Thread: California Dreamin'

California Dreamin'
by Roger Hedgecock

11/05/2010

In a blast from the past, California voters bucked the national voting trend and returned Democrat Jerry Brown to the Governor's office he occupied in the 1970s.

While the Attorney General votes are still being counted, all other statewide offices went to Democrats. Voters also removed the two-thirds vote requirement to pass the state budget, handing the heavily Democrat state legislature a blank check.

California is now a one-party state. The voters want it that way.

Last Tuesday, California voters refused to suspend the state's first in the nation cap-and-trade global warming law, paving the way for skyrocketing utility rates and a lower standard of living. Green groups supporting the state's cap-and-trade law were funded by crony capitalists "creating jobs" in heavily subsidized "alternative energy" companies. These "entrepreneurs" (L.A. Times) outspent the oil companies whose traditional energy sources are viewed here as evil incarnate, even as Californians continue to outpace the country in miles per person driven every year.

The national press also made much of the defeat of Proposition 19, which would have legalized pot. They missed the real story.

Pot is readily available everywhere in California. With the collapse of the timber and fishing industries (driven out of business by the greens), northern California pot growers are now the backbone of the local north-coast economy. Legalization would have opened up pot growing all over the state, threatening the profits which are protected by Marijuana prohibition. Local city councils and even local sheriffs in northern California opposed Proposition 19 and campaigned against it.

The Mexican drug cartels, growing pot in south and central California state and federal forest lands likewise opposed legalization for the same reasons.

The vote against Proposition 19 was not an anti-drug conservative backlash; it was a business decision by the growers of the state's most valuable agricultural product to protect their profits.

These election results played out against the backdrop of a collapsing economy.

The California Constitution requires the yearly state budget to be balanced. It is not, and has not been for many years. The annual deficit now runs about $20 billion. Unemployment is high (over 12%) and climbing. The state's population is about 37 million, but 10-15% of that figure are here illegally. Illegals vote here because the citizenship requirement to vote is not enforced. State welfare benefits are the most generous in the nation. State workers’ pay, benefits, and retirement plans are the best of any state and cannot be sustained.

The public employee unions are the most powerful political force in the state. They got that way because, in 1978, then-Governor Jerry Brown signed a law allowing public-sector workers to unionize. These unions funded Brown's recent campaign and own nearly every elected official in California.

And that's the (relatively) good news.

The really bad news is the exodus of private employers who have been driven out of California by high taxes, an anti-business culture, excessive fines and fees, and oppressive regulations.

For example, California once boasted over a dozen vehicle assembly plants. Chrysler, GM, Ford—and later, Toyota—built cars and trucks here. The last one closed last year. The auto parts suppliers—the rubber, glass, plastic, etc.—plants have all left too, taking their high-paying jobs with them.

The aerospace industry once employed tens of thousands of highly paid workers. My father and my wife's father both worked at aerospace companies. Douglas, Lockheed, and Convair—they're all gone now. The giant machines used in the airframe and rocket assembly line at General Dynamics, in San Diego, were auctioned off when the plant was closed—bought by the Chinese and shipped to China. And, again, the many smaller firms that once supplied that manufacturing process are gone too.

So far in this year alone, 85 Californian companies have closed plants, relocated part or all their business to another state, or designated another state for the future growth of their business. Fifty-one California companies did the same things in 2009, and only 43 did in the years 2006-2008. The exodus of jobs is increasing.

"High-tech" firms were supposed to replace the "old economy" with new 21st-century jobs. It hasn't happened.

One of those 85 California companies was Solexant, a startup solar manufacturing firm that announced its relocation to Oregon, where it will build a manufacturing plant employing 170 people to start. Even "green" companies are fleeing California.

Companies of all types are reducing their California presence. Google, Hilton, Thomas Bros. Maps, DIRECTV, Facebook, Apple, Yelp—the list is growing every day.

The "Golden State" was a once a beacon of opportunity. It is now reaping the rewards of "government gone wild". Welcome Jerry Brown—your last stint as governor began the destructive processes that have led California to the brink of disaster. What do you have in mind for "Jerry Brown, Act II?"

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39773

Companies are leaving that state even with all that cheap labor that is available to them

In history it is reported that the Indians in Mexico told the Spaniards that Californio was an island inhabited and ruled by woman.

So, now let's look into the future.

The United States being invaded by illegal aliens started passing laws against this invasion. The illegal invaders instead of going home started moving west. The further west they went the more welcome they were. Eventually they all ended up on the other side of the San Andreas Fault Line.

One day all Californians woke up to the state shaking and rolling. They watched in shock as the state split right down the middle and everything to the west of the fault line became an island. An island being ruled by Boxer, Pelosi and Feinstein.

No one knows whether this was the earthquake everyone had predicted or if it simply broke off with the weight it was carrying.

Just California Dreamin

Originally Posted by MontereySherry

In history it is reported that the Indians in Mexico told the Spaniards that Californio was an island inhabited and ruled by woman.

So, now let's look into the future.

The United States being invaded by illegal aliens started passing laws against this invasion. The illegal invaders instead of going home started moving west. The further west they went the more welcome they were. Eventually they all ended up on the other side of the San Andreas Fault Line.

One day all Californians woke up to the state shaking and rolling. They watched in shock as the state split right down the middle and everything to the west of the fault line became an island. An island being ruled by Boxer, Pelosi and Feinstein.

No one knows whether this was the earthquake everyone had predicted or if it simply broke off with the weight it was carrying.

Just California Dreamin

Hope you live closer the the Nevada border.....

Kathyet