kurtster wrote: 
They've all but eliminated the middle class. To live in the state, you're either uber-rich, or living on state assistance. So sad.

 Steve wrote: 

So sad to see what was once one of the best places to live in this country go to one of the worst.

I mark the death of California as I knew it when Clark Foam went out of business.  It has been a Zombie Nation ever since, to me.

Yet another reason why I'll never move back to my home state.
 

California Wants Small-Business Owners To Pay Back $120 Million In Tax Breaks

 shmgeggie wrote: 

Thanks for the correction of the fee.  I heard about the fee.  It was a 50 / 50 chance of getting the why part.

I get the part of the annecdotal 3 am thing.  But I have heard more than one person make this claim.  Will it prove out over the course of time or will I even remember it later, who knows ?   But if it does pan out, I might remember that I heard about before.

 kurtster wrote: 
A San Francisco utility is taking advantage of the woo-woo community (and others with no understanding of radio transmission) by charging an extra $20 a month to not have smart meters.

The amount of data that these devices transmit is miniscule, they transmit in the 900MHz band (same as countless other wireless devices out there) and on cell-phone networks (same as... cell phones), and the vast majority of the time, they are not transmitting anything. Combine all that with the inverse-square law and the fact that the meter is 30 feet away from you -vs- the cell phone or wireless hand-set you hold right up to your head...Also, there is absolutely nothing magical that happens at 3:00am. Meters that can be read remotely transmit data throughout the day. Meters that are read with a handheld or vehicle-mounted radio are read during normal work hours - there is no reason to send workers out at 3:00am and there are a lot of reasons not to. This is a classic case of taking a perfectly normal phenomenon (it's quite common for people to wake up at 3:00am) and correlating it with something totally unrelated. Correlation is not the same thing as causation, folks.
p.s. My job requires me to be intimately familiar with the internal workings of a few of these types of gizmos, so I guess I'm part of the great conspiracy.

I just recently heard from Lou Dobbs that the total California debt exceeds $360 Billion and that the federal goverment currently provides 40% of the current total state operating expenses.  That's pretty amazing.

Here is the range as stated by Joe Nation, a Democrat, is a former member of the state Assembly, and a professor of public policy at Stanford University.

So how much is the Golden State in the red? At least $265 billion, and perhaps $737 billion, both greater than official state reports suggest.

Oh well.

 kurtster wrote:  It is frustrating to see new technologies like that implemented so poorly/sneakily/shoddily. Having 'smart' meters that can send usage (and outage) data seems like a good idea, but clearly they haven't worked out the bugs.

Out at the country estate, the water utility installed electronic (wireless) water meters. Now the meter reader can read a whole street without getting out of the truck, saving untold hours (and money). Not to mention replacing the old, leaky, inaccurate meters for further savings. The utility did not increase the rate or charge a fee to hook up the new meters: I guess they either saved up ahead of time, or they'll pay for themselves, more likely some of both. They implemented a great new technology practically seamlessly (at least from my point of view), paid for it out without any budgetary drama, and everyone is reaping the benefits.

I think some of these problems are a function of letting our infrastructure deteriorate. Water, wastewater, electricity, all of those systems have been around a long time now, and many have not been maintained, much less upgraded with new technology. Now all of a sudden we can't afford to waste all that water (electricity, whatever).

But nobody (Fed, State, local, doesn't matter) has been putting anything aside to pay for such maintenance. Or if they tried to, the budget was raided to pay for something else. Nobody paid any attention to what is literally right under our feet, and now it's really starting to crumble.

That's before you add in questionable bidding and contracting practices, graft and corruption. Corporations seem to see infrastructure projects as great ways to grab taxpayer money.

 buzz wrote: 

 Monkeysdad wrote: 
One of the first things I'd do as CA state auditor is identify EVERY Deloitte-run state project and immediately shut it down.

EDIT: Oh, and how could I forget Accenture?

California just turned down the opportunity to implement a state bank like North Dakota.

What a blunder.

Common sense is like Kryptonite to politicians.

good thing y'all didnt vote for a conservative. think of the trouble you'd be in now.

 kurtster wrote: 
Really? Where did you hear about this?

 kurtster wrote: 

I've heard the same, but I don't give it much credence; the people voted Prop. 13 in and even the most ardent Nanny-state advocate who actually owns a home would never vote it out. But I do believe that we're on our way to 10% sales tax if we can't reign in the spending.

 Monkeysdad wrote: 
And that is being attacked now and plans are underway to try and phase out Prop 13.  I heard that a couple of years ago.

Its going to get worse when the Smart Grid goes online next year and electric rates will go through the roof icluding a new $20 a month "service fee" just to incorporate "reading" these new meters everyone is having attached to their electric meters whether you want them or not.  There are other issues involving these new smart meters including a newly widespread problem where people are waking up at about 3 in the morning when these meters data is being accessed wirelessly. 

I just heard this last night from Brian Sussman who is based in SF on KSFO.  Sussman is author of the book Climategate and of the new book Eco-Tyranny.

 romeotuma wrote: 
...and he's deluded, bureau chief or not.

The last antitax movement of note was Prop. 13 which was in 1978 if I recall correctly. I think the only states that tax higher than CA are Mass. and New York.

 romeotuma wrote: 
I feel sorry for Gov. Brown.
He's fighting a losing battle with the losers in control of this State.

One of the main reasons for our States decline...


Way to much regulation.
Dunn- Edwards paint recently fled to Arid Zone because of this nonsense.

 romeotuma wrote: 
Since when has any tax been temporary? Does Jerry take us for a bunch of rubes who haven't studied history?

 Monkeysdad wrote: 
He is the Los Angeles bureau chief for the New York Times...  he lives in California...

 romeotuma wrote: 
That's so friggin' funny, I guess Magourney hasn't got a clue how much it costs to live here.