Global Economy Bursting?

[Randolph Kinney]

California kids face days without class as revenue falls short

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20111016/business/710169973/

Public schools in California, which already spend less per student than those in 28 states, are bracing for a $1.7 billion cut that may wipe out high-school sports and student busing, and trim the academic calendar by seven days next year.

Automatic cuts built into this year’s budget, intended to protect bondholders if revenue falls short of projections, are drawing new attention after California fell $705 million behind estimates in the first quarter.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

California May Pay More to Borrow Amid Revenue Gap

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/10/14/bloomberg_articlesLT0XI61A1I4H.DTL

California, facing mandatory spending cuts with revenue below forecast, may have to pay almost 15 percent more to borrow $2 billion this month than it did in September as municipal yields climb to a 10-week high.

California, the most-indebted U.S. state, issued $2.4 billion of general-obligation bonds last month at yields about a third less than two years earlier as investors rewarded the budget passed by Governor Jerry Brown and Democrats in June.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

California Woes: Gov. Brown, Milken Offer Their Fixes

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44904620

California is still having a tough go of it financially.

Brown is facing a variety of structural problems as the state continues to spend more than it takes in.

"We need significant reforms throughout the pension systems, and I will be proposing them," he said, adding he will not take his own public pension until the problem is solved. He later told reporters he was joking about that.

But the Governor was not joking when asked, for the first time, about a bill he signed last Sunday called "The Dream Act." The new law will allow college students who are in this country illegally to apply for taxpayer funded state financial aid.

This as California's income is falling $700 million short of expectations so far this fiscal year.

Why give away precious tax dollars to those who shouldn't even be here? The Governor gave CNBC this answer (See video)

A recent review of bills signed or vetoed by Jerry Brown shows many decisions favored organized labor.

For example, municipalities in California can no longer file for bankruptcy without first getting state approval — a win for public employees who might find their contracts voided, as happened in Vallejo.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Mexico's newest export to US may be water

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/10/15/mexicos_newest_export_to_us_may_be_water/

SAN DIEGO—Mexico ships televisions, cars, sugar and medical equipment to the United States. Soon, it may be sending water north.

Western states are looking south of the border for water to fill drinking glasses, flush toilets and sprinkle lawns, as four major U.S. water districts help plan one of two huge desalination plant proposals in Playas de Rosarito, about 15 miles south of San Diego. Combined, they would produce 150 million gallons a day, enough to supply more than 300,000 homes on both sides of the border.

The proposed plants have also sparked concerns that American water interests looking to Mexico are simply trying to dodge U.S. environmental reviews and legal challenges.

Desalination plants can blight coastal landscapes, sucking in and killing fish eggs and larvae. They require massive amounts of electricity and dump millions of gallons of brine back into the ocean that can, if not properly disposed, also be harmful to fish.

"It raises all kinds of red flags," said Joe Geever, California policy coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation, an environmentalist group that has fought the Carlsbad plant for years in court, saying it will kill marine life and require too much electricity.

California recently adopted rules that prohibit the state's electric plants from sucking in vast amounts of seawater to cool their machinery.

The Carlsbad plant illustrates how difficult it can be to build a plant in California. Poseidon Resources Corp., based in Stamford, Conn., has survived about a decade of legal challenges and regulatory review.

They built an electrical power generation plant in Mexicali, Mexico because the environmental challenges blocked building anywhere near the Salton Sea. The Mexicans sell the power back to San Diego Gas & Electric.

They built a liquefied natural gas import terminal off of Mexico's Pacific coast near the U.S. border after California blocked any LNG terminals on environmental grounds. San Diego-based Sempra Energy has built a liquefied plant off the Baja California coast about 14 miles north of Ensenada, Mexico.

All the undesirable manufacturing and energy production is coming from Mexico. Thank you California. woohoo

 

[Couch Potato]

Yes, that would be the sane thing to do when job creation is negative as employers move out of state, shut down (discontinue) or not even form a business to begin.

Since this amounts to a liability only if you hire women of child bearing age, the untended consequence will be not to hire women of child bearing age.

That will land you in court as fast as anything I know.

 

[Couch Potato]

Mexico's newest export to US may be water

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/10/15/mexicos_newest_export_to_us_may_be_water/

SAN DIEGO—Mexico ships televisions, cars, sugar and medical equipment to the United States. Soon, it may be sending water north.

Western states are looking south of the border for water to fill drinking glasses, flush toilets and sprinkle lawns, as four major U.S. water districts help plan one of two huge desalination plant proposals in Playas de Rosarito, about 15 miles south of San Diego. Combined, they would produce 150 million gallons a day, enough to supply more than 300,000 homes on both sides of the border.

The proposed plants have also sparked concerns that American water interests looking to Mexico are simply trying to dodge U.S. environmental reviews and legal challenges.

Desalination plants can blight coastal landscapes, sucking in and killing fish eggs and larvae. They require massive amounts of electricity and dump millions of gallons of brine back into the ocean that can, if not properly disposed, also be harmful to fish.

"It raises all kinds of red flags," said Joe Geever, California policy coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation, an environmentalist group that has fought the Carlsbad plant for years in court, saying it will kill marine life and require too much electricity.

California recently adopted rules that prohibit the state's electric plants from sucking in vast amounts of seawater to cool their machinery.

The Carlsbad plant illustrates how difficult it can be to build a plant in California. Poseidon Resources Corp., based in Stamford, Conn., has survived about a decade of legal challenges and regulatory review.

They built an electrical power generation plant in Mexicali, Mexico because the environmental challenges blocked building anywhere near the Salton Sea. The Mexicans sell the power back to San Diego Gas & Electric.

They built a liquefied natural gas import terminal off of Mexico's Pacific coast near the U.S. border after California blocked any LNG terminals on environmental grounds. San Diego-based Sempra Energy has built a liquefied plant off the Baja California coast about 14 miles north of Ensenada, Mexico.

All the undesirable manufacturing and energy production is coming from Mexico. Thank you California. woohoo

Why would anyone chose to build such a plant north of the border?

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

That will land you in court as fast as anything I know

age discrimination is very hard to prove. You always argue that you hired someone with more "life experience"...

 

[Couch Potato]

age discrimination is very hard to prove. You always argue that you hired someone with more "life experience"...

True, but it gets much easier when only one sex is involved because the presence of young males chosen negates the experience defense.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

True, but it gets much easier when only one sex is involved because the presence of young males chosen negates the experience defense.

Actually, if the workforce consists of middle-age male and females, then it would be hard to prove.

The younger workforce cannot be counted on but they work cheap.

The bottom line for businesses, move out of California. It won't matter what nutty laws and regulations they pass. And if those same nutty ideas go national, offshore the work. Both have happened and are happening and wil continue to happen.

 

[Austin]

Anyone who has not read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is letting one of the great events in human history go right over their heads never realizing what is happening and why. If you haven't read it please do so because you will see what is happening in the world in a totally new and truthful perspective.
What happens in that saga written in the 1950's is just what has happened in this country and Ayn was just telling us what was coming. What happens is that the world went belly up because one person saw what was coming and took all of the captains of industry and moved them to a hidden camp. Most resisted until they could endure it no longer believing that they could survive it by going along with the government. They essentially had been highjacked by the federal government into a crony capitalistic scheme. In the end the working class is starving to death, the government goes belly up because the creaters of wealth all disappeared. The captains of industry refuse to come out of hiding until they can do so on their terms. That is where the story ends.
The thing about OWS "occupy Wall Street" is that crowd is forcing the issue. Many movers and shakers are going off shore to buy time but the bottom line is that they hold the trump card and all of the aces. All they have to do is shut down their factories for a couple of years and let the idiots consume each other's flesh. There is no force on earth that can make people be creative and create wealth. What we are witnessing is exactly what Ayn Rand warned us about what was coming-the end of the age of progressivism. California is a classic example. Watch California in the context of what I just stated and enjoy the show. They will bleed every one and anything to death along the way and not give up until the last dime is spent but the few will survive and start the new age. There is a gap between the ages I have heard no one address. It will be a long sad and bloody period it would seem because all those hungry mouths can't go unfed for long.