What has struck me recently is the global response to the economic collapse. Despite the minor political jockeying, the central bank cooperation behind the scenes has been illuminating. Armies don't matter much, missiles, bombs, political systems. It doesn't matter much.
The neutralization and homogenization of everyone on earth as instruments of central banks and oligarchs is where we are.
Zombieconomy isn't a buzzword. It's not an event. It's not (really) about banks. It is simply about the state of our economy today with Cali leading the way
"State Controller John Chiang and state Superintendent of Instruction Jack O'Connell said $4 billion in payments to local school districts that were supposed to go out on Friday will be delayed until July 30."
School's out forever
School's out for summer
School's out with fever
School's out completely
Out for summer
Out till fall
We might not go back at all
Here in WA state, we had a similar magnitude fiscal problem, but have made the hard choices needed to balance the budget. Not much sympathy here for irresponsible Californians.
I had to follow The Mortgage Pig with this somewhat On-Topic thought and thus in terms of The IOU, it will grow like a lotto ticket and be a generational burden that will never be repaid.
I hate to be the first person to say this, but capitalism is dead and all the previous adventures with Alicia in Wonderland are just old stories not related to the mechanics of the future. Society is in a new phase of post-internet commerce, which is akin to the post-industrial age:
See blessed Wiki: "A post-industrial society is a society in which an economic transition has occurred from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy, a diffusion of national and global capital, and mass privatization. "
Hence, the post-internet society, will be an era that morphs away from both manufacturing and service. As an example, think back to a time, not too long ago, when humans were employed as elevator operators, who contributed to GDP:
See blessed Wiki: An elevator operator (in British English, usually lift man, lift woman, or lift girl) is a person specifically employed to operate a manually operated elevator. Besides their training in operation and safety, department stores extended the roles of operators as combination greeters and tour guides, announcing products, floor-by-floor, and occasional sales.
With the advent of user-operated elevators such as those utilizing push buttons to select the desired floor, few elevator operators remain."
We are now entering a time when many service jobs will seem unimportant and superficial in terms of being a GDP component. For example, how will Starbucks fare in this recession, when fewer people will feel the need to spend $4.00 on a coffee. How many car salespeople do you need sitting in idle car dealerships and how many people do you need standing by for the next building boom, or mortgage booms? How many computer dealers will need to have stores, how many shoe sales will depend on someone placing your foot in a shoe? How many people are required to deliver newspapers, etc. etc.
The recession will filter out jobs that are no longer are essential or efficient and eliminate the waste, flushing more jobs out of the system. Therefore, job growth will be hindered by a lack of jobs supplied, versus jobs demanded, which will result in a longer, deeper recession and a new economic reality, which will be discussed in PART TWO of The Rise & FRIGGN Fall Of CAPITALISM which will only be available here @ CR (Thank God).
I'll say it again:
Careful out there, California posters.
It could turn ugly on you real quick.
Lock and load.
This is a financial brush fire with 50 MPH Santa Ana winds and there is deadwood everywhere...
Any bets on the first city in California to go up in flames?
LL, I'm taking my 5 year old to Jupiter/WPB in two weeks to see granny. I was thinking of taking her to Disney and the space center while we were there. Any tips on what to hit and what to miss?
Groundhogday (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:03 am
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Here in WA state, we had a similar magnitude fiscal problem, but have made the hard choices needed to balance the budget. Not much sympathy here for irresponsible Californians.
I think we'll eventually balance the budget in CA. Unfortunately I don't think most people in the rest if the US realize how much they will be negatively affected by CA cutting back by 40b or so.
Groundhogday (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:03 am
Here in WA state, we had a similar magnitude fiscal problem, but have made the hard choices needed to balance the budget. Not much sympathy here for irresponsible Californians.
Bingo from fellow WA and my sympathies as well. With this economic crisis there''s only about 5 states I'd choose to live in but like WA state best.
I kinda hope they don't reach a budget deal in CA (although I love northern CA - formerly from SF), before Oct. I want to see those Repubs get what they wanted - a drowned gov't. that can't be revived. The best thing would be two or three states replacing the golden state (the lines would be fairly easy to draw based on party voting majorities), and see which new states can pay their bills and stay liveable. My money is on the coastal counties from Santa Barbara (or SLO) north to OR. The GOP can have the rest, excluding probably the libertarian northern-cental/east counties.
As for the old debt, write it off through default, and start over.
Reporting from Washington -- The Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 surveillance efforts went beyond the widely publicized warrantless wiretapping program, a government report disclosed Friday, encompassing additional secretive activities that created "unprecedented" spying powers.
Jim -- if only it could be that way.
I'm ready to form Ecotopia with the Pacific Northwest states!
Northern California, like most parts of California, could stand on its own.
But I still don't see why a 3.5% of California GDP budget shortfall during GDII means the end of the world.
And generally I'm very nervous.
California is Disneyland. One giant amusement park with one fake landscape after another, complete now with fake money, fake politicians, and fake budget crises.
HomeGnome (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:10 am
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You need a well made bike when you're bombing down a 20%+ grade.
and an even better helmet!
Unfortunately I found out it's still your body that makes the difference. Sigh....
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s, is killing potato and tomato plants in home gardens from Maine to Ohio and threatening commercial and organic farms, U.S. plant scientists said on Friday.
"Late blight has never occurred this early and this widespread in the United States," said Meg McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University's extension center in Riverhead, New York.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that Afghan security forces will have to expand far beyond currently planned levels if President Obama's strategy for winning the war there is to succeed, according to senior military officials.
Such an expansion would require additional billions beyond the $7.5 billion the administration has budgeted annually to build up the Afghan army and police over the next several years, and the likely deployment of thousands more U.S. troops as trainers and advisers, officials said.
Schwarzenegger and Republican lawmakers ( I'm sure some Dems as well ) are standing fast against additional tax increases, saying the state's economy cannot absorb additional tax hikes.
Are these clowns living in LaLa land thinking this is the Cali of the 1960's and 1970's ?
Get REAL and increase taxes because the rest of the states and the Americans living in them are not going to bail out your bullshit Cali dream!
Yes, Ecotopia includes OR.but excludes everything east of the Cascades (which CA-Indy, or Idaho can have). OR employment rate is misleading since we never fully recovered from 2000/01 recession but total population is less than 4 million, so difference between 10 and 12% unemployed is only about 80,000 - and a good part of that is east of the Cascades.)
We must swallow hard and find an exit strategy before casualties start looking like Iraq in 2003-2004. Obama made a mistake by promising we'd prevail there.
Now let's be realistic.
The CIA isn't going to give up its' opium profits that easily...
Opium production EXPLODED after the US invasion.
Ever wonder why?
Here in WA state, we had a similar magnitude fiscal problem, but have made the hard choices needed to balance the budget. Not much sympathy here for irresponsible Californians.
We're not irresponsible. We just had a bunch of anti-tax nuts trick the state into passing a constitutional amendment requiring a 2/3 majority to pass a budget (I was neither here nor of voting age then, BTW). That requirement makes it virtually impossible for the legislature to tackle any controversial budget issue, and when you must have either budget cuts or tax increases of this magnitude, there will be lots of controversy.
Just got my very own IOU. We owed 25$ and change to the FTB for not filing quarterly and owing to much at tax time. I stupidly wrote the check for 25$ and no change. Got a second bill from the state for the change portion. Wife wrote a 1$ check with a note saying keep the change. Yesterday got a 1$ IOU, suitable for framing. Cost them 84cents in postage alone and then they gave the whole dollar back. And we get 3.75% interest, woo hoo.
I can't find the friggn story I read last year, but in the meantime:
The highlands of Central Mexico are the center of origin of the potato late blight pathogen Phytophthorainfestans. Additionally, they are home to several species very closely related to P. infestans namely P. mirabilis (causes leaf blight on Mirabilis jalapa) and P. ipomoeae (causes leaf blight on Ipomoea longipedunculata), respectively. These species have evolved by host switching followed by adaptation and specialization on distinct host plants belonging to three different botanical families. Like other oomycetes, P. infestans secretes a large repertoire of effector proteins that have been noted to evolve rapidly through birth-and-death evolution and typically exhibit the hallmarks of adaptive (Darwinian) selection.
We must swallow hard and find an exit strategy before casualties start looking like Iraq in 2003-2004.
The truth of this pains me; I have many friends deployed. Heretofore, the Taliban has had very little technical sophistication. All that has been learned in Iraq and funded by Iran will gradually find its way to Afghanistan. Dedicated suicidal fanatics with modern communications and explosives cannot really be stopped, short of extermination ... which Obama won't do, so why not admit that now?
I wonder if we somehow made it possible to use the alleged efficiencies of the marketplace, and of technology, to make it possible to live a 1949 lifestyle with, say, 40% of the work-week used for labor.
Oh, and MRIs and the Internet and digital everything this time.
Were we afraid of this as a society after WWII? Or did the industrialists see the writing on the wall, and realize their empires were limited if everyone just consumed what they needed?
Imagine the world had GM not destroyed intra-urban rail, had the ad companies not pushed conspicuous consumption after World War II. We would have rebuilt the destroyed parts of the world and entered the age of leisure. 20-hour workweeks by one household member would be enough for a whole family to live comfortably.
Instead we lusted after each other's square feet, granite countertops and leased Mercedes. And we had to work hard to make it possible.
Step one, collect as many IOU's as possibe. Bundle them, pay ratings agency (note: pay them in IOU's) to rate the "Super Awesome Dude" tranche at AAA. Step two, sell to CALPERS or CALSTRS. Step three give yourself large cash bonus.
How to be a California millionaire in three easy steps!
If you are still out there, regarding the 100k homes in Sac. There are some but the ones that might cash flow were bought up last year in huge lots to LLC type entities. We're talking 30k each. They then hired cheap contractors to rehab them for rentals. The glut is amazing. They will be able to underprice your parents without much effort and can continue to do so.
These are homes in the bad areas, you really have to know the areas where those are or you will be totally burned. Portions of West Sac, Oak Park, Del Paso, etc, have huge numbers of parolees. try collecting rent from them -ouch.
For comparison, I rent a place in a very good area, pretty much brand new, small gated, 8 unit custom development with acreage on 2 sides. In other words about as prime as you can get outside of east sac, the parks, and gold river and within 10 min to downtown. Rent is 1875 for a 3700 sqft mansion. Split that puppy between 3 professionals and it's cheaper then a crappy studio downtown. That is what is going on out here. That 100k dated house in an older suburb doesn't stand a chance.
Which brings up the next issue, anyone with money already bought or has been sitting on property for more then 10 years. These are the state workers that you will need to rent your folk's hypothetical place. I've been with UC for over 8 and even I'm worried about retaining my job because I'm competing for job slots where folks have 20+ yrs in and you know they all already own.
Oh and add to that the spike in new foreclosures from late April to mid july in the better areas we just had. They really haven't been released yet but it's just going to compound the downward cycle.
If you're parents are really interested, save more cash and wait until 2012. That's what I'd do and I've been following this market closely since 1995.
Plantagenet: we've put the Afghans through elementary/secondary school with CIA help when the Ruskies were there, and then we paid to put them through Terrorism 301 with the Iraq war. They are working on a post-doc now, and they'll make earlier terrorist groups look like a schoolyard.
After invading a Sunni/Shia/Kurd centuries-old blood feud, we now are going to take the next step and engage a society that is nearly completely tribal, and broken the backs of all previous invaders.
wawawa (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:42 am
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What is CA budget for 2009? I am trying to find out what percentage $26B is to the total budget.
I thought the budget was somewhere in the 100b++ range
"All that has been learned in Iraq and funded by Iran will gradually find its way to Afghanistan. "
Are you sure it is funded by Iran; I think not. The Sunni / Shia divide cuts pretty deep, although there are several divisions in each, and the insurgency in Afghanistan over the past 30 yrs is Sunni (Saudi) funded primarily, if I am not mistaken.
I totally agree. I'd say 65% of CA residents are rational. It's that other 35% that has truely F-ed us. I'm still looking for Jarvis's grave so I can go pee on it >; )
How many purveyors to California are already looking at A/R 30-60-90 days and are now asked to hold until October? And of these, how many rely on operations like CIT to smooth the receivables cycle and now simply won't make it?
Plantagenet, Taliban and AQ are Sunni. Iran is Shiite. They don't like each other. The Iran connection is just neocon BS. They're not our friends, but they're not our enemies either.
"Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the "mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile."
like i said previous thread...frontrunning
sounds like the program admiral poindexter proposed and was accepted by the admin but then shelved over the public outrage..."carnivor"
total data mining on every american...credit card bills, cell phone numbers what you buy at the grocerie store, keyword conversations, where you go on the web, memberships, subscripions and uh sexual proclivities?
the insurgency in Afghanistan over the past 30 yrs is Sunni (Saudi) funded primarily, if I am not mistaken
It's both. Saudi money via Pakistan is very large. However, Iran has provided much money and technical support for its cross-border Shia bretheren, and also for its unlikely Sunni bedfellows as well (enemy of my enemy, Great Satan, etc.). It is the sophistication that troubles me most: it can be replicated and transferred, and whatever its origin, wind up biting us in the ass.
It doesn't stop there. A few years back Xerox admitted that EVERY copier it made had a code embedded in the plate that allowed anything printed traced to a particular machine. The government fessed up and said it was to track counterfitters.
I'm sure Big Brother would only use it trace counterfitters. Right??
If you are still out there, regarding the 100k homes in Sac. There are some but the ones that might cash flow were bought up last year in huge lots to LLC type entities. We're talking 30k each.
Seriously? That was a ridiculously low price. Who got ripped off? Am I correct in guessing it was owners of MBS securities whose losses had been guaranteed by the feds? And that the beneficiaries frequently have business or personal relationships with the people who would have been ripped off if the guarantees didn't allow them to dump the losses on the feds?
"The Taliban are a revolutionary movement, deeply opposed to the Afghan tribal system and focused on the rebuilding of the Islamic Emirate. Their propaganda and intelligence are efficient, and the local autonomy of their commanders in the field allow them both flexibility and cohesion. They have made clever use of ethnic tensions, the rejection of foreign forces by the Afghan people, and the lack of local administration to gain support in the population. In so doing the Taliban have achieved their objectives in the South and East of the country, isolating the Coalition, marginalizing the local Afghan administration, and establishing a parallel administration (mainly to dispense Sharia justice and collect taxes). In recent months, a more professional Taliban have succeeded in making significant inroads by recruiting from non-Pashtun communities."
I totally agree. I'd say 65% of CA residents are rational. It's that other 35% that has truely F-ed us
Yeah. We need a 2/3 legislative majority to pass a budget - which has to happen every year, and if a mistake is made is generally reversible the next year. On the other hand, we can get a constitutional amendment - almost never urgent, and very hard to reverse, with a 50%+1 vote in a special election with minimal turnout. How ass-backwards can you get?
AnonyMiss (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:58 am
km4, have you seen the unemployment rates in California?
~12% statewide but more than 15% in many counties...and that's given the under reporting based on the new criteria.
I've been "unemployed" since September 2008 and I don't think I show up in those stats since I've never applied for unemployment.
Not specifically CA but U6 across all 50 states must avg 15% or perhaps a bit more. And as a freelancer if I don't retain consulting gigs ( great right now ) I also don't show up on stats nor get any unemployment check.
AnonyMiss, I am in austin and have not worked since Jan 08, never filed for UE. I know several people like me and wonder how many folks are not working or are self employed but not making any money. Another of our big american myths, self employed small business is empowering, just like real estate never falls and stocks for the long run (Mr. Siegel - you may want to get a lawyer).
So many people in our new found do nothing economy are sales commissioned or independent contractors or consultants.
A new normal indeed.
@ pigpen (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 12:17 pm
So many people in our new found do nothing economy are sales commissioned or independent contractors or consultants.
A new normal indeed.
Right.... about 25 Million people according some stat I came across a couple mo ago ( not in mood to look for it )
HomeGnome - I did but tried to get to arrogant with calling specific my hometown bank Guaranty. I think we need to introduce tiebreakers like closest to the hole or state or naming individual banks. I look forward to BFF and future polls. It is tons of fun and thanks for providing that.
"Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the "mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile."
"We wanted to spy on everyone and terrorism gave us an excuse." You can't have people sharing copyrighted files on the internet or developing political organizations outside of oligarchic control, after all.
But remember, if you speak out against the cops or the way they've turned this country into an open air prison camp, you're an America-hater. After all, they defend us from the nigger-beaner-homo-commie babycannons (our right-wing retard contingent has been teaching me new words!)
Good luck up there in Davis. Down here, where salaries are low and rents are ridiculous, even four percent salary cut on the low end is going to put some UC workers over the edge.
I like the part in Yudoff's speech where he essentially said, "We were surprised to find that most of you would rather not work on days that you were not paid for...." cheez, I guess they just take it for the team down Texas way... idiots.
km4, are you in austin? It is amazing to meet people here. No one works. It is a poor man's and hotter aspen with hills and no snow. I don't know how anyone affords to live here and what they do for a living - go downtown or to whole foods during the day - no one seems to be working.
Strange days in the new normal.
I have been in finance for last ten years - as I tell my friends - it is not coming back time to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life.
Thank goodness I am single and no kids and no debt
@Various: We hashed out the CA budget here last night, check the Sacramento thread... Cutting $20-25 B out of a $100B budget will also leave a gaping pile of unemployed.
@NervousRex: "I wonder if we somehow made it possible to use the alleged efficiencies of the marketplace, and of technology, to make it possible to live a 1949 lifestyle with, say, 40% of the work-week used for labor."
I thought we did? It was known as the 1950s. Typically only one worker per household -- about 50-60% of the current labor per household.
Oh, and MRIs and the Internet and digital everything this time.
Still doable; after all, we have better transportation and telecom systems now than in 40s.
Were we afraid of this as a society after WWII? Or did the industrialists see the writing on the wall, and realize their empires were limited if everyone just consumed what they needed?
Bingo. Industrialists hired marketers who used behavioral economics against the unsuspecting masses. They convinced everyone that they needed to work more than ever in order to consumer more than ever. That's how you squeeze "economic growth" out at above-trend rates. Remember, the "economy" is just folks making and then trading goods and services back and forth. Other than intrinsic productivity growth, and population growth, the only way you get more trading is if people work harder and spend faster.
There is a really fantastic example of how this process works, which was described in the context of Coca-Cola by Charlie Munger (Buffett's right-hand partner) in his "Poor Charlie's Almanack", which I happen to have on the shelf, but cannot type in right at the moment. I'll see if I can get to it later. Basically it walks through all the techniques by which the Coke folks built an enduring industrial empire with a solid "moat". But it's also readable as a telling commentary on the schemes and gimmicks by which the unsuspecting "mass consumers" were duped into pouring enormous quantities of unhealthy high-fructose "bellywash" (business term for anything that's not real juice or similarly genuine beverage) down their gullets...
@ pigpen (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 12:25 pm
km4, are you in austin? It is amazing to meet people here. No one works. It is a poor man's and hotter aspen with hills and no snow. I don't know how anyone affords to live here and what they do for a living - go downtown or to whole foods during the day - no one seems to be working.
Strange days in the new normal.
No I'm in WA state but have consulting gigs in NW, NE and 1 in Europe.
kidbuck, that is exactly how i see most of cali - you pay more and cost of living is higher bc weather premium and it is a nicer place to live. deal with it and pay more taxes.
Question. Is there a term of art for the historic pattern of societies to become more complex to the point of failure, e.g., Byzantium, Persepolis, Attica, Venezia?
No, you're interested in pursuing an engagement with me. I'll amuse myself with Fabian tactics.
The issue is that the FBI took advantage of 9/11 to spy on Americans in countless ways for essentially, no reason other than spying for its own sake, not how I feel about your bigotry.
if you want it to be about you, are you defending these policies of domestic surveillance, or are you against them, as any patriotic Citizen of the Republic would be?
Byz and HomeGnome - are you TRYING to drive people away from CR? Your rudeness affects the whole board. The vast majority of readers never log in, so cannot take advantage of the ignore feature. And you have both been worthy contributors in the past. Please take your vitriol elsewhere or place each other on ignore. This isn't funny any more.
Where can I go for property tax revenue stats? All those people who have stopped paying their mortgages must have stopped paying their property taxes, too. I'm very curious to see what prop tax collections are looking like. Is anybody keeping tabs on the fiscal health of counties? I can't think of a single entity that would be collecting this info.
What if every country decides to get out of the dollar at the same time? Just like an Enron implosion? Who wants to be the last person holding dollars?
You ought to stick to informing us of the value of run-down cabins in Wrightwood, Ca., and lifting images of women in fishnet stalkings from the internet.
Go to foreclosure.com for listings of not only foreclosures, but tax liens as well. Around my town, there are far more tax liens than foreclosures, apparently since the tax man is not operating under a moratorium.
//"Deflationary Jane (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:42 am
If you are still out there, regarding the 100k homes in Sac. There are some but the ones that might cash flow were bought up last year in huge lots to LLC type entities. We're talking 30k each. They then hired cheap contractors to rehab them for rentals. The glut is amazing. They will be able to underprice your parents without much effort and can continue to do so. "//
dj, i was actually responding to the person who asked about his/her parents proposal. i was born in sac and grew up many moons ago in rancho cordova. left for undergad at berkeley. i just recently advised a friend who was considering something very similar - purchasing large numbers of sac homes as a hedge against (what he believed was) a coming hyperinflation. load up on debt and profit as inflation skyrocketed. i talked him out of it.
you bring up a great point about competition from the early vultures. my arguments had to do with community sustainabilty and general deflation.
A green shoot or a result of the fact that the filing fee went up to $2009.00?
As to taxes, in Fla, you have about 3 years after taxes are skipped to fish
or cut bait. After that a tax lien purchaser can apply for a tax deed, and somebody
will before 7 years. Notice to lenders and owner and anyone else who might
have an interest. Then publication and sale on the courthouse steps (or
inside). Sorta like a mtg foreclosure.
Other states will vary but the idea will be similar. I suspect we are coming
up on the 3 years for some properties, and this will increase a lot soon.
Here in California, property taxes fund education, county services, special districts, and cities. Counties provide contract law enforcement and fire services to cities that don't have their own. They provide all of the local government services (streets, sanitation, water, libraries) in unincorporated areas. Property taxes must be taking a significant hit and yet I've not seen any revenue figures for the 50+ counties in CA, let alone across the country.
When funding is reduced for essential local services, people notice. Much closer to home. That's the kind of cuts that will waken the masses - not getting their garbage picked up, or getting astronomical water bills. Just seems like the story on property tax revenue needs to be told.
"Think vacant shopping malls are bad for stocks? They could give investors an opportunity to clean up. Great American Group, a major retail liquidator, is seeking a public listing by selling itself to Alternative Asset Management Acquisition Corp. (ticker: AMV). Business has boomed lately for Great American, what with it being hired to sell off leftovers for the likes of Circuit City and Linens 'N Things. The somewhat grim marketing pitch: Rising bankruptcies and foreclosures promise even brighter days ahead."
Feckless, Cali has a weird property tax system where the taxes are assessed/collected at the county level, then sent to Sacramento before being sent back according to some re-apportionment formula.
sm - do counties file tax liens immediately upon default? For LA County, that would be July 1 each year, if they're all done at once. And I agree with you - Prop 13 is not likely to be repealed.
@comrade mike: "What if every country decides to get out of the dollar at the same time? Just like an Enron implosion? Who wants to be the last person holding dollars?"
I wouldn't worry about that. The Federal Reserve controls the supply of dollars. Dollars aren't like diamonds - they don't last forever. I suspect that if a large group of foreign countries dumped their dollar reserves the Fed would just "buy" them and issue forth a tiny "burp" of a press release about it, and you wouldn't notice. The total money supply would dip and something else would have to take the place of the dumped dollars, and there might be some short-term repercussions sloshing around, but I think the system would handle it.
@Property Taxes: Just checked our home's newly-updated assessed value online (Alameda County, CA). Looks like the property tax reduction will more than make up for the sales and income tax increases in terms of our budget.
burnside (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 3:39 pm
Question. Is there a term of art for the historic pattern of societies to become more complex to the point of failure, e.g., Byzantium, Persepolis, Attica, Venezia?
Not AFAIK. The issue of societal lifecycle is fraught. The thinking on the issue in the modern era is very limited and the perspectives you hear here are very heterodox -- you don't get a lot of papers published on the subject when you are in an era where the social-cultural assumptions are oriented around the perpetual growth and development of an ever-centralizing state-complex. The pervasive cultural concept of "progress" in these matters made -- and continues to make -- serious treatments of the issue essentially taboo.
Even the modern dialog on the issue is largely oriented around seeing it as a transient illness requiring remediatory steps. Witness titles like "Nation-State Failure: A Recurring Phenomenon?". Most of the technical vocabulary I have seen is phenomenological -- Rotberg's typology of "weak state", "strained state" and "failed state" are essentially symptomatic, not life-cycle oriented. Clapham ("The Global-Local Politics of State Decay" and "The Challenge to the State in a Globaized World") and Mark Duffield ("Social Reconstruction and the Radicalization of Development") are primarily focussed on the failure of the global milieu as a whole and not especially interested in developing a terminology of compromised state structures.
Certainly it's very challenging in that while the first world / global state system aspects of this crisis are Tainter / Olson type overloadings of the social mechanism and co-optation of the government agency by vested interests, the developing world aspects are more about failure to meet projected expectations that arise from a region whose expectations of the state are so high they themselves (the first world) cannot support the state function as they conceptualize it, which are then imposed on a place where there is much less economic and development framework / potential.
So you have multiple kinds of failing states that exhibit similar symptoms but that are products of in one case, a flawed internal process, and in another case, imposed external expectations of a radicalized security / development complex. in both cases, you have a state that is being overdriven to perform past its base capacity, but the root cause is different.
The multi-layered aspect of it, and the fact that practically everyone involved is beholden to one of the actors in the process, makes it very difficult. I have tried to see if anyone wants to plumb the labyrinth of technical Chinese documentation of the Dynastic cycle but so far have not had any brave volunteers who want to explore Chinese specialist vocabulary on this issue, which is in any case probably pretty limited. I cannot imagine if the issue is academically taboo in the west, that it is looked upon more favorably in China, which had both Marxist-Leninist social determinism and the current transitional Mao Dynasty's sensitivities there to prompt censorship at the point of a Makarov or a merely figurative academic death sentence.
Han Fei calls it the "milieu of disintegrating states" in The Five Vermin. i don't recall Ray Huang developing a special term for it in 1587, but he identifies forces that we would know well (vested interests, inability to change critical social institutions during a crisis).
And these are the truly academic, the people who are practically involved in the process are largely captives of the moment and not able to see it from the external perspective at all. I think it's one of those topics that hasn't been treated with seriously during the "modern" era. We will probably develop this technical vocabulary -- and a new paradigm of state-lifecycle -- during this pass through the meat-grinder of history. Then we will quickly edit it out of our memory because "do you want it to rain every day? Don't be poopy, let the sunshine in! it's different this time!"
Then again, maybe someone knows better than me. I'd love to collect any references to the matter, especially in European or Arabic literature.
Californians have two opportunities per year to default, as I recall. Property taxes are payable in two installments, December 10 and April 10. I'm not sure how long the assessor's office waits before calling a default (haven't done it myself
And it probably varies by county, since that is the level that the collections occur at.
sm - two opportunities for delinquency, and only one for default - when the fiscal year ends. I wonder if the counties all follow the same fiscal year - if so, prop tax would all default at the same time, state-wide.
NorkaWest (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 4:07 pm
Burnside: Joseph Tainter uses the term "declining productivity of complexity".
Thanks Norka. i haven't had a chance to read Tainter in the entirety yet, last time I checked, it had been bid up to a silly price (about 100 used? Oooh, but I see it's been reprinted! I know what I'm getting this payday).
liz, there has been some chest-beating and posturing between state and counties and who pays what to whom, when, and in what form. (edit - City/County holding off making payments of Obligation X to state until state pays Revenue Y to City/County, etc.) Haven't heard anything actually come of it yet.
"As services are pared back, sooner or later the average Cali will cry uncle."
Depends on what you mean by the average Cali. About half of the population gets zip, nada, nothing from the state except road repair, and it takes a long time for the roads to degrade enough to notice.
Roughly the other half of the population gets checks from government in one form or another, so the part of that group that gets checks from the state is already screaming.
For California, the tax assessors should know what the tax rolls have done year over year, now that the new assessments are out for the current fiscal year.
So the counties should know what they're looking at for revenues this coming year.
And of course the property values are still declining, so it's not like things will get better next year.
sm_landlord (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 1:30 pm reply Ignore user "As services are pared back, sooner or later the average Cali will cry uncle."
Depends on what you mean by the average Cali. About half of the population gets zip, nada, nothing from the state except road repair, and it takes a long time for the roads to degrade enough to notice.
Fire, police, water, licensing, permits, National Guard, .....
As services are pared back, sooner or later the average Cali will cry uncle.
Would that be the average unemployed Cali, crying for more services?
Or the average employed-but-hanging-on-by-a-thread, home-underwater, 401k-destroyed Cali, crying to pay more taxes in order to support more services?
"as services are pared back, sooner or later the average Cali will learn the difference between wants and needs, and convince his elected representatives to make the necessary cuts"...
BR, nice take on the societal life cycle. I think you're right that we'll have to complete this cycle to essentially provide the data set for analysis. Actually the archives of the net, and all the blogs of this type in particular, will provide an invaluable day to day account of the decline. CR got indexed redundant off-site backup?
One thing that's definitely worth considering is that there are several processes at work at the same time. The American process of state failure, the finalization of the spread of knowledge-capital on a global basis (and the possible implosion of the mercantilist economies that have sprung up to arbitrage the process), and the collapse of non-viable post-colonial state-entities are all separate but tightly interconnected processes that can't be analyzed in isolation, but that aren't really "part" of one-another either. It's a big tarball of interconnected issues.
California has a strong disincentive to actually balance the budget. The longer they go, the more dire the economic situation is, the most pressure there will be on the federal government to intervene. It's a game of chicken for sure, but the benefit gained from the Fed blinking is so much more than the chance of a 'crash', that there's no reason for Cali to blink at all.
Fire: City or County
Police: City or County
Water: City or District
Licensing: State, County and City
Permits: City or County
National Guard: They're in Iraq and Afghanistan anyway.
I've lived in California my whole life, and I think this whole situation is great. This is the first opportunity in my lifetime for the stranglehold of special interests and unions to be broken. The time for all these deadbeats to stop sucking at the taxpayers' tit is at hand.
Can't they just keep raising taxes until the last employed person leaves the state ?
These clowns need to cut to the bone there is a huge bureaucracy here in CA which should be cut back. I doubt Sacramento has the stomach to go up against their union sugar daddies though
California does have a state fire service, Highway Patrol, California Guard, etc., so yes - the state does provide those services. But they're not deployed at the local level except in emergency.
Thanks for the link, Wisdom. The local paper here reported this week that property values in Los Angeles County dropped (a bit) for the first time in 30 years. It will take a couple of years for assessments to catch up with property values. The worst is still ahead for local government.
Mish has a thread up about the California Department of Forestry being on a cash & carry basis (or credit cards) to be able to procure spare parts for firefighting planes...
Last summer, 8,000 dry lightning strikes hit Northern California, causing over 1,000 fires in very remote places. If it should happen again and this climate change event strikes just a few hundred miles south, there could easily be a fire the likes of Chicago's 1871 version, in Sacramento.
Arnie has acted like a little girly man in his dealing with the unions. The state worker unions are at the core of the problem, along with anchor babies and teen mothers getting outrageous amounts of support for repeatedly spreading their legs to the gang bangers who drift by.
When I was a new hire at a grocery store a drug test and criminal background check was required.
Five years later when I briefly was a mortgage broker (don't shoot!) neither were required.
Have done some delving by way of Harvard nexus in the time of Walter Pater, Burckhardt, Bertrand Russell, George Santayana, Salvemini, Wm James, et. al. All treat in passing.
Will take up Tainter, for which thanks.
Byz, Berenson characterizes Chinese historical record as 'annals', observing they record specifically what happened, deliberately drawing no inference as to why. Hence, records may well survive complete because inoffensive to subsequent regimes.
EEngineer (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 4:33 pm BR, nice take on the societal life cycle. I think you're right that we'll have to complete this cycle to essentially provide the data set for analysis. Actually the archives of the net, and all the blogs of this type in particular, will provide an invaluable day to day account of the decline.
Thanks, EE. I tend to agree. A lot of what I say and do here is based on the supposition that the commentariat's pattern-ghosts will be conjured up and enslaved to solve a crisis like this one at some point, or at least looked back at with specialized reading tools that integrate our voices with the events of the day and known facts about us.
I'm not really talking for the crowd, but for the mic and I would advise everyone else do likewise.
Hi Byz - there's a paradigmatic term already, homeostatic equilibrium, which describes the general sticking-togetherness and reversion to type of a system within which elements fail; but there's less work on the syntagms, or the description of how starting positions plus risk factors overloading the subordinate componentry and then what to do to fix it. There's some stuff in the Masters of Huainan, which could possibly be tracked by a philology geek with an interest in state formation and failure (hey, count'em!)
Probably more of interest in the folk realm, and tales / fables exemplifying the issues. (This is more a personal take). A good example would be Hai Rui Dismissed from Office about standing up to corruption and abuse of power in a criminogenic environment.
And then raise taxes to pay for the increased unemployment and food stamp costs.
The federal government pays 100 percent of food stamp program benefits. Federal and State governments share administrative costs (with the federal government contributing nearly 50 percent).
Agree on that. I try to focus on the highest-level macro forces that I'm pretty sure of. i'm 95% positive of the reduction in work week forces but throw in globalization and credit cycles in Eurasia and you get unpredictability.
Then again, maybe someone knows better than me. I'd love to collect any references to the matter, especially in European or Arabic literature.
--Byz 1:24
Another take on the life-cycle of state/civilization can be found in "Unireality," a book on metaphysics that looks at the structure and dynamics of systems in general.
Texas has nothing near 20% emplyoment even in the more rural areas. I selected counties having either 10%+ UE or large metro areas. There were about 10 other counties on the cusp of 10% UE. A few of those have large populations ~50K.
There seems to be a strong correlation (did not run any regression) between population and employment rate. Probably has to do with mega-farms in the rural areas taking over the small farms and leaving no other options for employment.
The biggest challenge to employment in the future will be immigration. Not via the south border with Mexico but from people flocking to cheaper living from other US states. These people will move to the populated counties where the jobs exist but that will make the numbers look worse while everyone still has their hiring freeze in place.
A lot of finance/IT jobs in Houston and Dallas in either energy trade or cap and trade start-ups (slaps forehead but that is the next bubble like it or not). Besides that we have strong engineering, manufacturing, energy and agriculture. But water is a noticeable shortfall. Central Texas is two years into a drought and the river/dam/lake systems are lower than I've ever seen. Lake Amistad on the Texas/Mexico border is also hurting as well as the Rio Grande. We should probably call it the Rio Pequeno now.
Note: any blurb about a county is from the 2000 census data used by Wikipedia or my brain.
Cass 13,888 12,321 1,567 11.3
-The median income for a household in the county was $28,441, and the median income for a family was $35,623. Males had a median income of $30,906 versus $19,726 for females. The per capita income for the county was $15,777. About 14.70% of families and 17.70% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.20% of those under age 18 and 17.90% of those age 65 or over.
-Northeast corner of Texas
Collin 406,625 378,591 28,034 6.9
-Collin County is part of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. A small portion of the city of Dallas is located in the county. Other important cities in the county include Allen, Frisco, McKinney, Plano, Richardson, and Wylie.
Dallas 1,165,428 1,079,121 86,307 7.4
Duval 5,676 5,094 582 10.3
-The median income for a household in the county was $22,416, and the median income for a family was $26,014. Males had a median income of $25,601 versus $16,250 for females. The per capita income for the county was $11,324. About 23.00% of families and 27.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 35.90% of those under age 18 and 25.30% of those age 65 or over.
-This is far South Texas. Not much out there.
El Paso 305,341 279,991 25,350 8.3
Fort Bend 261,129 243,899 17,230 6.6
-Houston Suburb
Galveston 142,552 132,318 10,234 7.2
-Houston area
Harris 1,961,684 1,825,861 135,823 6.9
-Houston Metro
Hidalgo 293,747 266,169 27,578 9.4
-The median income for a household in the county was $24,863, and the median income for a family was $26,009. Males had a median income of $21,299 versus $18,297 for females. The per capita income for the county was $9,899. About 31.30% of families and 35.90% of the population were below the poverty line, including 45.50% of those under age 18 and 23.30% of those age 65 or over. The county's per-capita income makes it one of the poorest counties in the United States.
-Borders Mexico
Jefferson 114,052 103,731 10,321 9.0
-Beaumont, refineries
-The median income for a household in the county was $34,706, and the median income for a family was $42,290. Males had a median income of $36,719 versus $23,924 for females. The per capita income for the county was $17,571. About 14.60% of families and 17.40% of the population were below the poverty line, including 24.60% of those under age 18 and 11.80% of those age 65 or over.
Maverick 22,542 19,327 3,215 14.3
-The median income for a household in the county is $21,232, and the median income for a family is $23,614. Males have a median income of $20,956 versus $15,662 for females. The per capita income for the county is $8,758. 34.80% of the population and 32.00% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 40.60% of those under the age of 18 and 40.90% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line. Based on per-capita income, Maverick is one of the poorest counties in the United States.
Milam 12,537 11,272 1,265 10.1
-The median income for a household in the county was $33,186, and the median income for a family was $40,431. Males had a median income of $30,149 versus $20,594 for females. The per capita income for the county was $16,920. About 12.20% of families and 15.90% of the population were below the poverty line, including 21.80% of those under age 18 and 15.30% of those age 65 or over.
-Not really sure what business is in Milam.
Montgomery 209,193 195,823 13,370 6.4
-Montgomery County is one of the most heavily Republican counties in Texas, giving 76% of its vote to John McCain in 2008. The county has not been won by any Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, and was one of the few counties in Texas to be won by segregationist candidate George Wallace in 1968.
-George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was a Governor of Alabama for four terms; 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics according to biographers Dan T. Carter[1] and Stephan Lesher,[2] he ran for President four times, running officially as a Democrat three times and in the American Independent Party once. He is best known for his Southern populist[3] pro-segregation attitudes during the American desegregation period, convictions he abandoned later in life.
Morris 6,793 5,782 1,011 14.9
-Morris County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. In 2000, its population was 13,048. Its seat is Daingerfield[1]. Morris County is probably named for William Wright Morris, an early judge and planter from Henderson. Morris County is one of 46 prohibition, or entirely dry, counties in the state of Texas.
-If you don't have a confederate flag tattooed to your forehead, don't go here.
Newton 6,181 5,548 633 10.2
-Borders Louisiana
Nueces 164,852 154,400 10,452 6.3
-Corpus Christi
Pecos 7,066 6,262 804 11.4
-Pecos County is home to one of the largest oil fields in the United States, the Yates Oil Field, which is in the extreme eastern part of the county, along the Pecos River. The field covers approximately 41 square miles near the town of Iraan. Discovered in 1926, it has produced over a billion barrels of oil, and most industry estimates give it more than another billion in recoverable reserves. The Yates was one of the first giant fields to be found in the Permian Basin.[3][4]
-Fort Stockton is home to test tracks for car and tire companies.
Presidio 3,716 3,130 586 15.8
-The median income for a household in the county was $19,860, and the median income for a family was $22,314. Males had a median income of $23,218 versus $16,208 for females. The per capita income for the county was $9,558. About 32.50% of families and 36.40% of the population were below the poverty line, including 43.40% of those under age 18 and 44.10% of those age 65 or over. The county's per-capita income makes it one of the poorest counties in the United States.
-There are some cool little cities out here. There Will be Blood was filmed in Marfa as well as a few other movies.
Reeves 4,491 3,958 533 11.9
-The sprawling 320,000 deeded acre (1,400 km²) La Escalera Ranch headquarters is located 20 miles south of Fort Stockton, Texas and is owned and operated by the Gerald Lyda family. The ranch extends over much of Pecos County and portions of Reeves County, Brewster County, Archer County, and Baylor County.
Originally owned by California-based Elsinore Land & Cattle Company, the 100-year old ranch was acquired by building contractor Gerald Lyda of San Antonio, Texas and re-named La Escalera Ranch (Spanish for "The Ladder"). It is known for its reputation Black Angus cattle and its abundant wildlife. Gerald Lyda died in 2005. Today, the ranch is owned and operated by Lyda's sons Gerald D. and Gene Lyda, as well as Lyda's daughter Jo Lyda Granberg.
Located near the entrance to the ranch is Sierra Madera crater. La Escalera Ranch has been ranked by Texas Monthly, Worth and The Land Report magazines as one of the largest cattle ranches in Texas and the United States.
Sabine 3,656 3,143 513 14.0
-Another county with a small population stuck in the 1850s.
Smith 101,980 94,831 7,149 7.0
-Another dry county, corrupt county officials and judges. Know some good people from the city of Tyler. Hilly pine forests.
Starr 23,731 20,101 3,630 15.3
-The median income for a household in the county was $16,504, and the median income for a family was $17,556. Males had a median income of $17,398 versus $13,533 for females. The per capita income for the county was $7,069, which is the third-lowest in the United States. About 47.40% of families and 50.90% of the population were below the poverty line, including 59.40% of those under age 18 and 43.30% of those age 65 or over.
In the 1970s and into the 1980s, federal law enforcement officials concentrated their anti-drug smuggling efforts on Starr County.[4]
On May 1, 2009, the former sheriff of Starr County pled guilty in Federal court to a narcotics conspiracy charge. [5]
No Republican has won the county in over a century.
Tarrant 901,962 839,009 62,953 7.0
-Fort Worth
Travis 559,273 526,293 32,980 5.9
-Austin
Willacy 8,190 7,267 923 11.3
-The median income for a household in the county was $22,114, and the median income for a family was $25,076. Males had a median income of $19,706 versus $15,514 for females. The per capita income for the county was $9,421. About 29.20% of families and 33.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 42.00% of those under age 18 and 29.90% of those age 65 or over. The county's per-capita income makes it one of the poorest counties in the United States.
-Agriculture
Zavala 3,940 3,454 486 12.3
-The median income for a household in the county was $16,844, and the median income for a family was $19,418. Males had a median income of $22,045 versus $14,416 for females. The per capita income for the county was $10,034. About 37.40% of families and 41.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 48.90% of those under age 18 and 42.40% of those age 65 or over. The county's per-capita income makes it one of the poorest counties in the United States.
30 years of "free lunch." Taxes hard to pass, but easy to cut. Reduced investment in higher education, etc. Fancy footwork to cover the deficits and imbalances. Politically, it's been a vast success for the middle-classers who grew old and died with guaranteed-low property taxes and minimal new local taxes. They and their families even got the tail end of expansive gov't services from the '60s and '70s. Not those who came after.
That's why some many olders thank the heavens for the financial sea changes that came with Prop 13. That's why people blithely vote for multi-billion dollar bond measures for sexy causes without worrying about how they'll be paid for, and cheer tax cuts and somehow don't believe that the cuts must be covered by reduced spending.
But the bill for the free lunch is about to arrive.
It's not about ego, it's about positional awareness. And of course I'm disingenious. If you want to enslave my ghost to solve your problems rather than solving them yourself, you had better be sure you can put down that which you call up.
When I was a new hire at a grocery store a drug test and criminal background check was required.
Five years later when I briefly was a mortgage broker (don't shoot!) neither were required.
Make of it what you will.
I went to a Countrywide job fair in mid 2005. They were looking for just about any type of mortgage worker you could think of. All of the service positions(underwriting, processing etc) involved mini-interviews where the people who actually worked in the departments. They were quite specific in the skills and experience that they were looking for.
Loan officers were interviewed by HR. Sales experience was the only requirement. Any sales experience. I repeatedly told the HR ditz that I had no sales experience. Eventually, after enough of a "background check", as it was, we determined that selling tickets to a Boy Scout Jamboree once in the fourth grade was enough experience. Everything else probably would have been "no-doc".
I declined the origination job for a servicing job, to the detriment of my bank account.
When I was a new hire at a grocery store a drug test and criminal background check was required.
Five years later when I briefly was a mortgage broker (don't shoot!) neither were required.
Make of it what you will.
I went to a Countrywide job fair in mid 2005. They were looking for just about any type of mortgage worker you could think of. All of the service positions(underwriting, processing etc) involved mini-interviews where the people who actually worked in the departments. They were quite specific in the skills and experience that they were looking for.
Loan officers were interviewed by HR. Sales experience was the only requirement. Any sales experience. I repeatedly told the HR ditz that I had no sales experience. Eventually, after enough of a "background check", as it was, we determined that selling tickets to a Boy Scout Jamboree once in the fourth grade was enough experience. Everything else probably would have been "no-doc".
I declined the origination job for a servicing job, to the detriment of my bank account.
Tainter and Dixon are both good reads, and I recently followed those two by "The Great Mayan Drought" by Richardson Gill.
The interaction of societies with nature is another overlay in our tarball.
We can add:
* sixth great extinction
* energy turning points
* fisheries collapsing
* historic (possibly 500 year) droughts
* collapse of the banking system
...
Ooh, this is interesting. I just got a "2009 Obama Agenda Survey" from the Republican National Committee. (I'm registered Independent.) You guys want to help me answer it?
"Byz, Berenson characterizes Chinese historical record as 'annals', observing they record specifically what happened, deliberately drawing no inference as to why."
If there is love, there is freedom and the possibility of evil, which is the rejection of love. If there is no love, there is neither good nor evil nor freedom.
NO LOVE UNLESS
Crushed beetle in a parking lot,
Cream colored wings, embrowned spots,
Harmless monster, what are we?
Much harm our possibility
Winged evil which can lift and fly
Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Burning indeterminate
Of age and gender, common fate
I saw that love and freedom mix,
One without the other lacks,
No love can be in us unless
Denial, love the balances
An artifact two inches long,
Or life created, right and wrong
Indeed. California taxed the bubble, pushing the proceeds through a diode, and legislating new benefits for a large population. In the absence of a bubble to tax, we will see, in real time, what Bastiat described in the Law, as society devolves into a scrum where all seek to plunder more than they get plundered, while the industrious few flee to other states.
Left to itself, the state will now certainly implode. I shudder thinking of the less than Jeffersonian plans that Rahm Immanuel is drawing up for taking over the wreckage.
"It was pretty apparent, after the passage of Prop 13, that the long-term tax prospects for business were not good. and that turned out to be the case."
You mean the additional "fees" every locality started larding on to make up the difference? A very destructive form of taxation. Or something else?
Your immediate action is required. (underlined.) [...] I am sending out this questionnaire to gauge where you and other grassroots Republicans stand..."
Guess they presume all Independents to be Republican.
"You mean the additional "fees" every locality started larding on to make up the difference?"
Bob, I sold out shortly after the passage of Prop 13. My analysis then was very simple, some might say simplistic.
My view was, if they couldn't raise taxes on property, they'd raise it some other way and business would be a likely candidate.
Taxes in California were already high then, and going higher, so I said to hell with it.
Footnote: I tend to analyze structures (organizational, tax, etc) and their interrelationships. That's how I operate. I also tend to have a long-range view of things. I don't regret my 1978 decision. In fact, it had all kinds of "unintended consequences" that were quite good for me.
And of course I'm disingenious. If you want to enslave my ghost to solve your problems rather than solving them yourself, you had better be sure you can put down that which you call up.
No single person or even organization of people can affect the semantic structure here. It's enormously large and complex, I' know because I've tried to do it. One of the implications of the credit cycle is a shifting proportion of centralized versus differentiated structure. As the credit cycle rises, more and more effort is directed towards marginal utility, which creates greater differentiation, which in term creates greater dissonance in communication.
I tried to prove this in 2006 by doing large-scale semantic analysis of Dejanews. I used Deja because it has a common core of conversation spanning back over twenty years. The results surprised me. The # of keywords in use is surprisingly constant, I suspect there's a social & physical constraint on the limits. But what happens is a shift in the composition of those words and their distribution.
I named it the Cultural Diffusion.
Here's a quick explanation of the theory
I thought the growing trend of differentiation would create a gradual breakdown in communication but the Lehman Brother's collapse is a quick systemic failure along the same lines (thanks to CounterPointer for that thought).
You could probably parse out the effects of centralized versus differentiated trends through similar semantic analysis.
Nice to know that the Obama administration has put an end to all this Stasi operations and stood up for the freedom of the American Citizens.
//snark off//
KZ, Texans like Californians think they are immune but trust me $2.50 NG and $20 oil will bring the oversized texan pride back to reality.
Tons were made in the boom and like dust to dust tons are in the process of losing it.
Wash, rinse and repeat.
"The enclosed 2009 Obama Agenda Survey is your opportunity to let Republican leaders...know where you stand on the policies and programs being proposed by Barack Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress."
What - they have no plans and policies of their own? All they can do is criticize someone else's? You can't lead from the rear, guys.
Hang on, HomeGnome - I haven't gotten to the questions yet.
One more sign how deeply rotten the system is (not that one is truly shocked by this acknowledgment)
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/politics/12intel.html>New York Times The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years
on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and
House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.
The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.
Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.
Efforts to reach Mr. Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful.
...
The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.
Democrats in Congress, who contend that the covert action provision was abused to cover up programs under President Bush, are seeking to change the law to permit the full committees to be briefed on more matters. President Obama, however, has threatened to veto the intelligence authorization bill if the changes go too far, and the proposal is now being negotiated by the White House and the intelligence committees.
"While updated cash projections show that IOUs will preserve enough cash to make those protected payments through September, the cash shortfall in October will endanger the State’s ability to make those payments."
So the federal bailout will begin in October. That's when the cash runs out, the IOU's mature, and there will have been enough time for spending cuts, equal to a small fraction of the shortfall, to be publicized and marketed as "California takes all the medicine it can bear". It's so predictable. I really don't know why smart members of the audience here in CR's box seat are letting themselves get played into becoming unwitting performers.
"My view was, if they couldn't raise taxes on property, they'd raise it some other way and business would be a likely candidate."
You can always count on water to run downhill, by some path. Block one, it finds another; maybe undermines the foundation of an orphanage along the way.
Byzantine, what you say regarding receptiveness puts a fresh light on postwar demonization of Oswald Mosley. Interesting.
The nature of memes is that the successful ones incorporate a complex of related memes that defeat competitors. By definition, the successful paradigms are tightly associated with what's essentially an anti-body system. This creates blind spots in cultural perception and the great, great majority of population are incapable of perceiving, much less examining certain ideas.
A large portion of the Cali tax revenue stream is already spoken for before the legislators even get a chance to fight for the scraps. I forget the percentage, but it is alarmingly high. Not much wiggle room, they couldn't balance the budget this year if they tried (w/o accounting tricks).
It's almost impossible to attack primary memes head-on. They have to be shifted gradually through a process of chain-reaction from memes on the marginal. A direct competitor will be defeated by the antibody system but a tertiary meme can seed itself, which in turn can set the foundation for a secondary meme, which in turn lays the foundation for a primary meme to seep in gradually.
I'd love to test the idea and I'm sure that many advertising companies are using something like this although they may not grasp it at a strategic level.
greenlander: "I've lived in California my whole life, and I think this whole situation is great. This is the first opportunity in my lifetime for the stranglehold of special interests and unions to be broken. The time for all these deadbeats to stop sucking at the taxpayers' tit is at hand."
greenlander, I hate to wake you up from your reverie, but please see Bob Dobb's comments. He is the majority in California. He determines your future.
(three more pages of inflammatory rhetoric - ahh...here's the punchline)
"Take just a few minutes to read and complete your REGISTERED copy of the 2009 Obama Agenda Survey, then make out your check or provide your credit card information in the space provided for your contribution of $500, $250, $100, $50 or even $30 to the Republican National Committee, place it in the postage-paid envelope provided, and mail it right away.
The future of the Republican Party is in your hands. Act now."
hee hee hee. If I'm the future of the Republican Party, they're pwnd.
PS: beautiful day here in SoCal, 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Almost worth the price we pay for housing. No surf today though, unfortunately.
Another interesting piece from today's newspapers - from FT lunch series, now with Larry Summers
“The president made two things clear to us early on,” recalls Summers, who answers my questions in full, idea-packed paragraphs, rocking gently back and forth in his seat as he gets into the flow of an argument. “He would do what he had to to fix the banking system, to get the economy out of the rut in which he was inheriting it. But he had run for president to do long-run, fundamental things, like fixing healthcare, like having real energy policy, like reforming education. And we weren’t going to be distracted from those things.”
This says it all - Obama has a very clearly defined political agenda, developed when he was only preparing to run for White House. Fixing the financial system was not on Obama's list of key priorities. Hence it is viewed as a short-term distraction, which needs to be dealt with by the most expedient way - via patches, bandages and money handouts, however big they might be.
For how long can the Obama administration defy the economic reality?
No system can function effectively without collecting information from its external environment.
And no system can allow an uncontrolled inflow of information. Decisions are based on that information, so the decision-making process is subject to manipulation of information inflows.
That's the dichotomy of information. The most interesting part of any system is its information filtering and control mechanism. Most cultural systems are the result of hundreds of years of a trial and error process. They represent a balance of time and effort and reaction, so they are hard to disrupt through a "normal" process of environmental change, hard to disrupt through a normal distribution of information.
But newer, small-scale sub-cultures are based on less strenuous criteria, they're oriented around new information that is environment-specific. Often this ad hoc mix of culture is poorly suited to environmental changes.
A system that can be forced to restrict all incoming information is disruptable.
A system that can be forced to allow unrestricted information is disruptable.
A system with brief experience at filtering is usually disruptable.
A new system is usually susceptible to distruption through environmental changes.
If we understand a culture's memetic structure, the physical mapping of memetic relationships and reactions, it could be possible to trigger a wave of sequential memes. Imagine a pool table with five balls on the table with no direct shot possible. But fire off a sequence where the #1 ball hits the #2 ball, which strikes the #3 ball, the #3 ball to #4 ball and finally the #5 ball is sunk into a pocket.
This triggered sequence, call it an event of synchronicity, is still based on cause-and-effect, but it would be beyond the capacity of most people to comprehend or initiate. It could be possible to introduce an event like this into cultures which alter them in desirable ways without arousing the suspicions of the general population. Well, desirable to the event initiator, that is.
It should be possible to build a sequence of triggered events like this for any system (or culture) which accepts and emits a certain level of information. This is easier in the post because we can gather empirical, historical evidence of how a culture reacts.
You know, it doesn't pay to over-analyze. The business environment in California was becoming too restrictive. There was always some regulation or approval mechanism standing in the way.
"greenlander, I hate to wake you up from your reverie, but please see Bob Dobb's comments. He is the majority in California. He determines your future."
Well, I sure didn't in '78! Even if you wanted to put me in the "tax and spend" bucket -- which would be 'way too simplistic, although that doesn't stop some -- the majority of Californians up to now have been in the "spend but don't tax" bucket.
They will now be faced with choices that they're not ready for.
Texas has nothing near 20% emplyoment even in the more rural areas.
kz - I wonder how many 'discouraged' or black market workers are in those counties? Skew the official UE rate?
I was in a number of those south Texas counties recently - they recalibrated my measure of poverty considerably. The odd thing was we met some of the local 'boosters' [econ dev folks]... they showed us a number of high end residential developments meaning SOMEBODY in those counties has at least a little money. I can only imagine the tension between the newbie industrial carpet baggers living in those developments and the local inhabitants.
Also - the econ dev folks there showed us labor projections and under every scenario they could imagine there will remain a 'labor surplus' as far out as anyone can predict. That does not include the 'shadow inventory' of laborers just across the Rio.
Those counties are something.
Lastly - if Starr county is the THIRD poorest... who are the two counties higher up the award podium than they are? Who won silver, who won gold? Any idea?
And from the same FT interview with Larry Summers: "As the panic has subsided, the trendy new economic issue has become “exit strategy” – as in, when and how do governments shift from costly and aggressive intervention to levels of spending and taxation that are sustainable over the long term?
Summers rejects the premise of the question. “I actually think that the right measures for doing the right things about the long-run deficit will also increase confidence, hold down long-term interest rates and capital costs, make mortgages cheaper, make mortgage rates lower and so will contribute directly to recovery. So I don’t buy the notion that there is some conflict between the budget imperative for growth and some other budget imperatives.”"
In other words, forget about the exit strategy. It's for show, for dummies. Stagflation, 1970's, here we come!
The real problem with California is that they still have a 2 party system. Repubs and Dems slowing each other down.
They should take a lesson from the Federal government. If you get down to one party, you can really accelerate things.
Although I didn't know of it at the time, the Saul Alinsky methodology is an implementation of the principles of memetic disruption. If you want to effect change in the Empire, it can not be done head-on. Set an unthreatening foundation which can build an indrect path to another foundational change, which can then undermine the primary cultural memes.
Cheney was W's point man for Enron, when that concern ripped off California to the tune of $30 Billion just after the turn of the century...
(from Wiki)
Vice President Dick Cheney was appointed in January, 2001 to head the National Energy Development Task Force. In the Spring of that year, officials of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power met with the Task Force, asking for price controls to protect consumers. The Task Force refused, and insisted that deregulation must remain in place.
Trader 1: “They’re f-----g taking all the money back from you guys? All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?
Trader 2: "Yeah, Grandma Millie man. But she’s the one who couldn’t figure out how to f-----g vote on the butterfly ballot."
[Laughing from both sides]
Trader 1: "Yeah, now she wants her f-----g money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her a-- for f-----g $250 a megawatt hour."
And you believe Larry Summers that the banks were not Job #1 ?
I believe that banks are not Job #1 for Obama, hence he is happy to delegate this "short-term problem" to somebody, who claims to be fully in control of the situation and knows how to fix it. Somebody like Summers, for whom this carte blanche to run the financial system is the dream job.
pigpen, never answered you the other day about which part of Austin I live in - I'm in Brentwood.
I agree that prices for those commodities are still elevated but they're coming back down. I'm not an inflationista, not one bit. We still haven't seen prices come back to reality. Not housing, not energy, not anything.
We're not immune, just like California is not. But there are some staggering differences, they're way in the hole already, we're not yet. Travis county already projected tax income downwards last year, so they're not completely oblivious. How low state tax receipts go is key. Don't forget Texas gets royalties much further off the coast for oil/NG than any other state. Part of the unique nature of the state. And with new deep water wells coming online in the next 5-10 years there is some stability for state income even at low prices.
In absolute terms, things will be worse. But life is relative, and we're in a much better position relatively... that's if it rains every once in a while.
My guess is, Arnold and Barack have been talking--a lot--lately.
Arnold: California needs help, we are on the brink!
Barack: Sorry, but you already got money from the stimulus package. Now I need every last dollar for the healthcare reform. I am afraid you just have to deal with your problems by yourself. Bye..
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Some Americans are swapping homes for motels as the ranks of the homeless swell during the recession, crowding out shelters and forcing cities and states across the country to find new types of housing.
In Massachusetts, a record number of families are being put up in motels due to high unemployment and the rising number of homes going into foreclosure, costing taxpayers $2 million per month but providing a lifeline for desperate families.
KZ, I am in tarrytown and i am a deflationista. I am trying to figure out who works in this town to afford the lifestyle of austin. I call austin a poor man's aspen with hills and heat.
Not sure what anyone does here to make what I call real money.
We are still flush with cash from $148 oil and $14 NG which was almost a year ago at the peak. Rigs are being laid down quickly and not many basins can drill with NG at $3.5.
Texas has pain coming but it is more delayed than most bc of the commodity cycle in addition things didnt get to out of control with RE prices as you can always just keep on building - plenty of land.
californias a brand new game
all the gold
in california
is in a bank in the middle of beverly hills
in somebody elses name
birmingham, al. atlanta, ga. charlotte, nc. miami, fl. memphis, tn. nola. stl. kc.
cities are ruint; what comes next, slowly, is the interesting part.
Don't worry, feel happy California.
LL, you'll find the islands like Merritt useful soon, I'm thinking.
The weirdest thing is that nothing LOOKS ruined, but yet it is.
Disaster on the scale of hurricane Andrew, without insurance, and
still invisible.
I guess this is what a zombie is.
Merritt Island is in no way isolated.
Pigged from previous...
What has struck me recently is the global response to the economic collapse. Despite the minor political jockeying, the central bank cooperation behind the scenes has been illuminating. Armies don't matter much, missiles, bombs, political systems. It doesn't matter much.
The neutralization and homogenization of everyone on earth as instruments of central banks and oligarchs is where we are.
Zombieconomy isn't a buzzword. It's not an event. It's not (really) about banks. It is simply about the state of our economy today with Cali leading the way
"State Controller John Chiang and state Superintendent of Instruction Jack O'Connell said $4 billion in payments to local school districts that were supposed to go out on Friday will be delayed until July 30."
School's out forever
School's out for summer
School's out with fever
School's out completely
Out for summer
Out till fall
We might not go back at all
Here in WA state, we had a similar magnitude fiscal problem, but have made the hard choices needed to balance the budget. Not much sympathy here for irresponsible Californians.
I had to follow The Mortgage Pig with this somewhat On-Topic thought and thus in terms of The IOU, it will grow like a lotto ticket and be a generational burden that will never be repaid.
I hate to be the first person to say this, but capitalism is dead and all the previous adventures with Alicia in Wonderland are just old stories not related to the mechanics of the future. Society is in a new phase of post-internet commerce, which is akin to the post-industrial age:
Hence, the post-internet society, will be an era that morphs away from both manufacturing and service. As an example, think back to a time, not too long ago, when humans were employed as elevator operators, who contributed to GDP:
With the advent of user-operated elevators such as those utilizing push buttons to select the desired floor, few elevator operators remain."
We are now entering a time when many service jobs will seem unimportant and superficial in terms of being a GDP component. For example, how will Starbucks fare in this recession, when fewer people will feel the need to spend $4.00 on a coffee. How many car salespeople do you need sitting in idle car dealerships and how many people do you need standing by for the next building boom, or mortgage booms? How many computer dealers will need to have stores, how many shoe sales will depend on someone placing your foot in a shoe? How many people are required to deliver newspapers, etc. etc.
The recession will filter out jobs that are no longer are essential or efficient and eliminate the waste, flushing more jobs out of the system. Therefore, job growth will be hindered by a lack of jobs supplied, versus jobs demanded, which will result in a longer, deeper recession and a new economic reality, which will be discussed in PART TWO of The Rise & FRIGGN Fall Of CAPITALISM which will only be available here @ CR (Thank God).
This country hasn't had a really good protest since the 70's, a bit rusty.
I'll say it again:
Careful out there, California posters.
It could turn ugly on you real quick.
Lock and load.
This is a financial brush fire with 50 MPH Santa Ana winds and there is deadwood everywhere...
Any bets on the first city in California to go up in flames?
LL, I'm taking my 5 year old to Jupiter/WPB in two weeks to see granny. I was thinking of taking her to Disney and the space center while we were there. Any tips on what to hit and what to miss?
Groundhogday (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:03 am
reply ignore user
Here in WA state, we had a similar magnitude fiscal problem, but have made the hard choices needed to balance the budget. Not much sympathy here for irresponsible Californians.
I think we'll eventually balance the budget in CA. Unfortunately I don't think most people in the rest if the US realize how much they will be negatively affected by CA cutting back by 40b or so.
Groundhogday (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:03 am
Here in WA state, we had a similar magnitude fiscal problem, but have made the hard choices needed to balance the budget. Not much sympathy here for irresponsible Californians.
Bingo from fellow WA and my sympathies as well. With this economic crisis there''s only about 5 states I'd choose to live in but like WA state best.
For those of you scoring @ home, nudge nudge wink wink say no more...
The amount of debt that California owes is almost exactly the same amount that Enron ripped it off for in 2001-2002.
I kinda hope they don't reach a budget deal in CA (although I love northern CA - formerly from SF), before Oct. I want to see those Repubs get what they wanted - a drowned gov't. that can't be revived. The best thing would be two or three states replacing the golden state (the lines would be fairly easy to draw based on party voting majorities), and see which new states can pay their bills and stay liveable. My money is on the coastal counties from Santa Barbara (or SLO) north to OR. The GOP can have the rest, excluding probably the libertarian northern-cental/east counties.
As for the old debt, write it off through default, and start over.
WA is where my mountain bike was built. Very good bike made in WA by some very good smaller bike builders.
Well the shuttle launch will be missed, cancelled due to lightning strikes, but will happen
in the next couple of days.
I really like Wet n Wild. Disney has a water park, but I've never been.
Wet n Wild has a great kid's area.
Eat dinner at Cinderella's castle.
I'll find out if there are any other launches.
You need a well made bike when you're bombing down a 20%+ grade.
and an even better helmet!
How the Tech Boom Terminated California's Economy
Fast Company How the Tech Boom Terminated California's Economy | Fast Company
Interesting read but am 'in the middle' on rationale and reasons expressed by author.
Got Pigged last thread.
Neo Fascists at work:
Reporting from Washington -- The Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 surveillance efforts went beyond the widely publicized warrantless wiretapping program, a government report disclosed Friday, encompassing additional secretive activities that created "unprecedented" spying powers.
Los Angeles Times - California, L.A., Entertainment and World news - latimes.com...
But luckily, President Obama did away with these unconstitutional programs.
//snark off//
Jim -- if only it could be that way.
I'm ready to form Ecotopia with the Pacific Northwest states!
Northern California, like most parts of California, could stand on its own.
But I still don't see why a 3.5% of California GDP budget shortfall during GDII means the end of the world.
And generally I'm very nervous.
California is Disneyland. One giant amusement park with one fake landscape after another, complete now with fake money, fake politicians, and fake budget crises.
Comrade Coinz
+1
and the most fake tits in America
I'm ready to form Ecotopia with the Pacific Northwest states!
Does that include Oregon with it's 12% unemployment rate?
Silicone Valleys?
HomeGnome (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:10 am
reply ignore user
You need a well made bike when you're bombing down a 20%+ grade.
and an even better helmet!
Unfortunately I found out it's still your body that makes the difference. Sigh....
LL, thanks
Careful Victory Gardeners!
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s, is killing potato and tomato plants in home gardens from Maine to Ohio and threatening commercial and organic farms, U.S. plant scientists said on Friday.
"Late blight has never occurred this early and this widespread in the United States," said Meg McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University's extension center in Riverhead, New York.
HomeGnome,
The blight was actually a seaweed problem....
Gnome, my compliments to your wife on her blog. Mouth watering.
Salmon's chart says it all--the entitled and those not.
Afghanistan--- Where Empires go to die.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that Afghan security forces will have to expand far beyond currently planned levels if President Obama's strategy for winning the war there is to succeed, according to senior military officials.
Such an expansion would require additional billions beyond the $7.5 billion the administration has budgeted annually to build up the Afghan army and police over the next several years, and the likely deployment of thousands more U.S. troops as trainers and advisers, officials said.
I will pass your compliment on to her.
and thank you for checking it out.
Schwarzenegger and Republican lawmakers ( I'm sure some Dems as well ) are standing fast against additional tax increases, saying the state's economy cannot absorb additional tax hikes.
Are these clowns living in LaLa land thinking this is the Cali of the 1960's and 1970's ?
Get REAL and increase taxes because the rest of the states and the Americans living in them are not going to bail out your bullshit Cali dream!
Yes, Ecotopia includes OR.but excludes everything east of the Cascades (which CA-Indy, or Idaho can have). OR employment rate is misleading since we never fully recovered from 2000/01 recession but total population is less than 4 million, so difference between 10 and 12% unemployed is only about 80,000 - and a good part of that is east of the Cascades.)
could you expand on this, doc?
Afghanistan--- Where Empires go to die.
You betcha!
We must swallow hard and find an exit strategy before casualties start looking like Iraq in 2003-2004. Obama made a mistake by promising we'd prevail there.
Now let's be realistic.
The CIA isn't going to give up its' opium profits that easily...
Opium production EXPLODED after the US invasion.
Ever wonder why?
Here in WA state, we had a similar magnitude fiscal problem, but have made the hard choices needed to balance the budget. Not much sympathy here for irresponsible Californians.
We're not irresponsible. We just had a bunch of anti-tax nuts trick the state into passing a constitutional amendment requiring a 2/3 majority to pass a budget (I was neither here nor of voting age then, BTW). That requirement makes it virtually impossible for the legislature to tackle any controversial budget issue, and when you must have either budget cuts or tax increases of this magnitude, there will be lots of controversy.
Just got my very own IOU. We owed 25$ and change to the FTB for not filing quarterly and owing to much at tax time. I stupidly wrote the check for 25$ and no change. Got a second bill from the state for the change portion. Wife wrote a 1$ check with a note saying keep the change. Yesterday got a 1$ IOU, suitable for framing. Cost them 84cents in postage alone and then they gave the whole dollar back. And we get 3.75% interest, woo hoo.
Home,
I can't find the friggn story I read last year, but in the meantime:
The highlands of Central Mexico are the center of origin of the potato late blight pathogen Phytophthorainfestans. Additionally, they are home to several species very closely related to P. infestans namely P. mirabilis (causes leaf blight on Mirabilis jalapa) and P. ipomoeae (causes leaf blight on Ipomoea longipedunculata), respectively. These species have evolved by host switching followed by adaptation and specialization on distinct host plants belonging to three different botanical families. Like other oomycetes, P. infestans secretes a large repertoire of effector proteins that have been noted to evolve rapidly through birth-and-death evolution and typically exhibit the hallmarks of adaptive (Darwinian) selection.
We must swallow hard and find an exit strategy before casualties start looking like Iraq in 2003-2004.
The truth of this pains me; I have many friends deployed. Heretofore, the Taliban has had very little technical sophistication. All that has been learned in Iraq and funded by Iran will gradually find its way to Afghanistan. Dedicated suicidal fanatics with modern communications and explosives cannot really be stopped, short of extermination ... which Obama won't do, so why not admit that now?
Enjoy your "CaliCash", Uncle Ar.
Branding is key. CIA Heroin has a premium over generic in the world market. Good profits too!
I wonder if we somehow made it possible to use the alleged efficiencies of the marketplace, and of technology, to make it possible to live a 1949 lifestyle with, say, 40% of the work-week used for labor.
Oh, and MRIs and the Internet and digital everything this time.
Were we afraid of this as a society after WWII? Or did the industrialists see the writing on the wall, and realize their empires were limited if everyone just consumed what they needed?
Imagine the world had GM not destroyed intra-urban rail, had the ad companies not pushed conspicuous consumption after World War II. We would have rebuilt the destroyed parts of the world and entered the age of leisure. 20-hour workweeks by one household member would be enough for a whole family to live comfortably.
Instead we lusted after each other's square feet, granite countertops and leased Mercedes. And we had to work hard to make it possible.
Homegnome , if you or your wife is interested I can send you some pictures of my wife's last special Chinese meal that she cooked from scratch.
Spring rolls
ribs in soya sauce
black bean and chicken with green pepper
stir fried pork loin with with Chinese salad root
Let me know
Send it through my profile contact and it will get to me...
Much appreciated; btw.
Uncle Ar,
That is so funny it is pathetic or so pathetic it is funny. No wonder the state is in such trouble.
Step one, collect as many IOU's as possibe. Bundle them, pay ratings agency (note: pay them in IOU's) to rate the "Super Awesome Dude" tranche at AAA. Step two, sell to CALPERS or CALSTRS. Step three give yourself large cash bonus.
How to be a California millionaire in three easy steps!
Budget cuts in MA may force Zoo to close and Euthanize animals
Zoo May Close, Euthanize Animals - Project Economy News Story - WCVB Boston
Hippo steaks anyone ... more meat than a squirrel ....
Cali zoo's next ??
What is CA budget for 2009? I am trying to find out what percentage $26B is to the total budget.
damn I missed the Sacramento thread!
Metabear,
If you are still out there, regarding the 100k homes in Sac. There are some but the ones that might cash flow were bought up last year in huge lots to LLC type entities. We're talking 30k each. They then hired cheap contractors to rehab them for rentals. The glut is amazing. They will be able to underprice your parents without much effort and can continue to do so.
These are homes in the bad areas, you really have to know the areas where those are or you will be totally burned. Portions of West Sac, Oak Park, Del Paso, etc, have huge numbers of parolees. try collecting rent from them -ouch.
For comparison, I rent a place in a very good area, pretty much brand new, small gated, 8 unit custom development with acreage on 2 sides. In other words about as prime as you can get outside of east sac, the parks, and gold river and within 10 min to downtown. Rent is 1875 for a 3700 sqft mansion. Split that puppy between 3 professionals and it's cheaper then a crappy studio downtown. That is what is going on out here. That 100k dated house in an older suburb doesn't stand a chance.
Which brings up the next issue, anyone with money already bought or has been sitting on property for more then 10 years. These are the state workers that you will need to rent your folk's hypothetical place. I've been with UC for over 8 and even I'm worried about retaining my job because I'm competing for job slots where folks have 20+ yrs in and you know they all already own.
Oh and add to that the spike in new foreclosures from late April to mid july in the better areas we just had. They really haven't been released yet but it's just going to compound the downward cycle.
If you're parents are really interested, save more cash and wait until 2012. That's what I'd do and I've been following this market closely since 1995.
Plantagenet: we've put the Afghans through elementary/secondary school with CIA help when the Ruskies were there, and then we paid to put them through Terrorism 301 with the Iraq war. They are working on a post-doc now, and they'll make earlier terrorist groups look like a schoolyard.
After invading a Sunni/Shia/Kurd centuries-old blood feud, we now are going to take the next step and engage a society that is nearly completely tribal, and broken the backs of all previous invaders.
wawawa (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:42 am
reply ignore user
What is CA budget for 2009? I am trying to find out what percentage $26B is to the total budget.
I thought the budget was somewhere in the 100b++ range
Should be a cakewalk and they will throw rose petals at our triumphant feet!
Pantagenet
"All that has been learned in Iraq and funded by Iran will gradually find its way to Afghanistan. "
Are you sure it is funded by Iran; I think not. The Sunni / Shia divide cuts pretty deep, although there are several divisions in each, and the insurgency in Afghanistan over the past 30 yrs is Sunni (Saudi) funded primarily, if I am not mistaken.
Homegnome I dropped you an email.
Where in the world is OBL?
Haven't heard much about him since last Sept...
OBL is laid out right next to Michael Jackson, but he will make Elvis appearances for the next century.
In closing, seaweed was used to fertilize the taters and the seaweed had Phytophthorainfestans, end of story.
fair Econ,
I totally agree. I'd say 65% of CA residents are rational. It's that other 35% that has truely F-ed us. I'm still looking for Jarvis's grave so I can go pee on it >; )
replied, Poic.
There's a few gaps in that story, doc?
Links? Sources?
How many purveyors to California are already looking at A/R 30-60-90 days and are now asked to hold until October? And of these, how many rely on operations like CIT to smooth the receivables cycle and now simply won't make it?
Too many moving parts clogged or frozen.
Plantagenet, Taliban and AQ are Sunni. Iran is Shiite. They don't like each other. The Iran connection is just neocon BS. They're not our friends, but they're not our enemies either.
Don't worry it's all contained to California.
Is seaweed considered a green shoot?
Would this be the same Iranians that Reagan cut the secret hostage deal with?
OT
inspector generals report said
"Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the "mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile."
like i said previous thread...frontrunning
sounds like the program admiral poindexter proposed and was accepted by the admin but then shelved over the public outrage..."carnivor"
total data mining on every american...credit card bills, cell phone numbers what you buy at the grocerie store, keyword conversations, where you go on the web, memberships, subscripions and uh sexual proclivities?
so much for freedom
the insurgency in Afghanistan over the past 30 yrs is Sunni (Saudi) funded primarily, if I am not mistaken
It's both. Saudi money via Pakistan is very large. However, Iran has provided much money and technical support for its cross-border Shia bretheren, and also for its unlikely Sunni bedfellows as well (enemy of my enemy, Great Satan, etc.). It is the sophistication that troubles me most: it can be replicated and transferred, and whatever its origin, wind up biting us in the ass.
It wasn't Al Q that took your freedom; it was the Beltway Terrorists.
km4, have you seen the unemployment rates in California?
~12% statewide but more than 15% in many counties...and that's given the under reporting based on the new criteria.
I've been "unemployed" since September 2008 and I don't think I show up in those stats since I've never applied for unemployment.
Pipe down, you California UE pikers...
Allendale, South Carolina May 2009
Unemployment Rate 22.1%
---source Google.
The bostonchannel link did not respond and froze my computer..
@mock
It doesn't stop there. A few years back Xerox admitted that EVERY copier it made had a code embedded in the plate that allowed anything printed traced to a particular machine. The government fessed up and said it was to track counterfitters.
I'm sure Big Brother would only use it trace counterfitters. Right??
Maybe there is a reason it is called the "World Wide Web", eh fly?
i tried to edit in a spelling correction and a link to the brief on the inspector generals report
but
curiously the edit option was wiped out... only ignore user and reply is available to me\
must be becasue i used those special 3 letter acronyms
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106476696
If you are still out there, regarding the 100k homes in Sac. There are some but the ones that might cash flow were bought up last year in huge lots to LLC type entities. We're talking 30k each.
Seriously? That was a ridiculously low price. Who got ripped off? Am I correct in guessing it was owners of MBS securities whose losses had been guaranteed by the feds? And that the beneficiaries frequently have business or personal relationships with the people who would have been ripped off if the guarantees didn't allow them to dump the losses on the feds?
For a good perspective on the Taliban and what is currently happening in Afghanistan, I recommend you a read this piece
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/taliban_winning_strategy.pdf
An excerpt:
"The Taliban are a revolutionary movement, deeply opposed to the Afghan tribal system and focused on the rebuilding of the Islamic Emirate. Their propaganda and intelligence are efficient, and the local autonomy of their commanders in the field allow them both flexibility and cohesion. They have made clever use of ethnic tensions, the rejection of foreign forces by the Afghan people, and the lack of local administration to gain support in the population. In so doing the Taliban have achieved their objectives in the South and East of the country, isolating the Coalition, marginalizing the local Afghan administration, and establishing a parallel administration (mainly to dispense Sharia justice and collect taxes). In recent months, a more professional Taliban have succeeded in making significant inroads by recruiting from non-Pashtun communities."
Luckily the Dems are in power and have restored freedom to the American people.
//snark off//
test
mock, if someone - or even you - has used the 'in reply to' function on your original post, editing is closed out.
I totally agree. I'd say 65% of CA residents are rational. It's that other 35% that has truely F-ed us
Yeah. We need a 2/3 legislative majority to pass a budget - which has to happen every year, and if a mistake is made is generally reversible the next year. On the other hand, we can get a constitutional amendment - almost never urgent, and very hard to reverse, with a 50%+1 vote in a special election with minimal turnout. How ass-backwards can you get?
Some interesting folks at the Carnegie Endowment.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
AnonyMiss (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:58 am
km4, have you seen the unemployment rates in California?
~12% statewide but more than 15% in many counties...and that's given the under reporting based on the new criteria.
I've been "unemployed" since September 2008 and I don't think I show up in those stats since I've never applied for unemployment.
Not specifically CA but U6 across all 50 states must avg 15% or perhaps a bit more. And as a freelancer if I don't retain consulting gigs ( great right now ) I also don't show up on stats nor get any unemployment check.
AnonyMiss, I am in austin and have not worked since Jan 08, never filed for UE. I know several people like me and wonder how many folks are not working or are self employed but not making any money. Another of our big american myths, self employed small business is empowering, just like real estate never falls and stocks for the long run (Mr. Siegel - you may want to get a lawyer).
So many people in our new found do nothing economy are sales commissioned or independent contractors or consultants.
A new normal indeed.
California is now #193 on the list of outstanding credit default swaps, and rising. They have $4 billion of CDS outstanding.
Hey you won a virtual beer in the first BFF poll, didn't you?
edit
from the Roubini/Shiller interveiw - "savings rate too high, too much negative sentiment..."
Well, just wait until taxes go up and SS is reorganized - lower payments delayed to age 67 or more.
The social safety net has some big holes so people will adgust their behavior/finances accordingly.
@ pigpen (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 12:17 pm
So many people in our new found do nothing economy are sales commissioned or independent contractors or consultants.
A new normal indeed.
Right.... about 25 Million people according some stat I came across a couple mo ago ( not in mood to look for it )
HomeGnome - I did but tried to get to arrogant with calling specific my hometown bank Guaranty. I think we need to introduce tiebreakers like closest to the hole or state or naming individual banks. I look forward to BFF and future polls. It is tons of fun and thanks for providing that.
No need for a tie breaker.
I've got cases of virtual beer.
and You're Welcome.
never mind the rolls of never employed or state workers.
I'm pulling this stat out of my ass but I suspect California is closing on 50% unemployed/AFDC/welfare/general assistance/public employment.
No joke, not only will this end in tears, it will end in hysteria.
The only thing keeping me here is family and being three years too late to cash into the housing bubblel
"Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the "mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile."
"We wanted to spy on everyone and terrorism gave us an excuse." You can't have people sharing copyrighted files on the internet or developing political organizations outside of oligarchic control, after all.
But remember, if you speak out against the cops or the way they've turned this country into an open air prison camp, you're an America-hater. After all, they defend us from the nigger-beaner-homo-commie babycannons (our right-wing retard contingent has been teaching me new words!)
Deflationary Jane:
Good luck up there in Davis. Down here, where salaries are low and rents are ridiculous, even four percent salary cut on the low end is going to put some UC workers over the edge.
I like the part in Yudoff's speech where he essentially said, "We were surprised to find that most of you would rather not work on days that you were not paid for...." cheez, I guess they just take it for the team down Texas way... idiots.
km4, are you in austin? It is amazing to meet people here. No one works. It is a poor man's and hotter aspen with hills and no snow. I don't know how anyone affords to live here and what they do for a living - go downtown or to whole foods during the day - no one seems to be working.
Strange days in the new normal.
I have been in finance for last ten years - as I tell my friends - it is not coming back time to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life.
Thank goodness I am single and no kids and no debt
Not another Ass-Stat.
The 1099's aren't included in the UE rate, are they?
@Various: We hashed out the CA budget here last night, check the Sacramento thread... Cutting $20-25 B out of a $100B budget will also leave a gaping pile of unemployed.
@NervousRex: "I wonder if we somehow made it possible to use the alleged efficiencies of the marketplace, and of technology, to make it possible to live a 1949 lifestyle with, say, 40% of the work-week used for labor."
I thought we did? It was known as the 1950s. Typically only one worker per household -- about 50-60% of the current labor per household.
Oh, and MRIs and the Internet and digital everything this time.
Still doable; after all, we have better transportation and telecom systems now than in 40s.
Were we afraid of this as a society after WWII? Or did the industrialists see the writing on the wall, and realize their empires were limited if everyone just consumed what they needed?
Bingo. Industrialists hired marketers who used behavioral economics against the unsuspecting masses. They convinced everyone that they needed to work more than ever in order to consumer more than ever. That's how you squeeze "economic growth" out at above-trend rates. Remember, the "economy" is just folks making and then trading goods and services back and forth. Other than intrinsic productivity growth, and population growth, the only way you get more trading is if people work harder and spend faster.
There is a really fantastic example of how this process works, which was described in the context of Coca-Cola by Charlie Munger (Buffett's right-hand partner) in his "Poor Charlie's Almanack", which I happen to have on the shelf, but cannot type in right at the moment. I'll see if I can get to it later. Basically it walks through all the techniques by which the Coke folks built an enduring industrial empire with a solid "moat". But it's also readable as a telling commentary on the schemes and gimmicks by which the unsuspecting "mass consumers" were duped into pouring enormous quantities of unhealthy high-fructose "bellywash" (business term for anything that's not real juice or similarly genuine beverage) down their gullets...
I've got black friends and a few Mexican Friends, and a gay friend or two.
No communists that I know of and I kinda like the term "baby cannon".
Where's that put me on the Byzantine hate-o-meter?
@ pigpen (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 12:25 pm
km4, are you in austin? It is amazing to meet people here. No one works. It is a poor man's and hotter aspen with hills and no snow. I don't know how anyone affords to live here and what they do for a living - go downtown or to whole foods during the day - no one seems to be working.
Strange days in the new normal.
No I'm in WA state but have consulting gigs in NW, NE and 1 in Europe.
Just raise all the damn taxes, already. The weather premium will induce everyone to pay them with a smile.
kidbuck, that is exactly how i see most of cali - you pay more and cost of living is higher bc weather premium and it is a nicer place to live. deal with it and pay more taxes.
HomeGnome (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 3:28 pm
Where's that put me on the Byzantine hate-o-meter?
sampfag pretending humanity.
Surely you have more hate for me than that...
Question. Is there a term of art for the historic pattern of societies to become more complex to the point of failure, e.g., Byzantium, Persepolis, Attica, Venezia?
@burnside: If not, I propose "The KISS of Death"...
Keep It Simple, Stupid...
No, you're interested in pursuing an engagement with me. I'll amuse myself with Fabian tactics.
The issue is that the FBI took advantage of 9/11 to spy on Americans in countless ways for essentially, no reason other than spying for its own sake, not how I feel about your bigotry.
if you want it to be about you, are you defending these policies of domestic surveillance, or are you against them, as any patriotic Citizen of the Republic would be?
I come back from grocery shopping for a food fight
between 2 of my most favorite posters.?
I come back from grocery shopping for a food fight
between 2 of my most favorite posters.?
I wanna know if the spying is still going on? Betcha it is.
North Carolina is in worse shape than California. Highest taxes in the nation. More taxes on the way. More spending and spending. Just pork and waste.
Byz and HomeGnome - are you TRYING to drive people away from CR? Your rudeness affects the whole board. The vast majority of readers never log in, so cannot take advantage of the ignore feature. And you have both been worthy contributors in the past. Please take your vitriol elsewhere or place each other on ignore. This isn't funny any more.
"challenging its people to shed corruption and conflict in favor of peace..."
What country is he talking about?
(Obama) Campaigning to all of Africa, he said "Yes you can."
Just like the US!
And what's a babycannon?
I think a babycannon is what Walter Mitty Sobchaks use to settle bowling disputes...
I'd be willing to pay a buck for a dollar Cali IOU.
Anybody have one they are willing to part with?
So when does Arnold give up the ghost and go back to suspending disbelief on the silver screen?
Some thread music to soothe the nerves:
YouTube - Imagine
My bowling nom de plume is "The Pin Reaper"
Unfortunately I rarely roll above the low 200's...
lawyerliz (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 12:52 pm
reply ignore user
And what's a babycannon?
Once an illegal alien couple squeeze out their baby anchor all subsequent progeny are products of the babycannon.
Where can I go for property tax revenue stats? All those people who have stopped paying their mortgages must have stopped paying their property taxes, too. I'm very curious to see what prop tax collections are looking like. Is anybody keeping tabs on the fiscal health of counties? I can't think of a single entity that would be collecting this info.
What if every country decides to get out of the dollar at the same time? Just like an Enron implosion? Who wants to be the last person holding dollars?
This $17 Trillion Divorce Won’t Be a Pretty One: William Pesek - Bloomberg.com
Xenophobia isn't your strong suit, Dawg.
You ought to stick to informing us of the value of run-down cabins in Wrightwood, Ca., and lifting images of women in fishnet stalkings from the internet.
Go with your strengths~
The chunk of Mungerisms that I wanted to start quoting is much larger than I remembered it being.
It's called "Practical Thought about Practical Thought?".
It looks like there's a decent synopsis at Marketing The Buffett And Munger Way Nus Class Spring 2008
But to really get it, you have to read the whole thing, and even Munger says most people don't get it, so perhaps it's a Quixotic endeavor...
Feckless;
Go to foreclosure.com for listings of not only foreclosures, but tax liens as well. Around my town, there are far more tax liens than foreclosures, apparently since the tax man is not operating under a moratorium.
How much more will it take before Prop 13 is repealed?
Not gonna happen. It still has roughly 2/3 support, and no politician scores higher than maybe 1/3.
They're going to have to look someplace else for the extra bucks.
//"Deflationary Jane (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 11:42 am
If you are still out there, regarding the 100k homes in Sac. There are some but the ones that might cash flow were bought up last year in huge lots to LLC type entities. We're talking 30k each. They then hired cheap contractors to rehab them for rentals. The glut is amazing. They will be able to underprice your parents without much effort and can continue to do so. "//
dj, i was actually responding to the person who asked about his/her parents proposal. i was born in sac and grew up many moons ago in rancho cordova. left for undergad at berkeley. i just recently advised a friend who was considering something very similar - purchasing large numbers of sac homes as a hedge against (what he believed was) a coming hyperinflation. load up on debt and profit as inflation skyrocketed. i talked him out of it.
you bring up a great point about competition from the early vultures. my arguments had to do with community sustainabilty and general deflation.
Is there a term of art for the historic pattern of societies to become more complex to the point of failure
Burnside: Joseph Tainter uses the term "declining productivity of complexity".
The problem with Cali is the rest of the country isn't helping us out. You'll help out bankers but not your neighbors!
Come on people, send us the money!
LL, I'm framing mine, sorry.
Miami-Dade County foreclosures are way down.
A green shoot or a result of the fact that the filing fee went up to $2009.00?
As to taxes, in Fla, you have about 3 years after taxes are skipped to fish
or cut bait. After that a tax lien purchaser can apply for a tax deed, and somebody
will before 7 years. Notice to lenders and owner and anyone else who might
have an interest. Then publication and sale on the courthouse steps (or
inside). Sorta like a mtg foreclosure.
Other states will vary but the idea will be similar. I suspect we are coming
up on the 3 years for some properties, and this will increase a lot soon.
HELOCalifornia
Here in California, property taxes fund education, county services, special districts, and cities. Counties provide contract law enforcement and fire services to cities that don't have their own. They provide all of the local government services (streets, sanitation, water, libraries) in unincorporated areas. Property taxes must be taking a significant hit and yet I've not seen any revenue figures for the 50+ counties in CA, let alone across the country.
When funding is reduced for essential local services, people notice. Much closer to home. That's the kind of cuts that will waken the masses - not getting their garbage picked up, or getting astronomical water bills. Just seems like the story on property tax revenue needs to be told.
GREEN SHOOTZ!!
"Think vacant shopping malls are bad for stocks? They could give investors an opportunity to clean up. Great American Group, a major retail liquidator, is seeking a public listing by selling itself to Alternative Asset Management Acquisition Corp. (ticker: AMV). Business has boomed lately for Great American, what with it being hired to sell off leftovers for the likes of Circuit City and Linens 'N Things. The somewhat grim marketing pitch: Rising bankruptcies and foreclosures promise even brighter days ahead."
HT WSJ-Heard on the Street
Obamarama just pledged $63B for Africa....
The article requested is no longer available.
Mish posts that Cali firefighting equipment needs cash/credit cards to get repaired.
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: California Division of Forestry Not Paying Bills, Vendors Demand Cash or Credit Cards Upfront
Maybe someone needs to have a priority meeting?
Feckless, Cali has a weird property tax system where the taxes are assessed/collected at the county level, then sent to Sacramento before being sent back according to some re-apportionment formula.
So its just a big game of chicken. Why then should anyone care?
I'll see your California and raise you one Africa.
I said I'd pay a buck for a Calibuck; what more do you guys want?
How much more will it take before Prop 13 is repealed?
Only if/when the state constitution gets re-written will it be repealed.
sm - do counties file tax liens immediately upon default? For LA County, that would be July 1 each year, if they're all done at once. And I agree with you - Prop 13 is not likely to be repealed.
If nobody blinks in a game of chicken, the cars crash.
lawyerliz;
I doubt that anyone on CR let themselves get into a position where they would get BearChit.
@comrade mike: "What if every country decides to get out of the dollar at the same time? Just like an Enron implosion? Who wants to be the last person holding dollars?"
I wouldn't worry about that. The Federal Reserve controls the supply of dollars. Dollars aren't like diamonds - they don't last forever. I suspect that if a large group of foreign countries dumped their dollar reserves the Fed would just "buy" them and issue forth a tiny "burp" of a press release about it, and you wouldn't notice. The total money supply would dip and something else would have to take the place of the dumped dollars, and there might be some short-term repercussions sloshing around, but I think the system would handle it.
@Property Taxes: Just checked our home's newly-updated assessed value online (Alameda County, CA). Looks like the property tax reduction will more than make up for the sales and income tax increases in terms of our budget.
The city I work for's getting Bear chits. Bear chits in the 'hood.
What's to prevent the counties from not handing over the money?
In Fla, the taxes are sold beginning of June after the year of assessment,
and you get a tax sale certificate. And a really nice interest rate.
Northern California, like most parts of California, could stand on its own
I'm assuming that's with MJ legalized and taxed
boy this is a fugly thread
sm_landlord, i got one yesterday. search above for my description of how i got it.
CTI feels like a Lehman. Except instead of burning down wall street, it will light up mainstreet.
burnside (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 3:39 pm
Question. Is there a term of art for the historic pattern of societies to become more complex to the point of failure, e.g., Byzantium, Persepolis, Attica, Venezia?
Not AFAIK. The issue of societal lifecycle is fraught. The thinking on the issue in the modern era is very limited and the perspectives you hear here are very heterodox -- you don't get a lot of papers published on the subject when you are in an era where the social-cultural assumptions are oriented around the perpetual growth and development of an ever-centralizing state-complex. The pervasive cultural concept of "progress" in these matters made -- and continues to make -- serious treatments of the issue essentially taboo.
Even the modern dialog on the issue is largely oriented around seeing it as a transient illness requiring remediatory steps. Witness titles like "Nation-State Failure: A Recurring Phenomenon?". Most of the technical vocabulary I have seen is phenomenological -- Rotberg's typology of "weak state", "strained state" and "failed state" are essentially symptomatic, not life-cycle oriented. Clapham ("The Global-Local Politics of State Decay" and "The Challenge to the State in a Globaized World") and Mark Duffield ("Social Reconstruction and the Radicalization of Development") are primarily focussed on the failure of the global milieu as a whole and not especially interested in developing a terminology of compromised state structures.
Certainly it's very challenging in that while the first world / global state system aspects of this crisis are Tainter / Olson type overloadings of the social mechanism and co-optation of the government agency by vested interests, the developing world aspects are more about failure to meet projected expectations that arise from a region whose expectations of the state are so high they themselves (the first world) cannot support the state function as they conceptualize it, which are then imposed on a place where there is much less economic and development framework / potential.
So you have multiple kinds of failing states that exhibit similar symptoms but that are products of in one case, a flawed internal process, and in another case, imposed external expectations of a radicalized security / development complex. in both cases, you have a state that is being overdriven to perform past its base capacity, but the root cause is different.
The multi-layered aspect of it, and the fact that practically everyone involved is beholden to one of the actors in the process, makes it very difficult. I have tried to see if anyone wants to plumb the labyrinth of technical Chinese documentation of the Dynastic cycle but so far have not had any brave volunteers who want to explore Chinese specialist vocabulary on this issue, which is in any case probably pretty limited. I cannot imagine if the issue is academically taboo in the west, that it is looked upon more favorably in China, which had both Marxist-Leninist social determinism and the current transitional Mao Dynasty's sensitivities there to prompt censorship at the point of a Makarov or a merely figurative academic death sentence.
Han Fei calls it the "milieu of disintegrating states" in The Five Vermin. i don't recall Ray Huang developing a special term for it in 1587, but he identifies forces that we would know well (vested interests, inability to change critical social institutions during a crisis).
And these are the truly academic, the people who are practically involved in the process are largely captives of the moment and not able to see it from the external perspective at all. I think it's one of those topics that hasn't been treated with seriously during the "modern" era. We will probably develop this technical vocabulary -- and a new paradigm of state-lifecycle -- during this pass through the meat-grinder of history. Then we will quickly edit it out of our memory because "do you want it to rain every day? Don't be poopy, let the sunshine in! it's different this time!"
Then again, maybe someone knows better than me. I'd love to collect any references to the matter, especially in European or Arabic literature.
Feckless;
Californians have two opportunities per year to default, as I recall. Property taxes are payable in two installments, December 10 and April 10. I'm not sure how long the assessor's office waits before calling a default (haven't done it myself
And it probably varies by county, since that is the level that the collections occur at.
a large group of foreign countries dumped their dollar reserves the Fed would just "buy" them and issue forth a tiny "burp" of a press release
Doesn't the Treasury also control money supply by how much new currency it releases as old is destroyed?
Cali should print up a bunch of $1 ones and sell them.
The real danger with California is that it's always been the trendsetter for the rest of the country...
Not a bad idea. Similar to the USPS collector's stamp scam.
What's to prevent the counties from not handing over the money?
The state's power to seize?
"The real danger with California is that it's always been the trendsetter for the rest of the country... "
Yeah, we sure nailed Detroit, didn't we?
sm - two opportunities for delinquency, and only one for default - when the fiscal year ends. I wonder if the counties all follow the same fiscal year - if so, prop tax would all default at the same time, state-wide.
But practically speaking, what would it do to get the money?
If all the counties sorta, well, shrugged.
NorkaWest (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 4:07 pm
Burnside: Joseph Tainter uses the term "declining productivity of complexity".
Thanks Norka. i haven't had a chance to read Tainter in the entirety yet, last time I checked, it had been bid up to a silly price (about 100 used? Oooh, but I see it's been reprinted! I know what I'm getting this payday).
"Not a bad idea. Similar to the USPS collector's stamp scam."
Virtually every brand new never used mint stamp issued by the USPS since around 1940 is just worth face value...
liz, there has been some chest-beating and posturing between state and counties and who pays what to whom, when, and in what form. (edit - City/County holding off making payments of Obligation X to state until state pays Revenue Y to City/County, etc.) Haven't heard anything actually come of it yet.
I'd still like one just for fun.
As services are pared back, sooner or later the average Cali will cry uncle. It's just a question of how close to the bone the cut will need be.
Cali counties won't foreclose on delinquent property taxes until the 5yr mark is reached.
California has always had seemingly many more imported cars than anywhere else, which certainly was a factor in the demise of the Motor City, i'd say.
Which big California city is ripe for the picking in our summer of discontent?
"As services are pared back, sooner or later the average Cali will cry uncle."
Depends on what you mean by the average Cali. About half of the population gets zip, nada, nothing from the state except road repair, and it takes a long time for the roads to degrade enough to notice.
Roughly the other half of the population gets checks from government in one form or another, so the part of that group that gets checks from the state is already screaming.
Here's today's NPR article on county tax revenue shortfalls. Looks like 10-20% range for several locations.
Property Tax Revenue Drop Adds To Counties' Woes : NPR
For California, the tax assessors should know what the tax rolls have done year over year, now that the new assessments are out for the current fiscal year.
So the counties should know what they're looking at for revenues this coming year.
And of course the property values are still declining, so it's not like things will get better next year.
LL, there were threats of lawsuits i.e. County of (XX insert name here) vs State of CA, but I haven't heard if they followed through.
California has always had seemingly many more imported cars than anywhere else
Northern Virginia might have even more. You sometimes see entire lots with nothing from Detroit.
When I first traveled to other cities on business, and saw the mix of automobiles there, I felt like I was on an alien planet.
That would be Oakland, JD. For starters.
sm_landlord (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 1:30 pm reply Ignore user "As services are pared back, sooner or later the average Cali will cry uncle."
Depends on what you mean by the average Cali. About half of the population gets zip, nada, nothing from the state except road repair, and it takes a long time for the roads to degrade enough to notice.
Fire, police, water, licensing, permits, National Guard, .....
As services are pared back, sooner or later the average Cali will cry uncle.
Would that be the average unemployed Cali, crying for more services?
Or the average employed-but-hanging-on-by-a-thread, home-underwater, 401k-destroyed Cali, crying to pay more taxes in order to support more services?
"as services are pared back, sooner or later the average Cali will learn the difference between wants and needs, and convince his elected representatives to make the necessary cuts"...
BR, nice take on the societal life cycle. I think you're right that we'll have to complete this cycle to essentially provide the data set for analysis. Actually the archives of the net, and all the blogs of this type in particular, will provide an invaluable day to day account of the decline. CR got indexed redundant off-site backup?
"Northern Virginia might have even more."
That's certainly possible. In LA, Escalades are still very popular with the drug dealers. Don't know what they drive in NOVA.
Or the average employed-but-hanging-on-by-a-thread, home-underwater, 401k-destroyed Cali, crying to pay more taxes in order to support more services?
If you are working, it's just whining.
One thing that's definitely worth considering is that there are several processes at work at the same time. The American process of state failure, the finalization of the spread of knowledge-capital on a global basis (and the possible implosion of the mercantilist economies that have sprung up to arbitrage the process), and the collapse of non-viable post-colonial state-entities are all separate but tightly interconnected processes that can't be analyzed in isolation, but that aren't really "part" of one-another either. It's a big tarball of interconnected issues.
California has a strong disincentive to actually balance the budget. The longer they go, the more dire the economic situation is, the most pressure there will be on the federal government to intervene. It's a game of chicken for sure, but the benefit gained from the Fed blinking is so much more than the chance of a 'crash', that there's no reason for Cali to blink at all.
Fire: City or County
Police: City or County
Water: City or District
Licensing: State, County and City
Permits: City or County
National Guard: They're in Iraq and Afghanistan anyway.
I've lived in California my whole life, and I think this whole situation is great. This is the first opportunity in my lifetime for the stranglehold of special interests and unions to be broken. The time for all these deadbeats to stop sucking at the taxpayers' tit is at hand.
Can't they just keep raising taxes until the last employed person leaves the state ?
These clowns need to cut to the bone there is a huge bureaucracy here in CA which should be cut back. I doubt Sacramento has the stomach to go up against their union sugar daddies though
sm_landlord:
Licensing: needs to be reduced as it's mostly just an bureaucracy builder
Permits: same BS as licensing with extra bells on
CA would have to cut 500,000 state jobs to erase its 25 billion deficit.
And then raise taxes to pay for the increased unemployment and food stamp costs.
That's a simple way of expressing the situation.
California does have a state fire service, Highway Patrol, California Guard, etc., so yes - the state does provide those services. But they're not deployed at the local level except in emergency.
Thanks for the link, Wisdom. The local paper here reported this week that property values in Los Angeles County dropped (a bit) for the first time in 30 years. It will take a couple of years for assessments to catch up with property values. The worst is still ahead for local government.
Criminal past no barrier to mortgage field
Mish has a thread up about the California Department of Forestry being on a cash & carry basis (or credit cards) to be able to procure spare parts for firefighting planes...
Last summer, 8,000 dry lightning strikes hit Northern California, causing over 1,000 fires in very remote places. If it should happen again and this climate change event strikes just a few hundred miles south, there could easily be a fire the likes of Chicago's 1871 version, in Sacramento.
No 1099s here. Next excuse?
Arnie has acted like a little girly man in his dealing with the unions. The state worker unions are at the core of the problem, along with anchor babies and teen mothers getting outrageous amounts of support for repeatedly spreading their legs to the gang bangers who drift by.
Police: CHP
Fire: Aerial firefighting including National Guard, Forestry
Licensing: DMV, Dept of Insurance
There ain't no free.
The time for all these deadbeats to stop sucking at the taxpayers' tit is at hand.
If the federal government's actions are any indicator of a return to sanity, I wouldn't hold my breath.
When I was a new hire at a grocery store a drug test and criminal background check was required.
Five years later when I briefly was a mortgage broker (don't shoot!) neither were required.
Make of it what you will.
Thanks for thoughts on state failure, all.
Have done some delving by way of Harvard nexus in the time of Walter Pater, Burckhardt, Bertrand Russell, George Santayana, Salvemini, Wm James, et. al. All treat in passing.
Will take up Tainter, for which thanks.
Byz, Berenson characterizes Chinese historical record as 'annals', observing they record specifically what happened, deliberately drawing no inference as to why. Hence, records may well survive complete because inoffensive to subsequent regimes.
EEngineer (profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 4:33 pm
BR, nice take on the societal life cycle. I think you're right that we'll have to complete this cycle to essentially provide the data set for analysis. Actually the archives of the net, and all the blogs of this type in particular, will provide an invaluable day to day account of the decline.
Thanks, EE. I tend to agree. A lot of what I say and do here is based on the supposition that the commentariat's pattern-ghosts will be conjured up and enslaved to solve a crisis like this one at some point, or at least looked back at with specialized reading tools that integrate our voices with the events of the day and known facts about us.
I'm not really talking for the crowd, but for the mic and I would advise everyone else do likewise.
Hi Byz - there's a paradigmatic term already, homeostatic equilibrium, which describes the general sticking-togetherness and reversion to type of a system within which elements fail; but there's less work on the syntagms, or the description of how starting positions plus risk factors overloading the subordinate componentry and then what to do to fix it. There's some stuff in the Masters of Huainan, which could possibly be tracked by a philology geek with an interest in state formation and failure (hey, count'em!)
Probably more of interest in the folk realm, and tales / fables exemplifying the issues. (This is more a personal take). A good example would be Hai Rui Dismissed from Office about standing up to corruption and abuse of power in a criminogenic environment.
C
And then raise taxes to pay for the increased unemployment and food stamp costs.
The federal government pays 100 percent of food stamp program benefits. Federal and State governments share administrative costs (with the federal government contributing nearly 50 percent).
Link: FRAC - Food Stamp Program
By way of context, I lived in California and owned a business there for many years.
California is not immune from the forces of gravity, although it would like to think it is.
Gravity is about to catch up with California.
Food Stamp recipients = Foodladleists
Something to chew on ...
Obama: We Don't Need A Second Stimulus (VIDEO)
Obama: We Don't Need A Second Stimulus (VIDEO)
That ought to get people spending again !
Something to chew on ...
Obama: We Don't Need A Second Stimulus (VIDEO)
Obama: We Don't Need A Second Stimulus (VIDEO)
That ought to get people spending again !
It's a big tarball of interconnected issues.
Agree on that. I try to focus on the highest-level macro forces that I'm pretty sure of. i'm 95% positive of the reduction in work week forces but throw in globalization and credit cycles in Eurasia and you get unpredictability.
Then again, maybe someone knows better than me. I'd love to collect any references to the matter, especially in European or Arabic literature.
--Byz 1:24
Another take on the life-cycle of state/civilization can be found in "Unireality," a book on metaphysics that looks at the structure and dynamics of systems in general.
Good comment, BTW.
Texas has nothing near 20% emplyoment even in the more rural areas. I selected counties having either 10%+ UE or large metro areas. There were about 10 other counties on the cusp of 10% UE. A few of those have large populations ~50K.
There seems to be a strong correlation (did not run any regression) between population and employment rate. Probably has to do with mega-farms in the rural areas taking over the small farms and leaving no other options for employment.
The biggest challenge to employment in the future will be immigration. Not via the south border with Mexico but from people flocking to cheaper living from other US states. These people will move to the populated counties where the jobs exist but that will make the numbers look worse while everyone still has their hiring freeze in place.
A lot of finance/IT jobs in Houston and Dallas in either energy trade or cap and trade start-ups (slaps forehead but that is the next bubble like it or not). Besides that we have strong engineering, manufacturing, energy and agriculture. But water is a noticeable shortfall. Central Texas is two years into a drought and the river/dam/lake systems are lower than I've ever seen. Lake Amistad on the Texas/Mexico border is also hurting as well as the Rio Grande. We should probably call it the Rio Pequeno now.
Note: any blurb about a county is from the 2000 census data used by Wikipedia or my brain.
TEXAS COUNTY LABOR FORCE ESTIMATES - MAY 2009
Texas County Unemployment Rates
CLF EMP. UNEMP. RATE
--- ---- ------ ----
Bexar 765,825 720,800 45,025 5.9
-San Antonio
Cass 13,888 12,321 1,567 11.3
-The median income for a household in the county was $28,441, and the median income for a family was $35,623. Males had a median income of $30,906 versus $19,726 for females. The per capita income for the county was $15,777. About 14.70% of families and 17.70% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.20% of those under age 18 and 17.90% of those age 65 or over.
-Northeast corner of Texas
Collin 406,625 378,591 28,034 6.9
-Collin County is part of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. A small portion of the city of Dallas is located in the county. Other important cities in the county include Allen, Frisco, McKinney, Plano, Richardson, and Wylie.
Dallas 1,165,428 1,079,121 86,307 7.4
Duval 5,676 5,094 582 10.3
-The median income for a household in the county was $22,416, and the median income for a family was $26,014. Males had a median income of $25,601 versus $16,250 for females. The per capita income for the county was $11,324. About 23.00% of families and 27.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 35.90% of those under age 18 and 25.30% of those age 65 or over.
-This is far South Texas. Not much out there.
El Paso 305,341 279,991 25,350 8.3
Fort Bend 261,129 243,899 17,230 6.6
-Houston Suburb
Galveston 142,552 132,318 10,234 7.2
-Houston area
Harris 1,961,684 1,825,861 135,823 6.9
-Houston Metro
Hidalgo 293,747 266,169 27,578 9.4
-The median income for a household in the county was $24,863, and the median income for a family was $26,009. Males had a median income of $21,299 versus $18,297 for females. The per capita income for the county was $9,899. About 31.30% of families and 35.90% of the population were below the poverty line, including 45.50% of those under age 18 and 23.30% of those age 65 or over. The county's per-capita income makes it one of the poorest counties in the United States.
-Borders Mexico
Jefferson 114,052 103,731 10,321 9.0
-Beaumont, refineries
-The median income for a household in the county was $34,706, and the median income for a family was $42,290. Males had a median income of $36,719 versus $23,924 for females. The per capita income for the county was $17,571. About 14.60% of families and 17.40% of the population were below the poverty line, including 24.60% of those under age 18 and 11.80% of those age 65 or over.
Maverick 22,542 19,327 3,215 14.3
-The median income for a household in the county is $21,232, and the median income for a family is $23,614. Males have a median income of $20,956 versus $15,662 for females. The per capita income for the county is $8,758. 34.80% of the population and 32.00% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 40.60% of those under the age of 18 and 40.90% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line. Based on per-capita income, Maverick is one of the poorest counties in the United States.
Milam 12,537 11,272 1,265 10.1
-The median income for a household in the county was $33,186, and the median income for a family was $40,431. Males had a median income of $30,149 versus $20,594 for females. The per capita income for the county was $16,920. About 12.20% of families and 15.90% of the population were below the poverty line, including 21.80% of those under age 18 and 15.30% of those age 65 or over.
-Not really sure what business is in Milam.
Montgomery 209,193 195,823 13,370 6.4
-Montgomery County is one of the most heavily Republican counties in Texas, giving 76% of its vote to John McCain in 2008. The county has not been won by any Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, and was one of the few counties in Texas to be won by segregationist candidate George Wallace in 1968.
-George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was a Governor of Alabama for four terms; 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics according to biographers Dan T. Carter[1] and Stephan Lesher,[2] he ran for President four times, running officially as a Democrat three times and in the American Independent Party once. He is best known for his Southern populist[3] pro-segregation attitudes during the American desegregation period, convictions he abandoned later in life.
Morris 6,793 5,782 1,011 14.9
-Morris County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. In 2000, its population was 13,048. Its seat is Daingerfield[1]. Morris County is probably named for William Wright Morris, an early judge and planter from Henderson. Morris County is one of 46 prohibition, or entirely dry, counties in the state of Texas.
-If you don't have a confederate flag tattooed to your forehead, don't go here.
Newton 6,181 5,548 633 10.2
-Borders Louisiana
Nueces 164,852 154,400 10,452 6.3
-Corpus Christi
Pecos 7,066 6,262 804 11.4
-Pecos County is home to one of the largest oil fields in the United States, the Yates Oil Field, which is in the extreme eastern part of the county, along the Pecos River. The field covers approximately 41 square miles near the town of Iraan. Discovered in 1926, it has produced over a billion barrels of oil, and most industry estimates give it more than another billion in recoverable reserves. The Yates was one of the first giant fields to be found in the Permian Basin.[3][4]
-Fort Stockton is home to test tracks for car and tire companies.
Presidio 3,716 3,130 586 15.8
-The median income for a household in the county was $19,860, and the median income for a family was $22,314. Males had a median income of $23,218 versus $16,208 for females. The per capita income for the county was $9,558. About 32.50% of families and 36.40% of the population were below the poverty line, including 43.40% of those under age 18 and 44.10% of those age 65 or over. The county's per-capita income makes it one of the poorest counties in the United States.
-There are some cool little cities out here. There Will be Blood was filmed in Marfa as well as a few other movies.
Reeves 4,491 3,958 533 11.9
-The sprawling 320,000 deeded acre (1,400 km²) La Escalera Ranch headquarters is located 20 miles south of Fort Stockton, Texas and is owned and operated by the Gerald Lyda family. The ranch extends over much of Pecos County and portions of Reeves County, Brewster County, Archer County, and Baylor County.
Originally owned by California-based Elsinore Land & Cattle Company, the 100-year old ranch was acquired by building contractor Gerald Lyda of San Antonio, Texas and re-named La Escalera Ranch (Spanish for "The Ladder"). It is known for its reputation Black Angus cattle and its abundant wildlife. Gerald Lyda died in 2005. Today, the ranch is owned and operated by Lyda's sons Gerald D. and Gene Lyda, as well as Lyda's daughter Jo Lyda Granberg.
Located near the entrance to the ranch is Sierra Madera crater. La Escalera Ranch has been ranked by Texas Monthly, Worth and The Land Report magazines as one of the largest cattle ranches in Texas and the United States.
Sabine 3,656 3,143 513 14.0
-Another county with a small population stuck in the 1850s.
Smith 101,980 94,831 7,149 7.0
-Another dry county, corrupt county officials and judges. Know some good people from the city of Tyler. Hilly pine forests.
Starr 23,731 20,101 3,630 15.3
-The median income for a household in the county was $16,504, and the median income for a family was $17,556. Males had a median income of $17,398 versus $13,533 for females. The per capita income for the county was $7,069, which is the third-lowest in the United States. About 47.40% of families and 50.90% of the population were below the poverty line, including 59.40% of those under age 18 and 43.30% of those age 65 or over.
In the 1970s and into the 1980s, federal law enforcement officials concentrated their anti-drug smuggling efforts on Starr County.[4]
On May 1, 2009, the former sheriff of Starr County pled guilty in Federal court to a narcotics conspiracy charge. [5]
No Republican has won the county in over a century.
Tarrant 901,962 839,009 62,953 7.0
-Fort Worth
Travis 559,273 526,293 32,980 5.9
-Austin
Willacy 8,190 7,267 923 11.3
-The median income for a household in the county was $22,114, and the median income for a family was $25,076. Males had a median income of $19,706 versus $15,514 for females. The per capita income for the county was $9,421. About 29.20% of families and 33.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 42.00% of those under age 18 and 29.90% of those age 65 or over. The county's per-capita income makes it one of the poorest counties in the United States.
-Agriculture
Williamson 205,958 191,911 14,047 6.8
-Suburban Austin. Dell.
Zavala 3,940 3,454 486 12.3
-The median income for a household in the county was $16,844, and the median income for a family was $19,418. Males had a median income of $22,045 versus $14,416 for females. The per capita income for the county was $10,034. About 37.40% of families and 41.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 48.90% of those under age 18 and 42.40% of those age 65 or over. The county's per-capita income makes it one of the poorest counties in the United States.
I would advise everyone else do likewise.
My ego's not that large and... worrying about the observer effect guarantees that I'd be disingenuous.
"Gravity is about to catch up with California. "
30 years of "free lunch." Taxes hard to pass, but easy to cut. Reduced investment in higher education, etc. Fancy footwork to cover the deficits and imbalances. Politically, it's been a vast success for the middle-classers who grew old and died with guaranteed-low property taxes and minimal new local taxes. They and their families even got the tail end of expansive gov't services from the '60s and '70s. Not those who came after.
That's why some many olders thank the heavens for the financial sea changes that came with Prop 13. That's why people blithely vote for multi-billion dollar bond measures for sexy causes without worrying about how they'll be paid for, and cheer tax cuts and somehow don't believe that the cuts must be covered by reduced spending.
But the bill for the free lunch is about to arrive.
It was pretty apparent, after the passage of Prop 13, that the long-term tax prospects for business were not good. and that turned out to be the case.
Burnside and BR: think about adding Thomas Homer-Dixon to your list of authors to read.
Thomas Homer-Dixon - Conversations
Broward,
It's not about ego, it's about positional awareness. And of course I'm disingenious. If you want to enslave my ghost to solve your problems rather than solving them yourself, you had better be sure you can put down that which you call up.
When I was a new hire at a grocery store a drug test and criminal background check was required.
Five years later when I briefly was a mortgage broker (don't shoot!) neither were required.
Make of it what you will.
I went to a Countrywide job fair in mid 2005. They were looking for just about any type of mortgage worker you could think of. All of the service positions(underwriting, processing etc) involved mini-interviews where the people who actually worked in the departments. They were quite specific in the skills and experience that they were looking for.
Loan officers were interviewed by HR. Sales experience was the only requirement. Any sales experience. I repeatedly told the HR ditz that I had no sales experience. Eventually, after enough of a "background check", as it was, we determined that selling tickets to a Boy Scout Jamboree once in the fourth grade was enough experience. Everything else probably would have been "no-doc".
I declined the origination job for a servicing job, to the detriment of my bank account.
When I was a new hire at a grocery store a drug test and criminal background check was required.
Five years later when I briefly was a mortgage broker (don't shoot!) neither were required.
Make of it what you will.
I went to a Countrywide job fair in mid 2005. They were looking for just about any type of mortgage worker you could think of. All of the service positions(underwriting, processing etc) involved mini-interviews where the people who actually worked in the departments. They were quite specific in the skills and experience that they were looking for.
Loan officers were interviewed by HR. Sales experience was the only requirement. Any sales experience. I repeatedly told the HR ditz that I had no sales experience. Eventually, after enough of a "background check", as it was, we determined that selling tickets to a Boy Scout Jamboree once in the fourth grade was enough experience. Everything else probably would have been "no-doc".
I declined the origination job for a servicing job, to the detriment of my bank account.
Tainter and Dixon are both good reads, and I recently followed those two by "The Great Mayan Drought" by Richardson Gill.
The interaction of societies with nature is another overlay in our tarball.
We can add:
* sixth great extinction
* energy turning points
* fisheries collapsing
* historic (possibly 500 year) droughts
* collapse of the banking system
...
Ooh, this is interesting. I just got a "2009 Obama Agenda Survey" from the Republican National Committee. (I'm registered Independent.) You guys want to help me answer it?
"Byz, Berenson characterizes Chinese historical record as 'annals', observing they record specifically what happened, deliberately drawing no inference as to why."
If there is love, there is freedom and the possibility of evil, which is the rejection of love. If there is no love, there is neither good nor evil nor freedom.
NO LOVE UNLESS
Crushed beetle in a parking lot,
Cream colored wings, embrowned spots,
Harmless monster, what are we?
Much harm our possibility
Winged evil which can lift and fly
Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Burning indeterminate
Of age and gender, common fate
I saw that love and freedom mix,
One without the other lacks,
No love can be in us unless
Denial, love the balances
An artifact two inches long,
Or life created, right and wrong
Pavel
July 11, 2009
NorkaWest, thanks especially. Dixon it is, or will be.
Byzantine, what you say regarding receptiveness puts a fresh light on postwar demonization of Oswald Mosley. Interesting.
I do!
I do!
Gravity is about to catch up with California.
Indeed. California taxed the bubble, pushing the proceeds through a diode, and legislating new benefits for a large population. In the absence of a bubble to tax, we will see, in real time, what Bastiat described in the Law, as society devolves into a scrum where all seek to plunder more than they get plundered, while the industrious few flee to other states.
Left to itself, the state will now certainly implode. I shudder thinking of the less than Jeffersonian plans that Rahm Immanuel is drawing up for taking over the wreckage.
California should just unincorporate ...
As a territory we would pay no federal taxes ...
We would attract all kinds of business !
"It was pretty apparent, after the passage of Prop 13, that the long-term tax prospects for business were not good. and that turned out to be the case."
You mean the additional "fees" every locality started larding on to make up the difference? A very destructive form of taxation. Or something else?
"The interaction of societies with nature is another overlay in our tarball."
Most Californians are so far removed from anything that resembles nature, that they have no idea what "normal" is.
Los Angeles @ the turn of the century in 1900, had enough local water sources for a population of about 100,000 people...
For the late afternoon musings, Welcome to the Occupation, REM:
YouTube - REM - Welcome to the Occupation
C
"Dear Friend,
Your immediate action is required. (underlined.) [...] I am sending out this questionnaire to gauge where you and other grassroots Republicans stand..."
Guess they presume all Independents to be Republican.
As Republican as Independent Joe Lieberman.
"California should just unincorporate ...As a territory we would pay no federal taxes ...We would attract all kinds of business !"
Nevada's, certainly.
White House Sorta, Kinda Thinkin' 'Bout Using TARP Money for Small Business Loans as Small Business Lenders Go Bust
White House Sorta, Kinda Thinkin’ ‘Bout Using TARP Money for Small Business Loans as Small Business Lenders Go Bust « naked capitalism
~~~~~
More lip hope ...
"You know that the liberal media elites and the Obama Democrats are hoping you will put this letter down right now and do nothing...
...They want you to give up (underlined), desert your Party, and walk away from your conservative principles."
You know, high drama is no substitute for a compelling argument.
"You mean the additional "fees" every locality started larding on to make up the difference?"
Bob, I sold out shortly after the passage of Prop 13. My analysis then was very simple, some might say simplistic.
My view was, if they couldn't raise taxes on property, they'd raise it some other way and business would be a likely candidate.
Taxes in California were already high then, and going higher, so I said to hell with it.
Footnote: I tend to analyze structures (organizational, tax, etc) and their interrelationships. That's how I operate. I also tend to have a long-range view of things. I don't regret my 1978 decision. In fact, it had all kinds of "unintended consequences" that were quite good for me.
anybody else having trouble posting at CR ?
Feckless Ness (homepage, profile) wrote on Sat, 7/11/2009 - 5:08 pm
"You know that the liberal media elites and the Obama Democrats are hoping you will put this letter down right now and do nothing...
...They want you to give up (underlined), desert your Party, and walk away from your conservative principles."
The party deserted me. I'm a conservative, not a fascist.
What a crazy country...
W gets 6 standing ovations a week ago in Oklahoma, and this week we find out that his administration was Stasi-like.
I was earlier in the day but it seems to have resolved itself, mmckini.
Taking a long time to load earlier.
and a few double posts.
And of course I'm disingenious. If you want to enslave my ghost to solve your problems rather than solving them yourself, you had better be sure you can put down that which you call up.
No single person or even organization of people can affect the semantic structure here. It's enormously large and complex, I' know because I've tried to do it. One of the implications of the credit cycle is a shifting proportion of centralized versus differentiated structure. As the credit cycle rises, more and more effort is directed towards marginal utility, which creates greater differentiation, which in term creates greater dissonance in communication.
I tried to prove this in 2006 by doing large-scale semantic analysis of Dejanews. I used Deja because it has a common core of conversation spanning back over twenty years. The results surprised me. The # of keywords in use is surprisingly constant, I suspect there's a social & physical constraint on the limits. But what happens is a shift in the composition of those words and their distribution.
I named it the Cultural Diffusion.
Here's a quick explanation of the theory
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=the_cultural_diffusion_resurrected
Here's the semantic analysis -
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=the_cultural_diffusion_resurrected_part
I thought the growing trend of differentiation would create a gradual breakdown in communication but the Lehman Brother's collapse is a quick systemic failure along the same lines (thanks to CounterPointer for that thought).
You could probably parse out the effects of centralized versus differentiated trends through similar semantic analysis.
Nice to know that the Obama administration has put an end to all this Stasi operations and stood up for the freedom of the American Citizens.
//snark off//
KZ, Texans like Californians think they are immune but trust me $2.50 NG and $20 oil will bring the oversized texan pride back to reality.
Tons were made in the boom and like dust to dust tons are in the process of losing it.
Wash, rinse and repeat.
"The enclosed 2009 Obama Agenda Survey is your opportunity to let Republican leaders...know where you stand on the policies and programs being proposed by Barack Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress."
What - they have no plans and policies of their own? All they can do is criticize someone else's? You can't lead from the rear, guys.
Hang on, HomeGnome - I haven't gotten to the questions yet.
One more sign how deeply rotten the system is (not that one is truly shocked by this acknowledgment)
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/politics/12intel.html>New York Times
The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years
on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and
House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.
The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.
Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.
Efforts to reach Mr. Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful.
...
The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.
Democrats in Congress, who contend that the covert action provision was abused to cover up programs under President Bush, are seeking to change the law to permit the full committees to be briefed on more matters. President Obama, however, has threatened to veto the intelligence authorization bill if the changes go too far, and the proposal is now being negotiated by the White House and the intelligence committees.
"While updated cash projections show that IOUs will preserve enough cash to make those protected payments through September, the cash shortfall in October will endanger the State’s ability to make those payments."
So the federal bailout will begin in October. That's when the cash runs out, the IOU's mature, and there will have been enough time for spending cuts, equal to a small fraction of the shortfall, to be publicized and marketed as "California takes all the medicine it can bear". It's so predictable. I really don't know why smart members of the audience here in CR's box seat are letting themselves get played into becoming unwitting performers.
HomeGnome
Thanks
EE--when you go on your NASA bus tour, see if you see any gators
sunning themselves on the canal banks.
I live off Courtney Parkway, which runs into the road that takes you to
the tourist center.
broward - you don't think some rogue suburban sociolinguists with a sense of humor could be phreaking the meme do you?
C
"My view was, if they couldn't raise taxes on property, they'd raise it some other way and business would be a likely candidate."
You can always count on water to run downhill, by some path. Block one, it finds another; maybe undermines the foundation of an orphanage along the way.
Thanks.
Most of the cities around Metro Phoenix have raised fees. Business tax lic fee more than doubled, bet it will double again.
Water is up.
Elec is up.
Food is up.
Gas is up, down, up ........
Property taxe revenue is down.
Sales tax revenue is down,
State income tax down by 50%
Unemployment is up.
Part time work is up.
Wage decreases are increasing.
real estate is doen 50% from peak and will continue to go down.
Health care costs are up up and up.
Byzantine, what you say regarding receptiveness puts a fresh light on postwar demonization of Oswald Mosley. Interesting.
The nature of memes is that the successful ones incorporate a complex of related memes that defeat competitors. By definition, the successful paradigms are tightly associated with what's essentially an anti-body system. This creates blind spots in cultural perception and the great, great majority of population are incapable of perceiving, much less examining certain ideas.
Remember COINTELPRO?
A large portion of the Cali tax revenue stream is already spoken for before the legislators even get a chance to fight for the scraps. I forget the percentage, but it is alarmingly high. Not much wiggle room, they couldn't balance the budget this year if they tried (w/o accounting tricks).
MrM: What is Chaney doing giving orders to anybody? Any why was anyone listening?
The VPs constitutional duties consist of "presiding over the Senate" and waiting for the President to croak so he/she can take the Oath.
Too much conflict, gonna see "The Hangover" ,order a cherry coke and a large popcorn. Thats dinner and a show, these days.
Thanks for the post and the links, Broward.
It's almost impossible to attack primary memes head-on. They have to be shifted gradually through a process of chain-reaction from memes on the marginal. A direct competitor will be defeated by the antibody system but a tertiary meme can seed itself, which in turn can set the foundation for a secondary meme, which in turn lays the foundation for a primary meme to seep in gradually.
I'd love to test the idea and I'm sure that many advertising companies are using something like this although they may not grasp it at a strategic level.
greenlander: "I've lived in California my whole life, and I think this whole situation is great. This is the first opportunity in my lifetime for the stranglehold of special interests and unions to be broken. The time for all these deadbeats to stop sucking at the taxpayers' tit is at hand."
greenlander, I hate to wake you up from your reverie, but please see Bob Dobb's comments. He is the majority in California. He determines your future.
(three more pages of inflammatory rhetoric - ahh...here's the punchline)
"Take just a few minutes to read and complete your REGISTERED copy of the 2009 Obama Agenda Survey, then make out your check or provide your credit card information in the space provided for your contribution of $500, $250, $100, $50 or even $30 to the Republican National Committee, place it in the postage-paid envelope provided, and mail it right away.
The future of the Republican Party is in your hands. Act now."
hee hee hee. If I'm the future of the Republican Party, they're pwnd.
"Any why was anyone listening?"
Who knows what you could dig up on someone provided that you had direct access to all of their "private" information?
Mr M - get the sense a fuse might be burning somewhere?
Hehehe. This could be the one.
C
PS: beautiful day here in SoCal, 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Almost worth the price we pay for housing. No surf today though, unfortunately.
mp: "In fact, it had all kinds of "unintended consequences" that were quite good for me."
Divorce?
Remember COINTELPRO?
I'm thinking more COMCAST
Another interesting piece from today's newspapers - from FT lunch series, now with Larry Summers
“The president made two things clear to us early on,” recalls Summers, who answers my questions in full, idea-packed paragraphs, rocking gently back and forth in his seat as he gets into the flow of an argument. “He would do what he had to to fix the banking system, to get the economy out of the rut in which he was inheriting it. But he had run for president to do long-run, fundamental things, like fixing healthcare, like having real energy policy, like reforming education. And we weren’t going to be distracted from those things.”
This says it all - Obama has a very clearly defined political agenda, developed when he was only preparing to run for White House. Fixing the financial system was not on Obama's list of key priorities. Hence it is viewed as a short-term distraction, which needs to be dealt with by the most expedient way - via patches, bandages and money handouts, however big they might be.
For how long can the Obama administration defy the economic reality?
Did you all not know that Chaney was running things?
from an undisclosed, secret location...
I know.
It's spelled "Cheney".
Can't edit to fix.
Rules for disrupting a system -
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=events_of_synchroniticy
No system can function effectively without collecting information from its external environment.
And no system can allow an uncontrolled inflow of information. Decisions are based on that information, so the decision-making process is subject to manipulation of information inflows.
That's the dichotomy of information. The most interesting part of any system is its information filtering and control mechanism. Most cultural systems are the result of hundreds of years of a trial and error process. They represent a balance of time and effort and reaction, so they are hard to disrupt through a "normal" process of environmental change, hard to disrupt through a normal distribution of information.
But newer, small-scale sub-cultures are based on less strenuous criteria, they're oriented around new information that is environment-specific. Often this ad hoc mix of culture is poorly suited to environmental changes.
A system that can be forced to restrict all incoming information is disruptable.
A system that can be forced to allow unrestricted information is disruptable.
A system with brief experience at filtering is usually disruptable.
A new system is usually susceptible to distruption through environmental changes.
If we understand a culture's memetic structure, the physical mapping of memetic relationships and reactions, it could be possible to trigger a wave of sequential memes. Imagine a pool table with five balls on the table with no direct shot possible. But fire off a sequence where the #1 ball hits the #2 ball, which strikes the #3 ball, the #3 ball to #4 ball and finally the #5 ball is sunk into a pocket.
This triggered sequence, call it an event of synchronicity, is still based on cause-and-effect, but it would be beyond the capacity of most people to comprehend or initiate. It could be possible to introduce an event like this into cultures which alter them in desirable ways without arousing the suspicions of the general population. Well, desirable to the event initiator, that is.
It should be possible to build a sequence of triggered events like this for any system (or culture) which accepts and emits a certain level of information. This is easier in the post because we can gather empirical, historical evidence of how a culture reacts.
The nature of memes is that the successful ones incorporate a complex of related memes that defeat competitors.
broward, see the mechanism everywhere. Nice, succinct characterization.
I got one of those surveys Feck. I had a good time with it.
"Divorce?"
No, definitely not.
You know, it doesn't pay to over-analyze. The business environment in California was becoming too restrictive. There was always some regulation or approval mechanism standing in the way.
"greenlander, I hate to wake you up from your reverie, but please see Bob Dobb's comments. He is the majority in California. He determines your future."
Well, I sure didn't in '78! Even if you wanted to put me in the "tax and spend" bucket -- which would be 'way too simplistic, although that doesn't stop some -- the majority of Californians up to now have been in the "spend but don't tax" bucket.
They will now be faced with choices that they're not ready for.
Texas has nothing near 20% emplyoment even in the more rural areas.
kz - I wonder how many 'discouraged' or black market workers are in those counties? Skew the official UE rate?
I was in a number of those south Texas counties recently - they recalibrated my measure of poverty considerably. The odd thing was we met some of the local 'boosters' [econ dev folks]... they showed us a number of high end residential developments meaning SOMEBODY in those counties has at least a little money. I can only imagine the tension between the newbie industrial carpet baggers living in those developments and the local inhabitants.
Also - the econ dev folks there showed us labor projections and under every scenario they could imagine there will remain a 'labor surplus' as far out as anyone can predict. That does not include the 'shadow inventory' of laborers just across the Rio.
Those counties are something.
Lastly - if Starr county is the THIRD poorest... who are the two counties higher up the award podium than they are? Who won silver, who won gold? Any idea?
And from the same FT interview with Larry Summers: "As the panic has subsided, the trendy new economic issue has become “exit strategy” – as in, when and how do governments shift from costly and aggressive intervention to levels of spending and taxation that are sustainable over the long term?
Summers rejects the premise of the question. “I actually think that the right measures for doing the right things about the long-run deficit will also increase confidence, hold down long-term interest rates and capital costs, make mortgages cheaper, make mortgage rates lower and so will contribute directly to recovery. So I don’t buy the notion that there is some conflict between the budget imperative for growth and some other budget imperatives.”"
In other words, forget about the exit strategy. It's for show, for dummies. Stagflation, 1970's, here we come!
MrM
And you believe Larry Summers that the banks were not Job #1 ?
The real problem with California is that they still have a 2 party system. Repubs and Dems slowing each other down.
They should take a lesson from the Federal government. If you get down to one party, you can really accelerate things.
Although I didn't know of it at the time, the Saul Alinsky methodology is an implementation of the principles of memetic disruption. If you want to effect change in the Empire, it can not be done head-on. Set an unthreatening foundation which can build an indrect path to another foundational change, which can then undermine the primary cultural memes.
Saul Alinsky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cheney was W's point man for Enron, when that concern ripped off California to the tune of $30 Billion just after the turn of the century...
(from Wiki)
Vice President Dick Cheney was appointed in January, 2001 to head the National Energy Development Task Force. In the Spring of that year, officials of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power met with the Task Force, asking for price controls to protect consumers. The Task Force refused, and insisted that deregulation must remain in place.
Trader 1: “They’re f-----g taking all the money back from you guys? All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?
Trader 2: "Yeah, Grandma Millie man. But she’s the one who couldn’t figure out how to f-----g vote on the butterfly ballot."
[Laughing from both sides]
Trader 1: "Yeah, now she wants her f-----g money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her a-- for f-----g $250 a megawatt hour."
[Harder Laughing]
mp, I was being a little too flippant. Just having a little fun. Glad you made a move that worked for you.
Scary stuff, eh?
Now you know why I'm obsessed with Schramm Communication Theory.
ti's the basis for cultural change.
Cheney a lying, thieving, War Profiteer?
Hoocoodanode?!?
broward,
I have seriously misjudged you.
My apologies.
And you believe Larry Summers that the banks were not Job #1 ?
I believe that banks are not Job #1 for Obama, hence he is happy to delegate this "short-term problem" to somebody, who claims to be fully in control of the situation and knows how to fix it. Somebody like Summers, for whom this carte blanche to run the financial system is the dream job.
Repost from CA thread last night--
The controllers office released the June (FY end) revenue/expenditure numbers.
Revenues down 11.2 Billion YoY.
http://www.sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD/CASH/0809_june.pdf
Sorry, Mosley was a fascist just like his son and Bernie Ecclestone.
Aparently fascists and used car salesmen are birds of a feather.
Enron was just the rinky-dink test run.
Now how can we disrupt GLOBAL energy (oil) supplies?
"Revenues down 11.2 Billion YoY."
And there's the rub, isn't it.
Flame out. No re-start.
My guess is, Arnold and Barack have been talking--a lot--lately.
D*-Day is like July 14th, right?
*Debt
pigpen, never answered you the other day about which part of Austin I live in - I'm in Brentwood.
I agree that prices for those commodities are still elevated but they're coming back down. I'm not an inflationista, not one bit. We still haven't seen prices come back to reality. Not housing, not energy, not anything.
We're not immune, just like California is not. But there are some staggering differences, they're way in the hole already, we're not yet. Travis county already projected tax income downwards last year, so they're not completely oblivious. How low state tax receipts go is key. Don't forget Texas gets royalties much further off the coast for oil/NG than any other state. Part of the unique nature of the state. And with new deep water wells coming online in the next 5-10 years there is some stability for state income even at low prices.
In absolute terms, things will be worse. But life is relative, and we're in a much better position relatively... that's if it rains every once in a while.
Mirabile Dictu!
There, Broward. See?
If you get down to one party, you can really accelerate things.
No one faction should have all the power, ever.
Gosh, we live on Trantor?
My guess is, Arnold and Barack have been talking--a lot--lately.
Arnold: California needs help, we are on the brink!
Barack: Sorry, but you already got money from the stimulus package. Now I need every last dollar for the healthcare reform. I am afraid you just have to deal with your problems by yourself. Bye..
OT: Shameless Mrs. Gnome Food/ Travel Blog Plug.
Jaunty Gourmand
broward - are you familiar with the work of Milton Erickson? Fascinating mind.
Not much difference between the Reds and the Blues as far as I can tell...
Boarding Room Motels
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Some Americans are swapping homes for motels as the ranks of the homeless swell during the recession, crowding out shelters and forcing cities and states across the country to find new types of housing.
In Massachusetts, a record number of families are being put up in motels due to high unemployment and the rising number of homes going into foreclosure, costing taxpayers $2 million per month but providing a lifeline for desperate families.
Meme-wise--that was why I asked the too much money question.
The thought had never occurred to most, and some couldn't understand
the question, even after being rephrased and repeated.
KZ, I am in tarrytown and i am a deflationista. I am trying to figure out who works in this town to afford the lifestyle of austin. I call austin a poor man's aspen with hills and heat.
Not sure what anyone does here to make what I call real money.
We are still flush with cash from $148 oil and $14 NG which was almost a year ago at the peak. Rigs are being laid down quickly and not many basins can drill with NG at $3.5.
Texas has pain coming but it is more delayed than most bc of the commodity cycle in addition things didnt get to out of control with RE prices as you can always just keep on building - plenty of land.
lawyerliz, it was a great question.
"Boarding Room Motels"
Not a new concept.
Ok, we have empty houses and homeless people.
And never the twain shall meet?
Accelerate those tax foreclosures, if the banks won't act the
local guvments must!!!