Global Economy Bursting?

[Randolph Kinney]

Millions flee California because of progressive tax system

http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/27/millions-flee-california-because-of-progressive-tax-system/

California has lost billions of dollars in revenue in recent years as businesses and residents flee the state, in part because other states have a more favorable business climate.

According to one estimate, 254 businesses across a variety of industries moved all or some of their jobs out of state last year.

California has both the highest state deficit in the country and the highest personal income tax.

Utah and Texas have stolen skilled technology workers from California-based companies like Oracle, Adobe and Apple.

Small business owners are also increasingly trying to move to other states to avoid high taxes and cut costs.

“Part of [moving operations to Texas] was the cost of doing business in California,” Ronald Mittelstaedt, CEO of Waste Connections, told CBS News. “Highest tax rates in the nation. Until recently very expensive real estate. Tremendous regulation and really a broken legislature.”

The California Manufacturing and Technology Association found in a recent study that 82 percent of companies surveyed did not consider California when expanding or opening a new facility.

The study also noted that companies looking to expand their operations favored states with proximity to their customers, generous tax incentives, low cost labor, proximity to suppliers and a comprehensible and a favorable tax system.

California ranked last or bottom tier in all of those categories.

Joel Kotkin, a demographer and Californian who has fled the state, said California used to be a haven for businesses.

“The state is [now] run for the very rich, the very poor, and the public employees,” Kotkin told The Wall Street Journal.

California’s Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown has already released a plan to close the state’s $16 billion dollar budget gap by increasing taxes.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Gov. Jerry Brown plows ahead on massive projects

http://www.mercurynews.com/californ.../gov-jerry-brown-plows-ahead-massive-projects

At a time when 49 of the country's 50 governors would probably be playing it safe -- after all, he is trying to convince voters that it's in their interest to raise their own taxes -- Brown is boldly backing two mammoth public-works projects, calling his critics "fearful men" and "declinists," and using the S-word while the TV cameras are rolling. He's zagging when most governors would be zigging.

"Can we govern ourselves? Can we make decisions?" Brown asked Wednesday at a news conference unveiling a $23 billion project to build two tunnels underneath the Delta to transport water from Northern California to Southern California. "Can we make the investments needed to keep our economy and our culture and our society prospering?"

Still, Brown is severely testing voters' ability to absorb the contradictions of his message as he simultaneously claims the state is in desperate need of new taxes but must embark on expensive and controversial water and high-speed rail projects.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Dueling Ballot Measures: No easy choices when it comes to education funding

http://www.thereporter.com/opinion/ci_21185350

Make no mistake. California public schools -- the programs, services and quality of service to students -- are being diminished because of the continued reductions of state funding. This reduction began about three decades ago, but since 2008, with the advent of the California fiscal crisis, state funding of our schools has dropped precipitously.

In the absence of effective state legislative leadership in support of public education, two tax initiatives have qualified for the November ballot. Proposition 30 is "The Schools and Local Public Safety and Protection Act of 2012," or the governor's tax initiative.

The total tax revenues generated are projected to be $8.5 billion in 2012-13, and then $6.5 billion thereafter. Of these additional tax revenues, $2.9 billion is obligated to K-14 public education; the remaining funds to support other state General Fund obligations.

The second initiative, Proposition 38, "Our Children, Our Future: Local Schools and Early

Education Investment and Bond Debt Reduction Act," spearheaded by Molly Munger, provides for a tiered income tax increase of 0.4 percent for low-income earners up to 2.2 percent for individuals earning more than $2.5 million.

The total tax revenues generated are projected to be $5 billion for 2012-13, and then $10 billion thereafter. This tax initiative would be implemented for 12 years, through 2024. For the first three years, 60 percent would be allocated to K-12, 10 percent to early childhood education (preschool), and 30 percent for repayment if the state General Fund bond debt.

So how might a California voter respond this fall?

* Vote no on both Proposition 30 and Proposition 38. Anti- tax groups oppose both propositions, but to do so means the further demise of public education will continue and the capacity of our future California workforce becomes further diminished. The citizens of California would then need to acknowledge that this continued, long-standing degradation of our public schools has become a deliberate policy determination, not just a reflection of the prolonged economic slowdown.

* Vote yes on Proposition 30 and oppose Proposition 38. This will provide the state with additional revenues to offset half of the current state deficit. How the funds are used is a Sacramento political determination. At best, as determined in Sacramento, it slows the continued funding reduction of California public schools.

* Vote yes on Proposition 38 and oppose Proposition 30. This outcome would provide additional real money to California public schools. But what are the unintended consequences? The governor states that with a failure of Proposition 30, state funding will be further reduced in 2012-13 by $471 per pupil. This reduction will continue to erode basic operations and will result in further increased class sizes and a reduced school calendars -- up to 20 days less. This will be the most common response, as districts will struggle to address this most significant reduction yet.

* Vote yes on both Proposition 30 and Proposition 38. Both initiatives acknowledge that if both receive majority voter support, the one with the most votes would be enacted. In this case, the outcome will be one of the two stated above.

Pollsters find that California voters will support a tax increase to support public schools. The governor is leveraging that support for Proposition 30, while committing only $2.9 billion of the $8.5 billion tax revenue to schools. Slowly, this voter support is evaporating, either because of growing economic uncertainty or growing skepticism about the governor's commitment to funding public schools.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

you are screwed Randolph.... run Forest run

 

[Big ole Boy]

Despots will say anything for more leverage

Progressives run over the cliff at wide open.

In fact the closer they get to the cliff the faster they go.

They keep the cognitive disonance and hypnotic clutter along with flowery words spinning faster and faster to get just that last vote before they hand over the system to the despots.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Stockton to Cut Retiree Medical Costs

[url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/27/stockton-bankruptcy-retiree-health-care_n_1712260.html?utm_hp_ref=business[/URL]

July 27 (Reuters) - A federal bankruptcy judge on Friday cleared the way for Stockton, California to cut health care benefits for retirees while it is in bankruptcy proceedings.

July 12th the city was sued to prevent cuts to retiree pensions but the city will forge ahead with the blessing of the bankruptcy court

 

[Randolph Kinney]

[url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/27/stockton-bankruptcy-retiree-health-care_n_1712260.html?utm_hp_ref=business[/URL]

July 12th the city was sued to prevent cuts to retiree pensions but the city will forge ahead with the blessing of the bankruptcy court

It's not over yet. Retiree pensions are at stake too. This is the worst nightmare the unions have. A federal bankruptcy court trumps the State Supreme court and even the state's constitution or the interpretation of it.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Photovoltaics from any semiconductor

http://www.energyharvestingjournal....om-any-semiconductor-00004621.asp?sessionid=1

A technology that would enable low-cost, high efficiency solar cells to be made from virtually any semiconductor material has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California Berkeley. This technology opens the door to the use of plentiful, relatively inexpensive semiconductors, such as the promising metal oxides, sulfides and phosphides, that have been considered unsuitable for solar cells because it is so difficult to tailor their properties by chemical means.

"Solar technologies today face a cost-to-efficiency trade-off that has slowed widespread implementation," Zettl says. "Our technology reduces the cost and complexity of fabricating solar cells and thereby provides what could be an important cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative that would accelerate the usage of solar energy."

This new technology is called "screening-engineered field-effect photovoltaics," or SFPV, because it utilizes the electric field effect, a well understood phenomenon by which the concentration of charge-carriers in a semiconductor is altered by the application of an electric field. With the SFPV technology, a carefully designed partially screening top electrode lets the gate electric field sufficiently penetrate the electrode and more uniformly modulate the semiconductor carrier concentration and type to induce a p-n junction. This enables the creation of high quality p-n junctions in semiconductors that are difficult if not impossible to dope by conventional chemical methods.

"Our technology requires only electrode and gate deposition, without the need for high-temperature chemical doping, ion implantation, or other expensive or damaging processes," says lead author William Regan. "The key to our success is the minimal screening of the gate field which is achieved through geometric structuring of the top electrode. This makes it possible for electrical contact to and carrier modulation of the semiconductor to be performed simultaneously."

Under the SFPV system, the architecture of the top electrode is structured so that at least one of the electrode's dimensions is confined. In one configuration, working with copper oxide, the Berkeley researchers shaped the electrode contact into narrow fingers; in another configuration, working with silicon, they made the top contact ultra-thin (single layer graphene) across the surface. With sufficiently narrow fingers, the gate field creates a low electrical resistance inversion layer between the fingers and a potential barrier beneath them. A uniformly thin top contact allows gate fields to penetrate and deplete/invert the underlying semiconductor. The results in both configurations are high quality p-n junctions.

Says co-author Feng Wang, "Our demonstrations show that a stable, electrically contacted p-n junction can be achieved with nearly any semiconductor and any electrode material through the application of a gate field provided that the electrode is appropriately geometrically structured."

The researchers also demonstrated the SFPV effect in a self-gating configuration, in which the gate was powered internally by the electrical activity of the cell itself.

"The self-gating configuration eliminates the need for an external gate power source, which will simplify the practical implementation of SFPV devices," Regan says. "Additionally, the gate can serve a dual role as an antireflection coating, a feature already common and necessary for high efficiency photovoltaics."

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Cisco to cut 1,300 jobs in realignment
July 30, 2012

US computer network giant Cisco Systems said on July 23 it was cutting 1,300 jobs, or two percent of its global workforce, in response to an uncertain economic outlook. The California tech firm, seen as a bellwether for the industry, said it was carrying out "a focused set of limited restructurings" that include the job cuts.

 

[Couch Potato]

The dumbing down of American: Is Algebra Necessary?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/o...?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120729

A typical American school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra. In both high school and college, all too many students are expected to fail. Why do we subject American students to this ordeal? I’ve found myself moving toward the strong view that we shouldn’t.

My question extends beyond algebra and applies more broadly to the usual mathematics sequence, from geometry through calculus. State regents and legislators — and much of the public — take it as self-evident that every young person should be made to master polynomial functions and parametric equations.

There are many defenses of algebra and the virtue of learning it. Most of them sound reasonable on first hearing; many of them I once accepted. But the more I examine them, the clearer it seems that they are largely or wholly wrong — unsupported by research or evidence, or based on wishful logic.

This debate matters. Making mathematics mandatory prevents us from discovering and developing young talent. In the interest of maintaining rigor, we’re actually depleting our pool of brainpower. I say this as a writer and social scientist whose work relies heavily on the use of numbers. My aim is not to spare students from a difficult subject, but to call attention to the real problems we are causing by misdirecting precious resources.

Shirley Bagwell, a longtime Tennessee teacher, warns that “to expect all students to master algebra will cause more students to drop out.” For those who stay in school, there are often “exit exams,” almost all of which contain an algebra component. In Oklahoma, 33 percent failed to pass last year, as did 35 percent in West Virginia.

Algebra is an onerous stumbling block for all kinds of students: disadvantaged and affluent, black and white. In New Mexico, 43 percent of white students fell below “proficient,” along with 39 percent in Tennessee. Even well-endowed schools have otherwise talented students who are impeded by algebra, to say nothing of calculus and trigonometry.

“There are students taking these courses three, four, five times,” says Barbara Bonham of Appalachian State University. While some ultimately pass, she adds, “many drop out.”

Another dropout statistic should cause equal chagrin. Of all who embark on higher education, only 58 percent end up with bachelor’s degrees. The main impediment to graduation: freshman math. The City University of New York, where I have taught since 1971, found that 57 percent of its students didn’t pass its mandated algebra course. The depressing conclusion of a faculty report: “failing math at all levels affects retention more than any other academic factor.” A national sample of transcripts found mathematics had twice as many F’s and D’s compared as other subjects.

But it’s not easy to see why potential poets and philosophers face a lofty mathematics bar. Demanding algebra across the board actually skews a student body, not necessarily for the better.

____________________

This article goes on. The crux of this opinion is that we must dumb down the requirements if we want to increase retention (decrease drop outs) and increase graduation.

Al Khwarizmi is the most successful Arab terrorist of all time.