank.

 

Our state has a legislation that mandates a balanced budget, not allowing it to operate in a deficit. Our governor makes cuts in everything to make this work. I didn't realize that not all states do this until recently.

 

the peoples republic on California sucks... That's all I have to say.... I wouldn't like to have to have any firearm in my truck in a locked case no thank you

 

IOU tax refund?!

I would get the pitchforks and torches and raid the treasurer!

 

Ugh, how do we have to wait until Cali breaks off and floats into the pacific?

 

Now that the county has voted Obama into office, we can all be like California. I grew up near San Francisco, and I enjoyed living there, but the politics in California make me sick. Anybody that thinks you can spend your way out of debt has failed economics 101. JMO.

 

Yeah its gonna suck when i do my taxes.

 

You know, I didn't really pay that much attention to economic policy until the last few years, and its amazing that the Feds can basically crank up the printing presses and just make more money that hasn't been based on the gold standard in decades. Its ironic because a lot of the problems we have now were created by the Fed when they kept interest rates too low for too long back in 2001-2003. Now they're ( Ben Bernanke) is doing the exact same thing. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

If you think the US is bad- check out the UK. Their entire banking system is close to being nationalized.

 

I wonder what Arnold's take home is every month??

 

Don't know, but I'll tell you that I kind of like ole' Arnold because he doesn't take any Bullshit. He gets in trouble a lot for running his mouth. But he is a lot more transparent than half the politicians out here.

 

I believe it was Cheney who said "deficits don't matter". You can blame Reagan, Bush, and Bush (along with the congressmen of both parties) for most of the national debt we have. Not that I think Obama isn't going to continue the deficit spending.

 

You see the problem with this is that we have to get permit and then we have to issue a plan for our riot (i am sorry peaceful parade). Then we have to pay for the permit and have to have the plans submitted but since we got IOUs for our tax refunds we can't pay for the permit, and the state won't take IOUs in lieu of cash.

California is great. If you rich.

California has so many great things for it but our government screws every thing up.

 

yeah this sucks. What's Ahnold care, he's got all our $ from when we all went and saw Terminator, #1, #2, #3, and so on.! (btw, I never paid to see it in the movies though) I can't afford to make other people rich.

 

Yup. Additionally, the US financial system- as previously mentioned- is tied more to what the Fed does, which is supposedly independent of the US government. Basically, they control the US monetary policy.

If you want to place blame- it goes primarily to Greenspan and Bernanke, but mostly Greenspan since it was he who set those rates too low and spurred the Real Estate bubble.

 

Absolutely. One of my biggest issues with the Bush administration is that they spent way too much money. Now Obama wants to spend even more. Both parties need to reign in the "National Checkbook" before the whole country is like California. JMO.

 

I have seen a report; tax refunds, student grants, and welfare will be
suspended Feb. 1 2009