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REUTERS: “California dream turns gray” * open thread

By SusanUnPC on February 19, 2009 at 2:30 AM in Open Thread

Report:

Saddled with an ongoing housing crisis and rising unemployment — the world’s 8th largest economy is on the brink of financial collapse.

The latest blow — California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger calling for up to 20,000 state job cuts. This after a 30-hour marathon session in the state legislature failed to produce a budget to plug a $40 billion deficit. Jon Decker reports.

SOUNDBITE: Jerry Nickelsburg, senior economist at the UCLA Anderson Forecast

  • Seattle Moss
  • AF catfish

    OK two things:
    1. octomom appears to be facing no cap in welfare payments. Where is the cap? If a few more of those 8 kids qualify as “special needs”, she’ll get more money from the state.

    At some point, we need to impose a cap. And encourage people to put their kids up for adoption, like poor folks did in the old days. Dorothy Rodham was given away at age 8, her sister was 3, because her mother couldn’t afford to take care of her.

    I am 39, I don’t have any kids, would like kids but time is running out. My friends got late starts too, because they were paying off college loans, or saving up to buy a house, etc. Some friends have only 1 kid. I have none. We have few kids because we were saving up money or paying off debt. Yet our tax dollars are subsidizing octomom. Now octomom is going to get student loans to pursue a master’s? I don’t think she should be getting student loans.

    What are we incentivizing?

    2. California does spend too much on education. But it’s all sucked up into the central offices, the district offices, with too many 6-figure specialists. The principals need to be given authority to run their schools. And enough with teacher tenure, a survey said teachers wished their underperforming peers could be fired. In most cases, teachers only ranked one or two teachers in the school as underperforming. But those bad apples were such a drag on morale, the survey takers found it too hard to ignore.

    • AlexisM

      AF Catfish…I agree with you. But you are about to get the living crap beat out of you, just warning you. A lot of us said the same thing about Octomom, and got viciously attacked by the women here who call us misogynistic women haters because we don’t want to pay this woman’s insane welfare tab, while she takes what money she does have and spends it on plastic surgery, nannies, pedicures, and the big lotto bonus item, thousands of dollars of in vitro fertilization. It’s disgusting.

      I don’t have kids either. None. And I’m not going to at this point. Gee, had I known I could just squeeze out fourteen at a time, not pay any bills, and you people would pay all of my bills for me, I would have done it a long time ago.

      By the way, now it seems that Octomom might be homeless soon. So now we have to buy her a house too. She should call ACORN. She also might have thought of that when she already had six kids she couldn’t pay for, instead of having 8 more soon to be homeless babies. She makes me sick.

      PS. Can everyone here start sending me some welfare checks? I have three dogs to feed, a house to pay for, etc. and I would rather spend my OWN money on drugs and alcohol, and maybe some plastic surgery like Octomom, etc… Please send at least $100 each because I drink Champagne. Thanks!

      • AF catfish

        Children don’t choose their parents, certainly, but we have to face the facts that we don’t have a bottomless well with which to pay these people welfare!

        As I said in another thread, I just finished reading Angela’s Ashes and those kids survived on pretty much bread and tea. It was misery. A lot of his siblings died from consumption. But they grew up to be pretty successful! And by no means did they want to not work.

        It’s like – the poor can have kids, the rich (Angelina Jolie) can have kids. But the middle class – not so much.

        We’re encouraging something really bad here. And I am a Democrat! Hillary voter! Former George Bush hater! (I don’t hate him anymore.) But the student loans and welfare payments are getting out of control.

      • AF catfish

        Alexis you know what’s sad? How difficult adoption is!

        We need to bring back the idea of putting your kids up for adoption.

        I also heard that if a teenager has a baby, that household can get more welfare. I used to dismiss this stuff as right-wing blather, but we are encouraging bad behavior.

        A nation of losers!

        • AlexisM

          AF Catfish…it’s going to get worse. The Bacon Bill has a provision the states that give away the most AFDC welfare money get the most stimulus cash. We’re encouraging this nonsense. I guess this means that the crooks are repealing the welfare reform. It’s really sad.

          And, yes, very odd that it’s so hard to get a child through adoption, but these women are having a ton of them and don’t have any way to care for them or give them a decent life.

          Bad behavior indeed.

          MAJOR NATION OF LOSERS.

      • FLDemFem

        SHE isn’t losing HER house, her mother who is the primary caretaker for this nut’s first six children is losing her home. Probably due to the expense and work needed to take care of her daughter’s children. Meanwhile, said daughter goes on merrily sucking at the public tit. I agree that she should have her children taken away from her. They aren’t toy poodles, they are children and need care that she cannot, or will not, provide. That is the definition of unfit parent. Her mother is losing her home because of the daughter’s behavior. Has any of the money the daughter has collected gone to help her mother with the expenses of keeping her children?

  • Seattle Moss
    • Seattle Moss

      The great housing turndown, which started as early as 2007, has entered a second and more difficult phase. We can trace this to Monday, September 15, 2008 just as October 29, 1929 – “Black Tuesday” – marked the start of the Great Depression. September 15 does not yet have a name and the name “Black Monday” has already been taken by the 1987 stock market crash. The 1987 crash looks in historical perspective like a slight downturn compared to what the world faces today.

  • AlexisM

    This is a great article on George Soros, who we all know literally owns the Fraud, and therefore our country. Please take note of how he and his filthy father earned their billions, by misleading Jews and sending them to the gas chambers, and then going into their homes, taking their valuables and auctioning them off.

    Soros collapsed the Pound and now he’s destroying the Dollar. That’s his big plan and why he didn’t support HRC. SHE wouldn’t go along with his hateful act of destroying us. But, in the Fraud, he found a kindred spirit. Someone who hates America as much as he does.

    This country had no shot. Between Soros, the Fraud, Pelosi, Reid, etc. how can we survive it? Especially since people are too lazy, ignorant or scared to do anything about it?

    Well, happy reading. George Soros is really your boss and CIC. God help us all.

    http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/8574

    • elise

      Alexis, thank you for the link. I had never heard of George Soros until two years ago when he was introduced on a cspan program as a philanthropist and financier. He speaks with a very thick accent and it was difficult to follow what he was saying. I didn’t think of him again until the 60 Minutes interview with Steve Kroft. I found that interview appalling since he seemed to have no regrets about his actions during the Nazi occcupation of Poland. Later, after moveon.org endorsed Obama, I heard he was a large donor to them. I was a member at the time and had been almost from the day it was formed and the organization had never endorsed a candidate. I dropped my membership the day after the endorsement. I have done a lot of research on my own about Soros and I too consider him a dangerous man. You or someone else posted a link a few days ago connecting him to the Clinton’s so I began more research. First, every article I found claming a connection was based on writings by David Horowitz. He claimed an “unidentified” source had told him Hillary Clinton was the moving force behind the American Center for Progress. I have since researched that org as well and there is absolutly no evidence to support his claim other than a statement made in support by Hillary for a think tank to balance those of the right wing. Neither she nor her husband have ever been listed as donors or fellows. John Podesta is as well as Tom Daschel and Elizabeth Edwards. I wanted to know more about David Horowitz since all the information seemed to come from him and if you Google his name you will find both his parents were communists and he was a marxist. He has since become conservative and began his own organization, Freedom Center, which is radically right wing. His claim that Soros supported Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency is false and he offers no proof what-so-ever. If you read enough about the primary elections last year, it is clear Soros has supported Obama from the beginning and has raised an estimated $10mil for his candidacy which is strange indeed if you consider the fact no one seems to agree on whether or not he is an American Citizen. Wicki says he isn’t. The point I’m trying to make is that to get to the truth, it is always better to dig deep and keep an open mind. Otherwise, you may find yourself in a position of believing a lie and the truth, which is what we are all searching for, will be lost and so will we.

  • lark

    I have a very bad feeling about what the mortgage bailout will do to the banking system. It will be so demoralizing that I think it will collapse it. So.

    Nationalizing banks will come in. The problem is that it will not solve the problem. The problem may become a moral recession. We have never experienced a moral recession. It it happens it will be completely uncharted waters. I have no idea what to expect. None, nada, zilch.

  • noproblama

    Unfortunately, I surfed past CBS tonight.

    Dear Late Show with David Letterman,

    I’m disappointed but not surprised that our new president will continue to be treated as a sacred cow by the “Late Show”.

    Dave looked embarrassed trying to sell the idea that there isn’t anything remotely amusing about our current Commander in Chief. I don’t blame him. It’s an absurd premise which is frankly insulting to our intelligence.

    His hubris alone is rife with comic potential. And your writers don’t find anything funny about the stimulus package? Bad example, neither do I. They do evidently think rehashed Clinton jokes will fill the void. Can your writers spell “TIRED”?

    Come on, the honeymoon should be over by now. But if this is to be a continued politically or racially motivated “hands off”, at least warn us. I’ll be certain not to pause on CBS again.

    • noproblama

      Forgot the subject line:

      “Ignominious Moments in “Late Show” Presidential Humor”

  • Sassy

    We criticze politicians, business leaders, and financial planners who are harming our economy and ultimately draining our country.
    Yes, they are doing so, but the people who are gaming the system are really going to bring us down.
    I did not buy a Mercedes or a 200 thousand dollar home that I could not afford! Yet, we see plenty of people who have, and are now waiting to be rescued.
    I miss the “salt of the earth” generation, who took pride in a job well done and the benefits they derived from working!

    • Idiocracy08

      Janine Garofolo said in her stand up act:

      “Our parents worked hard so we wouldn’t have to….and we don’t!”

      Not a fan of hers, but she was so right.

  • Doc99

    Bring Back Gray Davis!