The Fatal Idiocy of California

As a native Californian, it is painful to watch Texas become the poster child for optimism and the future, as we mimic Illinois and New York. Can’t leave San Diego though, too beautiful. And at least here the people seem to realize things have to change.

Dear California:

You are hereby on notice that you must get you house in order. We won’t be bailing you out.

This post could have mentioned the Dutch Partij voor de Dieren (Party for the Animals).

To be fair to the Dutch, the party was started when Dutch finances were much better than Californian finances are now.
Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to mention chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

Here we go again with the smirks ‘n’ sneers brigade. Any time you discuss California on a political website, the discussion quickly degrades into playground taunts and name-calling between two camps, each defending a ridiculous and one-sided stereotype called “red” or “blue.”

Pretty soon we’ll see a slanging match between the pro-Texas crowd and the pro-coastal California crowd, each pretending that its mythical model a) corresponds to reality and b) is right for the rest of the country.

I’ve lived and worked in both Silicon Valley and Dallas. In the former, affordable housing is hard to find but jobs are widely available in my field. In the latter, jobs are harder to come by in my field, but housing is better.

Texas has a broad-based economy but it’s not where I would put my tech company because the talent pool is much smaller and the wage difference is trivial compared to the difference between any US-based tech worker and offshore talent. So Silicon Valley has its advantages; so does Texas – depending on which angle you view the economy from.

In California and Texas alike, it’s next to impossible to walk anywhere. Shopping mall owners and real estate developers have captured the legislative process in both states.

Contrary to myth, California has too little regulation of its banksters – this is why that uber-fraud, Countrywide, based in California, became so huge.

Contrary to myth, Texas has lots of regulation of its S&Ls and real estate lenders. This is the biggest reason that the TX housing market is healthier than CA’s housing market – again, the supposedly “blue” state is actually red, and the “red” state is actually blue in this regard.

In SV, the schools are mediocre, largely because of the challenge of educating so many children from families that don’t give a hoot about education. Ditto for Dallas.

In SV, we have some environmentalist teachers who occasionally spout silliness about the planet’s future. In Dallas we had some fundamentalist teachers who occasionally spout idiocy about the planet’s origins. In neither case did this occasional goofiness override the core problem of fellow students and families that don’t care about educational achievement, cultural attainment, reading, investigating ideas etc.

I could go on, but you get the point. There’s a large core of Americans who do not yak on websites or make lots of noise about their political views but who nonetheless are passionate about moving beyond the stale hackery and “red v blue” foodfight that degrades our discourse and makes it hard to get solutions to our common problems.

A pox on both your tired houses.

It’s getting so bad you can’t parody California any more. Our legislators over the years have designated a State: Animal, bird, Color, Dance, Fife and Drum Corps, Fish, Flag, Flower, Folk Dance, Fossil*, Gemstone, Gold Rush Ghost Town, Grass, Historical Society, Insect, Marine Fish, Marine Mammal, Military Museum, Mineral, Motto, Nickname, Prehistoric Artifact, Reptile, Rock, Seal, Silver Rush Ghost Town, Soil, Song, Tall Ship, Tartan, Theater, and Tree
*Not Jerry Brown (we think)

Hey,you can make foie gras with tofu and hummus. Serve it with chilled carrot juice and gluten free crackers. Enjoy!

Re: those poor geese!

Not that this should sway one’s opinion about banning foie gras, but Canadian geese have overrun the little city park where I go for a daily 2-mile walk. They stay year ’round and people (against posted signs) like to feed them. Geese are nasty creatures – very territorial – don’t get in their space or they’ll come after you! Plus, they’re awfully messy – leave their poop all over.

When those PETA types seem to raise animals to the level of saints, it says a lot more about them than the character of those animals in the wild, which is a more dog-eat-dog survival of the fittest environment than an Eden before the Fall. [Not to knock Obama and his eating dog-meat in Indonesia as a boy!]

Re: Comment 5, last para.

“The centrists who will swing this election do not want to shut down the government. We want to shut down the rent-seeking, the ‘pay to play’ political corruption, the regulatory capture that has infected BOTH PARTIES.”

This is a strawman argument. It’s a caricature of what the Tea Party types and more Libertarian types would like for government and its role in society.

It’s easy to refute something this extreme, but it doesn’t represent the vast majority of Tea Party members that I’ve met, at least not here in Ohio.

Most are small businessmen who feel the full brunt of government regulations. They can’t afford the staffs of lawyers, accountants, diversity experts that big corporations can. Those big companies can spread the cost over many more employees/revenue base, etc.

They have great respect for government IN ITS PROPER ROLE. Government is essential for the proper running of any country. James Madison’s comment (I think it was he), “If we were all saints, there’d be no need of government.”

He went on to say that if only saints were in government, there would be no need for the myriad checks and balances we have in our Constitution, either. Those saints would only use the police powers of the state when absolutely necessary.

They wouldn’t be tempted to be little dictators telling us every detail of how we should live our lives. (“Don’t eat so much fat! Reduce your salt intake. No foie gras.”)

When I’ve talked with small businessmen, they often personally struggle with the myriad regulations that come down the pike from our beloved lovers of big government.

Tea Party types are very patriotic, they fully respect the rule of law, they fully respect government when it stays within the traditional role of being the watchdog of society. They (IMO) mostly feel it hadn’t taken on so many ordinary functions of society that private, voluntary organizations are perfectly capable of doing – it would do a much better job of being an efficient, fair, color-blind watchdog over the private sector.

Consider the K-12 public schools as of today. About 95% of American students attend public schools. When R’s push for some rather limited school choice, things like charter schools, vouchers, tax credits for tuition at private schools, we get outlandish screams that we’re destroying the middle class, ruining education for everybody, etc.

Never mind that before about 1850 just about all K-12 education was provided by private schools, most of them religious schools. The big movement for public education did not really get a full head of steam until the 2nd half of the 19th Century and into the 20th Century.

I believe Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy In America noted the above, since he visited America between 1830 and 1835. I think it was he who remarked that Americans were on average much better educated than their counterparts in Europe, thanks to our private school system.

We did not have educate the elite (top 10%, say) as well as the Europeans, but we talk the basics to just about everyone. Nearly all had a grade school education that gave them the ability to read, write, and do basic math.

It was a key reason that America had a higher per capita income than the Europeans almost from day one. Economics was a very strong reason so many Europeans emigrated to America. The wealthiness of the ordinary American made its way back to Europe by word of mouth. “Go to America, they all get rich there.”

Dr. M,

Following up on the New Testament metaphor, allow me to suggest an appropriate catch-phrase for these administrators: strainer-swallowers. They’re one step devolved below hunter-gatherers.

I’m also a big fan of foie gras, btw. Vive la resistance!

“This law is faddish, foppish, and terminally unserious.” And not for the first time. Some years ago (Riordon was LA Mayor) the feel-good crowd put a measure to ban horse meat as human food. Every single politician as well as the usual animal rights suspects rallied to the bandwagon. Of course, nobody could point to anyone actually eating horse meat – although it was a staple of diet in horse-oriented Native American cultures, none Californian. Nor did any of the advocates mention, or seek to ban, the widespread use of horse meat in pet food.

California is the way that it is precisely because it is run by “upper middle class do-gooders, narcissistic trustifarians and addled show biz bigshots.”

Importantly, no one in any of these groups is even minimally affected by the failures of California’s government and its economy.

As a superannuated member of the Eastern Intellectual Establishment I remember clearly that even in the 40s and 50s California appeared decidedly nutty to New Yorkers. So while there is certainly a Red Blue dynamic here there is also a Blue Blue dynamic at play. I’d like to see Professor Meade turn his attention to how Christie and Cuomo are faring with their pension and related issues in Blue East. And by all means contrast their efforts to Governor Moonbeam’s.

If only you realized that geese are actually
human beings disguised as geese.

Californians, please stay where you are. Don’t move from the hell you have created and create other hellish states.

The lunacy of left-coasters knows no bounds. Thank goodness that the common folk in such places as San Diego, San Jose, and even Wisconsin appear to have come to their senses.

Obama’s looming loss this November will, one hopes, be a harbinger of Democrat doom in the People’s California Republic as well.

“…Contrary to myth, Texas has lots of regulation of its S&Ls and real estate lenders…”

The writer conveniently forgets, or is too young to remember, that the S&L Fiasco of the 80′s was centered at Vernon Savings & Loan in Texas. Perhaps that is why TX has taken an aggressive stance on regulating its real-estate sector.

Since foie gras has such a limited presence in the overall food market, if those who do consume it decided that they would not purchase foie gras produced under present methods, I’m sure those limited number of suppliers would either change their methods, or depart the industry.
Either way, problem solved without creating another law, and another bureaucracy to enforce it.
But then, some Nanny, somewhere, would not be able to feel superior about them-self.

As one blogger observed, commenting on Bloomberg’s demented soda ban: “Leave it to Americans to come up with a Puritan epicurianism.”

I have lived in California for most of my life and cannot help remembering ‘how it used to be’ instead of the ugly reality of today. But it really hits home when the Freeways become blocked by huge flocks of geese being herded to the Nevada state line in response to California’s new foie gras law, California S.B. 1520.

This law is the classic example of why we need a part-time legislature in Sacramento. The complete political control by unopposed Democrats, for all these years, has resulted in the whole State becoming the sad equivalent of Detroit City. If it weren’t for the influx of undocumented aliens, this State would be emptying faster than ‘you know what’ through a goose.

Hey, the rot is spreading eastward. Here in next door Nevada, the legislature last year couldn’t find time to draw up a new reapportionment plan, but did manage to pass a measure to prohibit discrimination against trans-gendered individuals.

@#32 – “The writer conveniently forgets, or is too young to remember, that the S&L Fiasco of the 80′s was centered at Vernon Savings & Loan in Texas. Perhaps that is why TX has taken an aggressive stance on regulating its real-estate sector.”

As I’ve observed here before, that’s EXACTLY why Texas cleaned up its RE finance sector. (btw I remember the S&L crisis well – say hello to Neil Bush and the Silverado gang if you see them for me…)

What is strange beyond belief is why this nation is not applying lessons learned from the early 1990s – not just in Texas but also in the nordic countries at that time – to force real reforms, and in some cases, real financial workouts, upon our coddled financial sector.

Again, the issue here is not, as VM likes to believe, red vs blue. Our political class overall has been captured by certain sectors that are, more than anything else, hindering real recovery and widespread hiring in this nation: the TBTF banks and the health insurance leeches.

I’ve lived in both states (SF and Austin). Uniblogger hits a key point. By state constitution, the Texas legislature meets every other year for 90 days. Some wags say that was a typo and it’s really only supposed to meet for two days every 90 years. In any event, the contitution is pretty restrictive, changing laws in many areas requires constitutional amendment, the constitution is still very supportive/biased towards private property rights and the executive branch (governor and his/her bureaucracy) is not very powerful in its own right. So the adage, “the idle mind is the devil’s playground” applies. The state runs pretty well because the government isn’t sitting around thinking up things to do to make our lives better — we have to do that on our own.

#19 Jules: Do you understand the the saying “Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”?

…and the band plays on.

Many seem to accept as self-evident that it is politically legimate to ban behavior which they find personally repellant regardless of what the behavior actually is. I have never had fooey grass (or whatever it is) and likely never will. But people’s liberty and freedom are more important than geese. I am almost ready to believe that California deserves what is about to happen to it.

“Importantly, no one in any of these groups is even minimally affected by the failures of California’s government and its economy.”

Too true. There is enough accumulated capital in the monied, silver spoon socialist set to last them at least a generation even if the rest of the State economy totally collapses. (Worst case scenario, they just pack their bags and bring their madness to another State).

Perhaps their strategic intent is to use their wealth to insulate them from the economic dislocations happening all around them while waiting for the rest of the United States to come and bail them out.

They may find a different fate awaiting them; swinging from lamp posts might be the true end game in California…

A few decades ago, California was a Republican, hence business-oriented, state.
Then millions of Eastern democrats moved in, bringing the same ideologies that caused them to leave the east.
Presto change-o,
California looks like the East Coast.
Sic transit gloria mundi

I think that reasonable Americans, including most GOPers from my father’s and John Danforth’s generation, would agree that sacrifice needs to be shared. You don’t slash and burn low-income recipients’ programs while exempting middle-class, elderly and affluent Americans because, well, y’know, that’s not the American way. Earlier generations of Republicans got that. Even Nixon understood that, and proposed a guaranteed income.

Likewise, the libertarian nuts have distorted Keynesian economics beyond all recognition, making it difficult if not impossible for the government to do even well-crafted and vitally necessary, timely and temporary stimulus programs. So, due in no small measure to fears of GOP obstructionism, we got an intervention that was half-arsed and off-target, one that – in sharp contrast to Germany’s – has had little impact on unemployment overall and no impact on the long-term unemployed.

And then there’s the idiocy of resisting “government intervention” in favor of that mythical free market for healthcare, despite all the massive evidence that healthcare is a pseudo-market with no price transparency and next to no price-elasticity of demand, that for-profit insurers have gamed this non-market relentlessly to their advantage and have captured the regulatory apparatus, and that nation after nation delivers excellent financial and health outcomes with universal health insurance.

I would like the old GOP back, the one of dedicated, good-faith, honest public servants like Dick Lugar and John Danforth. Heck, even Jack Kemp showed more concern for struggling Americans – ie, the majority today – than these immature Ayn Rand groupies.

thibaud,

Don’t worry. When the pain gets to be enough solutions will be found. And they probably won’t be government solutions.

Milton Friedman once estimated that the economy could grow 10% a year if the government was limited to its Constitutional responsibilities.

Doubling the size of the economy every 7+ years seems like a better plan than steal and redistribute.

But you know how it works. Anything that can’t continue – won’t.

I remember we had a period of about 8% growth for a year or 18 months. Salaries were rising very fast and no one paid attention to the minimum wage because demand for labor was so high.

Growth is a better prescription for economic health than theft (taxes).

The tender concern all you folks have for geese (nasty creatures) reminds me of one my favorite scenes from the movies. Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street”

INT. WYATT CLUB STEAM ROOM – DAY
Gekko and Bud sit alone, wreathed in steam.

BUD: Nice club, Mr. Gekko.

GEKKO: Yeah, not bad for a City College boy. Bought my way into this club
and now every one of these ivy league schmucks is sucking my kneecaps.

I just got on the Board of the Zoological Society, cost me a million. That’s the thing with WASPS, they like animals but they can’t stand people.