What is wrong with California?

[MarkGrace]

Having to live with your parents.

[Uncle Ted]

California's dairy farmers are hurting to the point they are committing suicide...

The nation's drought and high corn prices are devastating California's $8 billion dairy industry to the point where farmers can't afford to feed their cows - and their professional trade organization has been regularly referring despondent dairymen to suicide hotlines.

Experts in the industry estimate that by year's end California, the largest dairy state in the nation, will have lost more than 100 dairies to bankruptcies, foreclosures and sales. Milk cows are being slaughtered at the fastest rate in more than 25 years because farmers need to save on corn costs. According to the Western United Dairymen, a California trade group, three dairy farmers have committed suicide since 2009, despairing over losing their family's dairies.

[...]

The problems started in 2009, when milk prices bottomed out and grain prices soared, partly due to the government's ethanol mandate. Congress is requiring that gasoline producers blend 15 billion gallons of ethanol, made from corn, into the nation's gas supply by 2015. Dairy farmers were forced to borrow against their land and cows to make their bills.

Then, this year, the worst drought in half a century struck in the Midwest, and corn prices tipped the scale at more than $300 a ton. Historically, the price for corn has averaged $130 a ton. Even though milk prices have slowly come up - in November, it will be at a near record high of $23.17 for 100 pounds of fluid milk - farmers are barely breaking even because of grain and hay costs. Experts predict that consumers will start seeing a price increase for dairy products at the cash register starting in November.

Now, not only can't farmers pay their feed bills, but they also can't make their loan payments. As a result, farmers are having to slaughter productive milk cows once worth $2,000 each for meat, and are receiving only $1,200 a head. "I've never seen a time where a milk cow is worth more for meat salvage than dairy production," said Ray Souza, a Turlock dairyman whose grandfather started dairy farming in 1930.

"Just the other day I watched as a truck pulled up next door and every one of my neighbor's cows were loaded in to be taken to the slaughter house," he said "The woman just stood there crying."

Add the battle over water between the EPA and farmers it seems like the California farmers are really being kicked while they are down.

[MarkGrace]

Irvine is like one big business park

[Uncle Ted]

"California is a wonderful state mismanaged by lunatics" -Steven Greenhut.

Brown estimated the state to be $28 billion in debt. Last month, the State Budget Crisis Task Force discovered he was way off: California’s debt is closer to $170 billion and could be as high as $335 billion.

[CardiacCoug]

"California is a wonderful state mismanaged by lunatics" -Steven Greenhut.

Sounds a lot like Greece. Nobody in the government even knew how bad their debt situation was either.

[snowcat]

An Irvine resident is requesting that the city install a sign to memorialize the hundreds of fish killed in a traffic crash in early October as they were being taken to Irvine Ranch Market.

http://www.ocregister.com/news/sign-376051-fish-letter.html

[Viking]

Calicoug

[Joe Public]

Having to live with your parents.

This blew my mind the first time I moved out here. Maybe 75% of the recent college grads with whom I worked still lived at home with their parents. We're talking 24-year-old adults with full-time, professional employment.

My ward is the same. I don't think there's even one person (besides the missionaries) between 18 and 30 who isn't living with parents or other family. We're talking married folks with full-time jobs and more than one child.

It was definitely part of the great culture shock I experienced. Most folks can't eventually get into their own house here, though, without doing it.

[LA Ute]

Victor Davis Hanson waxes optimistic:

The four-part solution for California is clear: don’t raise the state’s crushing taxes any higher; reform public-employee compensation; make use of ample natural resources; and stop the flow of illegal aliens. Just focus on those four areas—as California did so well in the past—and in time, the state will return to its bounty of a few decades ago. Many of us intend to stay and see that it does.

[Uncle Ted]

NBC sees dead people in California... still voting:

Dead And Still Voting

Thousands of dead Californians remain eligible to vote

An NBC Bay Area Investigation has uncovered thousands of California voters who remain on the voter rolls despite having died several years ago.

That discovery prompted several state and Bay Area election officials to re-examine their records, after our investigation brought this issue to light.

NBC Bay Area used the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File to cross reference with the California state voter rolls using name, date of birth, and similar zip codes to find matches. We found over 25,000 questionable names still on the state voter rolls.

A closer look at the data revealed that some of the dead people were not only registered, but somehow, even voted, several years after their death. Sometimes, clerks say the mistake can purely be a clerical error, such as a misplaced signature or an outdated registration list that hadn't been purged. Other times, though, the voting turns out to be fraud, clerks say, where family members vote on their dead relatives' behalf.

[...]

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigat...177286281.html

[filsdepac]

NBC sees dead people in California... still voting:




http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigat...177286281.html

I saw Tupac at my polling place. He said we are ready to see a black President.

[BigPiney]

I saw Tupac at my polling place. He said we are ready to see a black President.

http://www.comedycentral.com/video-c...is-still-alive

[Pheidippides]

So, California passes a higher tax on the rich.

I understand the national proposal to do this, whether I agree or disagree with it. It's not easy to change your country, and few will do it.

But if I am rich and in California, why wouldn't I just move at this point? State mobility is a much different thing. Not everybody can do that, even the rich (or else they cease to become rich) sure, but a lot of people can and I wager they will. If I was, say, a CFO making half a mil a year, I'd be talking to headhunters in Texas right now. Or some other state.

[TripletDaddy]

So, California passes a higher tax on the rich.

I understand the national proposal to do this, whether I agree or disagree with it. It's not easy to change your country, and few will do it.

But if I am rich and in California, why wouldn't I just move at this point? State mobility is a much different thing. Not everybody can do that, even the rich (or else they cease to become rich) sure, but a lot of people can and I wager they will. If I was, say, a CFO making half a mil a year, I'd be talking to headhunters in Texas right now. Or some other state.

I can't wait to move back.

[Pheidippides]

I can't wait to move back.

Yes, but you hate things like beautiful awesome natural scenery and getting your hands dirty.