"We would not propose TV efficiency standards if we thought there was any evidence in the record that they will hurt the economy," said Commissioner Julia Levin, who has been in charge of the two-year rule-making procedure. "This will actually save consumers money and help the California economy grow and create new clean, sustainable jobs."
Really? America hasn't manufactured televisions in a few decades. How exactly is this going to create new, clean, sustainable jobs? Will people be so depressed by their terrible picture quality that they'll finally get off the couch and invent that perpetual motion machine?
Update: Commenter Joe says "Not true. Sony manufactured HDTVs in Westmoreland County, PA through March 1, 2009. Sony still conducts some operations there and is planning to do so through next spring, when it will shutter its plant completely."
The only thought that occurs to me is that Vizio is based in California and stopped making plasmas to focus on LCDs just a year or two ago. They also do advertise their energy efficient TVs. Perhaps this is somehow an effort to aid Vizio? (Though I don't think that they manufacture in the USA, they are headquartered in CA.)
Fascists. Somehow, I don't think all those Hollywood types will be downsizing.
If anything, California isn't thinking big enough. They need to ban any product that produces any carbon whatsoever. Just think of all of the great jobs that will be created when people have to figure out how to re-engineer the entire economy by carving ideas onto stone tablets.
As long as they don't exhale while carving, that should work out.
I'm sure the manufacturers will just innovate around the problem (e.g., LED-based screens).
Those technologies exist already. The problem isn't availability, it's cost, which is why the industry is balking: California customers will soon have the choice between a higher-cost bigscreen television at any given size, or none at all. The affected consumers who decide not to spend the extra money will then have the choice of downsizing their purchases, opting not to purchase, or purchasing across state lines -- all three of which are bad news for California's retail industry.
Like virtually every piece of technology in the past 50 years, it's only expensive for early adopters. Then, it gets cheaper and cheaper. Remember what DVD Writers cost 5 years ago?
You know, an official state uniform would save people money too. A lot of money. Think of all the good that would do.
The Government restricting consumer choice makes the economy grow.
do they really believe that stuff when they say it, or do they have to tell themselves "try not to laugh...try not to laugh...try not to laugh...."
Depends on the person. I take it as an axiom that most(not all, but most) of my political opponents believe what they're saying. Some know it's crap, but most just haven't thought about it much, or live in some weird alternate universe.
You know what else uses lots of juice? Computers. Think how Mother Gaia would rejoice if we didn't have all those computers running all the time. Of course, server farms are huge guzzlers of power.
Perhaps this brilliant lady, Julia Levin, should work to ban those. After all, Silicon Valley wouldn't mind, would they?
When Julia finishes with Silicon Valley, she can go after Hollywood. The amount of juice used to air condition movies and TV sets is beyond your wildest dreams - to counteract the heat from lighting, etc. If Julia could work to ban that AC, the movies and TV could "go green". I'm sure that Hollywood would join Silicon Valley in rejoicing at the wonders of saving mankind from the evils of power use.
The server farms for most of the big players are not in California--the electricity is too expensive and the grid is unreliable. Many of the server farms are located in Oregon or Washington to take advantage of cheap, reliable hydroelectric power.
That cheap hydro power won't be there after they demolish all of the dams to save the salmon and other assorted fish.....
So building endless fields of suburban clone-houses in the middle of the damn desert is okey-dokey, but owning a big screen TV is a critical problem?
Nice priorites Cali.
America hasn't manufactured televisions in a few decades.
Not true. Sony manufactured HDTVs in Westmoreland County, PA through March 1, 2009. Sony still conducts some operations there and is planning to do so through next spring, when it will shutter its plant completely.
Just assembly, surely? I would think the panels come from Korea or China?
The scary thing is this:
the entity passing this regulation isnt an elected body -- just an appointed commission with an agenda.
its enough to make one a libertarian
What do you expect from a pig, but a grunt?
This is C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A we're talking about. The land of San Francisco, open borders, and better living through "progressive thought." Want to have some fun? Google "California Budget" in the news section.
This isn't a zombie state; it's a dead-man-walking state. Decades of "liberal utopianism" have rendered the 8th largest economy in the world bankrupt. This is just another example of the kind of thinking that vaulted California from paradise to purgatory in just a few decades.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and California's pudding is more than a bit overdone.
Bon Appetit
San Francisco is a hell of a town, and the Bay Area has arguably given the country, the greatest advances of the last few decades. Yes, they are bankrupt, but that is a mixture of an absolutely horrible constitution, a flawed proposition system, a completely unworkable set of tax laws. Go read up on people like Jarvis, Gann, and Reagan and you'll soon realize why California is bankrupt and how those same ideas lead directly to the absolutely huge explosion in the national debt that has overtaken the country since dear St. Ronnie was elected to national office.
The liberal utopianism there did quite well and created some of the best public universities in the world and fostered an incredible amount of innovation (like this little government funded project known as the internet that first went online in California). That is, until a whole buncha rich people thought it'd be better to send the whole state to hell in a handbasket just to cut their property taxes in half.
And really, your dog whistle terms like "San Francisco" and "open borders" read way too obviously as wingnut code for "the gays and Mexicans." Real classy.
All this blather about liberal utopianism and Reagan is knee-jerk emoting. There is only one data point you need to know to understand what went wrong in California.
From 1992 through to 1999 per capita spending (controlled for inflation and population) was largely flat. Then in the last 10 years it soared 38%.
That's the anomaly and it largely falls at the feet of politicians and the voters who want their goodies without paying for them.
So many answers! Ok, idiots are easier, so they go first:
TallDave, people above 200k are a small percentage of the population, but pay most of the taxes. Isn't this a wingnut talking point? And your, *ahem*, questionable source, to be generous, doesn't even include the last 2 elections! So another thing you definitely should do is read the sources you quote.
The rest is the usual wingnuttery - paranoia about being invaded, blatant disregard for the rights of human beings who don't happen to be Americans. Furthermore, it turns out that you can ignore the Constitution after all, and that all Guantanamo bay prisoners are by definition architects of 9/11, and therefore we can lock them up for indefinite periods and do whatever we want with them, regardless of the existence of any damning evidence.
As usual, wingnuts are the most eager to wrap themselves in the flag, yet have so little regard for the very principles that make the U.S. exceptional. Fortunately, you are now a dying breed in the US. Good riddance. You will always have Krauthammer op-eds.
I was surprised to see something I partially agree with:
A bit extreme, but I definitely agree with the spirit. Private schools can do whatever the hell they want, but public ones have an obligation to focus on degrees where people have a chance of actually getting a job.
Megan McArdle (and Topper Harley)
I don't know what you consider the apex of human achievement. Don't like Apple? Well, You've mentioned Monsanto, and remind me how California is also the main center for biotech in the US. Genentech, Genzyme, Gilead, Biogen and the majority of biotech companies are in California, generally pretty close to S. Francisco bay.
Indeed, I'm not so sure iPods are very representative of even IT industries. There's, of course, Google and Yahoo. But how about eBay? Hewlett-Packard? Intel and AMD? Netflix? Western Digital? Adobe? Oracle? Cisco? Are these closer to the apex than Wallmart?
There is discussion about the source of American boost in productivity since the nineties (Europe was catching up before), but the competing theories tend to focus on IT and, hmm, illusory productivity from Wall Street. The edge of American economy undoubtedly comes disproportionally from California.
By the way, just to be clear, I agree that Levin's point about job creation was silly. That said, it's pretty hilarious to witness the commenters' schadenfreude about California (oh, the dirty gay hippies of S.Francisco and the Hollywood liberals), when they are the first to brag about the aspects of American economy and technology embodied by the despicable liberal elite dwellers of the sunny state.
Nicely done. Wingnuts have to divide their minds into insulated compartments when talking about San Francisco and California.
Don't be coy. You can remove the "arguably". California in general has been for some time now the crown jewel of the U.S.. Whenever you want to make an inspiring speech about the wonders of American inovation, productivity, flexibility, etc., you're basically talking about Silicon Valley. American universities are the best in the world? California is a big part of that (let's not even mention other liberal utopias, like Massachusetts and New York, without which the assertion suddenly becomes shaky at best). California isn't just a symbol. It is really where the majority of the stuff that makes American economy great is going on.
What do red states have to offer? Well, there's Texas. Utah, if you want to be nice.
And then there's the net contributions to the federal budget from bankrupt California, which gets, *ahem*, redistributed to the red states. It's a good thing liberals don't mind all the right-wing bloodsuckers. All in all, conservatives should be thankful California is such a liberal utopia. Otherwise, the whole state might have decided to go Galt a long time ago.
What do red states have to offer?
Freedom.
Unoppressive tax systems.
Functioning government institutions.
Expandable tax bases.
And then there's the net contributions to the federal budget from bankrupt California, which gets, *ahem*, redistributed to the red states.
Democrats don't pay those taxes.
American universities are the best in the world?
Who cares.
The reason America is great isn't that you can major in Gender Studies and Western Oppression. It's our capitalist culture that makes us the richest country in the world, our military men and women that make us the most powerful, and our consitution that makes us one of the freest -- all the things the Left hates.
The hated free markets are where all the money that funds the universities comes from -- and a lot of it is, frankly, wasted on useless crap.
California used to be a great place to do business. Now businesses are fleeing the socialist utopia like E Germans.
Soon we'll find out if the "crown jewel" can be run on junk bonds.
Oh yes they do. You should check stuff before commenting.
2008 Election
General election
Obama 52.9%; McCain - 45.7%
Households with income of $200k or more
Obama 52%; McCain - 46%
Couldn't find specific numbers for Californians above 200k, but since Obama got 61% of the votes there. Also, it seems that when it comes to donations, Microsoft Loves Hillary and Google Obama. Mitt Romney and McCain got scraps.
California public universities are a major source of recruitment for silicon valley engineers. Weren't we just talking about that? By the way, they don't give Nobel science awards to those categories you seem to be obsessed with. Plus, of course, silicon valley has been pretty much the engine of growth in the American economy for quite some time now. I wonder why the low tax Proud Free Red States aren't able to carry their own water and are net beneficiaries of federal revenue.
By all means, let's be more like Germany! With right-wing parties that support UHC, negotiate with unions, combat climate change and are opposed to disastrous wars. Turns out all you need is not love, but common-sense.
Oh, the joys of vicarious masculinity. Also, there's a striking resemblance to speeches uttered by a number of fascist dictators in the past.
Nobody trampled the Constitution more than George W. Bush - all with great support of conservatives, so-called libertarians and wingnuts in general. For 8 years, the Constitution was just some annoying piece of paper that stood in the way of Fighting Terrorism - that is, arresting possibly innocent people without a trial for years and torturing them. And spying on American communications without a warrant.
If you'd check your source for the assertion that California (and New York, and a host of other "blue" states) subsidize "red" states, you'd see a lot of bullshit and handwaving.
The largest flaw is that the report allocates liabilities from deficit spending according to how income is collected. It's _probably_ the case that in the future, if we haven't inflated away that debt, that it will come from those states, but lets actually wait until that day to account down to the penny, eh?
Another flaw is how revenue is allocated. If IBM and Microsoft partnered with UNM to create an XBox 360 supercomputer (ASCI Red Ring of Death?), all that federal revenue would be allocated to New Mexico, and Washington and New York would be counted as coming out poorer for it. Practically speaking, that's not the case.
Revenue allocation is a tricky thing in general. If the feds by a 737Q for the Navy from Boeing, where is that spending? Is it in Illinois, where they're headquartered? Kansas, where the fuselage assembly was built? Washington, where final assembly is done? The honest answer is that that simplistic report can't focus to that level of detail and accept that it's flawed.
Having said all that, it seems that even if it were true that carping about it would expose liberals as hypocrites: Their pols have always talked a good game about "sharing the wealth", but when someone takes their wealth, it's "Not just no but Hell no!"? Please!
Umm . . . Wal-Mart is a HUGE factor in America's improving productivity numbers and first-class distribution networks. I could name dozens of other hugely innovative companies outside California, From FedEx to Monsanto. The iPod is not actually the apex of human achievement.
California accomplished what it did because of the human and social capital in the state, which created positive network externalities. A better theory is that the large public sector became a parasite on this human and social capital. And it is now doing what all parasites inevitably do - killing the host.
Think about it this way: California's impeding death is proof that free markets can overcome network externalities and do not become "locked-in" to an inferior paradigm.
Democrats don't pay those taxes.
Oh yes they do. You should check stuff before commenting
Oh no they don't. People making over 200K are about 5% of the population. People making less 50K are a much larger group and heavily Dem.
Try to have some idea what you're talking about before claiming others don't
Oh, the joys of vicarious masculinity
Plus I have this weird fetish about not being invaded by other countries. Probably means I'm racist.
California public universities are a major source of recruitment for silicon valley engineers. Weren't we just talking about that?
Great, then we can close all the non-engineering schools? That should help the budget.
Nobody trampled the Constitution more than George W. Bush
Yes, yes, the Dark Night Of Bush Fascism. Never mind that none of those people supposedly tortured or arrested were actually American citizens. It's not like we had some actual threat of terrorism or something.
While you're crying for the architects of 9/11, actual Americans are being deprived of their Second Amendment rights.
Nothing like giving people enough rope...
"Yes, they are bankrupt, but..." how can you even CONSIDER typing anything after that? Do you understand what bankruptcy is?
California had its day in the sun, for sure. Never forget that the Internet, Integrated Circuits, about 5,000 aircraft innovations, etc. all happened in a California that's long gone.
I was always entertained by that children's story about the Red Hen who asks for help making the pie and gets none, but is then surrounded by those same people when it comes time to EAT the pie.
In California, those people TAKE the pie, and then eat the hen.
If it makes you feel any better, you're not alone. Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Louisiana, and a host of other "blue" states are right behind you, all eating their own Red Hens.
No worries: President Barack H. Obama will fix it all. There's nothing that he and a printing press can't do...
They can have my 67" LED-DLP HDTV when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.
OK. That was funny. :)
America hasn't manufactured televisions in a few decades.
Texas Instruments makes the DLP chip.
DLP's day is long over.
Yes, I was very sad to see Samsung exiting that market; I got one of what was supposedly their last models. Not sure where it's at now.
OTOH, it was certainly within the past few decades.
It might create a new, sustainable job as a regulator to oversee it...I'm not sure about clean.
I hear those jobs are pretty dirty, actually.
Unfortunately, when these failed states go under, they don't just go away. They become mill stones for the rest of us.
Just look at Baltimore or Detroit.
This move will certainly create (not very green) jobs. In China.
This law is a boon to television retailers in Oregon, Nevada, Arizona. Oh, and UPS, too.
The payoff could be big for TV owners, said Ken Rider, a commission staff engineer. Average first-year savings from reduced electricity use would be an estimated $30 per set...
A whooping 8 cents a day. A veritable second stimulus.
Yep, so you can spend $600 on a big TV and you'll get your money back in twenty years, only ten years after you've gotten rid of it.
If these new TVs save so much money without costing any more than the old ones, why is the Commission acting at all?
There could be an exemption for TV sets wired to receive only MSNBC but not FOX, i.e. energy used for good and not for evil.
The Commission's rules appear, if anything, to be too conservative, and the desired effects may be realized at much higher levels than they have anticipated. Consider:
1. Commission makes ridiculous regulatory ruling that makes bigscreen televisions more expensive.
2. Established middle class flees state at ever-higher rate, buys big screen televisions elsewhere.
3. Low-income immigrant class continues to take greater share of state population, doesn't buy expensive California-certified bigscreen televisions.
4. Rate of California economic collapse exceeds all expectations.
5. Energy consumption reduction exceeds all expectations. Another success story for...those meddling regulators!
6. Scooby snacks all around.
For what it's worth, California would not be close to being bankrupt if it wasn't for all of the mountain west states who are sucking on its teat.
Because the federal tax code does not adjust for cost of living, California pays a much greater % of its GDP to the federal government in tax revenue than other state. The difference can be measured in tens of billions over the last 15 years or so.
It's easy to mock liberals for the bankrupt budget. But a lot of red states would be even more heavily in the red if not for the massive federal subsidies they receive. Remember this: by far the vast majority of the nation's wealth is created in blue states.
Because the federal tax code does not adjust for cost of living, California pays a much greater % of its GDP to the federal government in tax revenue than other state. The difference can be measured in tens of billions over the last 15 years or so.
Please explain more fully. Do you mean that since CA has a higher COLA then people get paid more so they get taxed more? So Mississippi with lots of poorer workers simply pays much less (as % of GDP) than California?
While I am open to any discussion about radical changes to tax policy, that's simply the way it works in an income tax.
So, if you have a better idea please share.
This law is a boon to television retailers in Oregon, Nevada, Arizona. Oh, and UPS, too.
I was wondering about this myself. How, exactly, does California propose to enforce this ban? Are they just going to prohibit California retailers from selling high-energy TVs? Or are they going to attempt to prevent people from having them in their homes?
I don't see how taking such sets out of California stores is going to bring much pressure to bear on the market when people can just drive across the border and get one in Nevada or Arizona instead - it's just going to shift the VAT and corporate tax benefits to other, less bankrupt state governments. And there's absolutely no way to stop people who want big screen TVs from getting them from out of state, so I doubt it's going to cut down on energy use all that much.
Why don't they try something more reasonable first, like attempting to make Los Angeles something less than the most hellishly inefficient, energy-wasting city on the planet?
This law is a boon to television retailers in Oregon, Nevada, Arizona. Oh, and UPS, too.
I was wondering about this myself. How, exactly, are the regulators aiming to enforce this? Are they just going to ban California retailers from selling high-consumption TV sets? Or are they going to try to actually prevent people from having them in their homes?
The first is just, as you point out, going to move electronics retail business (and the associated VAT and corporate tax revenues) to neighboring, less bankrupt states. Even in California there probably aren't that many people who want big screen TVs, and the ones who do doubtless have the means to drive across the state line into Arizona or Nevada and buy them there. As an added bonus, it's unlikely to even exert much pressure on the market or positively impact energy consumption levels, for the same reason.
The second is an unconscionable invasion of privacy, not to mention completely impractical - there's no way the suede denim secret police could realistically ensure that no home in California is hiding a high defininition plasma in the basement somewhere.
Stupid idea, par for the course for the state government there. Why don't they focus on something more realistic, like attempting to make Los Angeles something less than the most hellishly inefficient, energy wasteful major city on the planet?
Best way to save power with a television is turning it off.
Lot of other good flows out of that, too. Especially for children.
You need to actually unplug a tlevision to realize much power conservation from an off television. In order to be working as fast as possible when you hit the on button a turned off television uses almost as much power as when it is being wathced.
Agree on the kids thing.
Really? I've never heard that before.
Not true...at least not how you phrase it. Yes, plugged in televisions use some power when they are off so that you can use the remote to turn them on...but that is a small fraction of the power they use when they are on. What might be true for some (very inefficient sets) is that if the set is only on say 1 hour a day on average, and off for 23 hours...the power used in that 23 hours might equal the power used in the one hour it is on. I'm doubtful of even that claim, but will have to dig up some links to show standby power vs. on power to verify.
So this is good news right? I mean for those not in California? There should soon be a temporary surplus of big screen tvs and so a price drop?
Well, let's read a little further in the article, shall we?
Representatives of some TV makers, including top-seller Vizio Inc. of Irvine, said they would have little trouble complying with tighter state standards without substantially increasing prices.
"We're comfortable with our ability to meet the proposed levels and implementation dates," said Kenneth R. Lowe, Vizio's co-founder and vice president.
Last month, the commission formally unveiled its proposal to require manufacturers to limit television energy consumption in a way that has been done with refrigerators, air conditioners and dozens of other products since the 1970s.
Cali has been doing similar regulation since the 1970s, and the leading manufacturer sees no problem complying with the regulation. IOW, nothing to see here.
But manufacturers quickly are coming up with new technologies that are making even 50-inch-screen models much more economical to operate.
So nothing's going to happen, except the regulation will push manufacturers to move even faster to adopt new, energy saving technologies. I can see where that could lead to millions fleeing the state and California turning into another Somalia/snark.
But libertarians do have a vivid imagination. And thy still don't apparently read their links.
Vizio is not really a manufacturer - they are an assembler at best. They basically buy up the cheapest panels they can find in the far east and then slap sets together. Some of their sets are actually quite good, others not so much - it is a crap shoot really. Thanks to stores like the evil Wal-Mart, they sell a lot of sets, but they are not innovators or pioneers like Samsung, Sharp and Sony, except maybe in the field of cost control.
Keep in mind that manufacturers sell to a national market. That means they will have to make all their TVs like this - not make some for CA and some for FL, etc.
Of course, Vizio being a trading company who simply buys from Taiwanese factories thinks it won't be a problem. They dump the issue on the Taiwanese. (This is how its done now.) And they can always mark up a bit to cover the costs, which you will end up paying as a consumer, for dubious savings (30 bucks a year over the lifetime of a TV.)
The jobs created will be for forklift operators, state employees to check compliance, and companies that certify stuff. These costs don't ever go away. Especially the state employees.
p.s. Vizio warehouse is probably in NV anyways as they have better workman comp laws.
Democrats don't pay those taxes.
Oh yes they do. You should check stuff before commenting
Oh no they don't. People making over 200K are about 5% of the population. People making less 50K are a much larger group and heavily Dem.
>200K is a very small slice of the population, around 5%.
Try to have some idea what you're talking about before claiming others don't.
Link
This is good. Socialist Californians who voted in these clown can pay for more expensive TVs and carbon taxes to their little Bolshevikian hearts content!
And as for Wal-Mart: it may have be "a HUGE factor in America's improving productivity", but Silicon Valley has, and continues to, produced hundreds of thousands of highly-paid jobs. Ironically, the offshoring of manufacturing has only increased the average salary, as most of what left (e.g., in disk drive companies) are the design engineers, program managers, and operational management.
You realize it's not an either/or. There are not enough highly educated people to employ another 1 million engineers. So yeah we need Wal Mart. Stop being so damn elitist.
EH: It's a simple proposition. Do you want to create high-paying jobs or low-paying jobs (or in the case of Wal-Mart, a mix, as they've also created management jobs)? Lots of people at Apple whom I know are not engineers, but also have good-paying jobs as a result of innovation. Furthermore, fully one-half of the best engineers I've ever worked with didn't finish college. You can add Gates, Jobs and Ellison to that list, BTW.
Once again, you haven't explained how getting rid of Wal Mart will generate high-paying jobs in the tech sector. Total non-sequitur.
So many answers, so little time. Ok, idiots are easier, so they go first:
TallDave, people above 200k are a small percentage of the population, but pay most of the taxes. Isn't this a wingnut talking point? And your, *ahem*, questionable source, to be generous, doesn't even include the last 2 elections! So another thing you definitely should do is read the sources you quote.
The rest is the usual wingnuttery - paranoia about being invaded, blatant disregard for the rights of human beings who don't happen to be Americans. Furthermore, it turns out that you can ignore the Constitution after all, and that all Guantanamo bay prisoners are by definition architects of 9/11, and therefore we can lock them up for indefinite periods and do whatever we want with them, regardless of the existence of any damning evidence.
As usual, wingnuts are the most eager to wrap themselves in the flag, yet have so little regard for the very principles that make the U.S. exceptional. Fortunately, you are now a dying breed in the US. Good riddance. You will always have Krauthammer op-eds.
I was surprised to see something I partially agree with:
A bit extreme, but I definitely agree with the spirit. Private schools can do whatever the hell they want, but public ones have an obligation to focus on degrees where people have a chance of actually getting a job.
Megan McArdle (and Topper Harley)
I don't know what you consider the apex of human achievement. Don't like Apple? Well, You've mentioned Monsanto, and remind me how California is also the main center for biotech in the US. Genentech, Genzyme, Gilead, Biogen and the majority of biotech companies are in California, generally pretty close to S. Francisco bay.
Indeed, I'm not so sure iPods are very representative of even IT industries. There's, of course, Google and Yahoo. But how about eBay? Hewlett-Packard? Intel and AMD? Netflix? Western Digital? Adobe? Oracle? Cisco? Are these closer to the apex than Wallmart?
There is discussion about the source of American boost in productivity since the nineties (Europe was catching up before), but the competing theories tend to focus on IT and, hmm, illusory productivity from Wall Street. The edge of American economy undoubtedly comes disproportionally from California.
By the way, just to be clear, I agree that Levin's point about job creation was silly. That said, it's pretty hilarious to witness the commenters' schadenfreude about California (oh, the dirty gay hippies of S.Francisco and the Hollywood liberals), when they are the first to brag about the aspects of American economy and technology embodied by the despicable liberal elite dwellers of the sunny state.
I agree that rumors of CA's death are grossly exaggerated. CA has a GDP that exceeds that of Spain, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Greece, . . . Its debt is far, far less as a percentage of GDP than any of those countries (and certainly our own). What it doesn't have is the constitutional authority to ignore budget-balancing. I'm not a particular fan of living in CA (I lived in LA for 15 years, and grew to loathe it), but many, many people think differently and CA real estate has continued to climb (with plenty of booms and busts) decade after decade. In a way, they *are* a lot like a European country (well, except for Orange County) with a populace that is largely progressive, and willing to tax themselves for the privilege of living there. The problem is (in my mind) that they don't quite tax themselves enough as a result of the proposition system, whereby it's way to easy for bad ideas to become law, and whereby many tax bills require a supermajority.
Well at least you admit that CA is a fully socialist state.
To be fair, most people here are perfectly happy to bash San Fransisco for being full of dirty hippies, without regard to sexual orientation.
California has a 8.25% sales tax.
California has an income tax.
California has property taxes (albeit with prop. 13 limits)
But they still cannot cover their operating expenses.
You have to wonder about that.