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Mostly tangential to the real point of things, but yeah.
Pat Buchanan recently held up California as a bad example. He said because the state is "de-Christianized" (what does that ebven mean?) that there's a black-brown war going on, and California has "the worst bond rating" of all the states.
We actually have dropped to A-, guys. This is actually the lowest bond rating for the states, which are mostly AA and AAA. But let's unpack that a bit. First, what does A- mean?
It's between A: "strong capacity to meet debts but somewhat more susceptible to adverse changes in economic conditions" and
BBB: "Adequate capacity to meet debts, but adverse economic conditions or changing circumstances are more likely to lead to a weakened capacity."
In other words, A- means you can pay your debts just fine unless some asshole decides to take you down.
Second, why is California considered to be more vulnerable than, say, Mississippi (AA)? Could it be influenced by such discrepancies as the fact that Mississippi gets $2.02 back from the federal government for every tax dollar they send in, whereas California gets $.78? (California does not have the biggest negative discrepancy here: oddly, seven states get less tax dollars back than California. I think they're all "blue" states: follow the link and go to the bottom of the graphic, and tell me what you think).
It's not that all the states should get back the same amount from the government. In fact I think it's appropriate that Mississippi get a lot, because it's a needy state: I'd love to see an analysis of the expenditures, though, because I suspect that Mississippi would be a lot better off by now than it is if that money had been spent to actually develop a decent infrasctructure and balanced economy for the people living there.
California has been under steady assault since the days of Reagan as governor. All that viciousness where the poor are blamed for everything and taxes on the rich are held up as the greatest evil done by government started here and then. Proposition 13, which held property taxes down and crioppled local governments' ability to levy fees for infrastructure, was only the starting indicator of a long line of effective attacks on California civilization. One of the most recent was the predatory lending and robo-signing foreclosures activity, which was as heavy in parts of California as it has been anywhere else. And there was that whole corrupt Schwarzenegger regime, and the importation of Texas corruption and fake for-profit charters into what had been a pretty healthy school system. And more.
And yet -- somehow, California continues to produce a huge share of the nation's green stuff and fruit, to lead in innovations in technology, science, and culture, to employ people to do necessary or desirable work . . . while suffering, like the rest f the country does, from the concerted criminal actions of the capitalist class and their cronies in government.
Oh yes, I almost forgot the other point. Really, why do we even quote Standard and Poor's anymore? Just because everybody else does it? If there's anybody who ought to have lost their credibility by now, they are it. From rating highly a whole bunch of bad paper just before the crash and also afterwards to down-rating countries because they were insufficiently cruel to their working classes and their most vulnerable people, right down to making a multiple-trillion dollar error in assessing the United States' credit-worthiness, could they have been any more stupid, evil and laughable?
By the way, none of this should be construed as an attack on Mississippi. I wish every state well, really.
Pat Buchanan recently held up California as a bad example. He said because the state is "de-Christianized" (what does that ebven mean?) that there's a black-brown war going on, and California has "the worst bond rating" of all the states.
We actually have dropped to A-, guys. This is actually the lowest bond rating for the states, which are mostly AA and AAA. But let's unpack that a bit. First, what does A- mean?
It's between A: "strong capacity to meet debts but somewhat more susceptible to adverse changes in economic conditions" and
BBB: "Adequate capacity to meet debts, but adverse economic conditions or changing circumstances are more likely to lead to a weakened capacity."
In other words, A- means you can pay your debts just fine unless some asshole decides to take you down.
Second, why is California considered to be more vulnerable than, say, Mississippi (AA)? Could it be influenced by such discrepancies as the fact that Mississippi gets $2.02 back from the federal government for every tax dollar they send in, whereas California gets $.78? (California does not have the biggest negative discrepancy here: oddly, seven states get less tax dollars back than California. I think they're all "blue" states: follow the link and go to the bottom of the graphic, and tell me what you think).
It's not that all the states should get back the same amount from the government. In fact I think it's appropriate that Mississippi get a lot, because it's a needy state: I'd love to see an analysis of the expenditures, though, because I suspect that Mississippi would be a lot better off by now than it is if that money had been spent to actually develop a decent infrasctructure and balanced economy for the people living there.
California has been under steady assault since the days of Reagan as governor. All that viciousness where the poor are blamed for everything and taxes on the rich are held up as the greatest evil done by government started here and then. Proposition 13, which held property taxes down and crioppled local governments' ability to levy fees for infrastructure, was only the starting indicator of a long line of effective attacks on California civilization. One of the most recent was the predatory lending and robo-signing foreclosures activity, which was as heavy in parts of California as it has been anywhere else. And there was that whole corrupt Schwarzenegger regime, and the importation of Texas corruption and fake for-profit charters into what had been a pretty healthy school system. And more.
And yet -- somehow, California continues to produce a huge share of the nation's green stuff and fruit, to lead in innovations in technology, science, and culture, to employ people to do necessary or desirable work . . . while suffering, like the rest f the country does, from the concerted criminal actions of the capitalist class and their cronies in government.
Oh yes, I almost forgot the other point. Really, why do we even quote Standard and Poor's anymore? Just because everybody else does it? If there's anybody who ought to have lost their credibility by now, they are it. From rating highly a whole bunch of bad paper just before the crash and also afterwards to down-rating countries because they were insufficiently cruel to their working classes and their most vulnerable people, right down to making a multiple-trillion dollar error in assessing the United States' credit-worthiness, could they have been any more stupid, evil and laughable?
By the way, none of this should be construed as an attack on Mississippi. I wish every state well, really.
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