“That amount of radium found to date cannot be explained by gauges, deck markers, and decontamination activities,” wrote Stephen Woods, an environmental cleanup manager at the California Department of Public Health, about Treasure Island, the rectilinear speck of land in the San Francisco Bay two-and-a-half miles of white caps from our kitchen window. It summed up decades of US Government efforts to bury nuclear sins under layers of ignorance.
California
Fastest Drive Through San Francisco Ever
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Fastest Drive Through San Francisco Ever
Beloved Banana Republic of California
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Beloved Banana Republic of California
The horse-trading sessions in Greece will most likely lead to new elections, and the inevitable: Greece’s exit from the Eurozone. The uncertain consequences for Greece and the rest of Europe will confound jittery financial markets. And while all eyes are fixed on Greece, a tiny economy on the worldwide scale, a much larger economy is heading deeper into fiscal disaster: California.
“The Great Train Robbery,” California Version
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on “The Great Train Robbery,” California Version
The hoped-for April spike in personal income tax revenues for the State of California fell again below the assumptions used to get the budget to “balance.” Instead of $9.4 billion, the state collected only $7.4 billion. A 21% shortfall! Corporate taxes were also below forecast. Red in ink for fiscal 2012 is nearly $12 billion. And yet, California has a mega-project.
Mad Cow: the Costs of Trying to Keep Costs Down
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“The US is one of two major beef-exporting countries with no comprehensive traceability system,” said Erin Borror, economist at the Meat Export Federation. The other country is India. The issue was Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease. Humans contract it by eating contaminated beef. It’s always fatal. Lack of traceability “places the US at risk if an outbreak occurs in this country,” Borror said. That was last November.
Weighing A Strip Club Tax While Municipalities Hit the Wall
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While all eyes are on Europe, California is hobbling along its own path to, well, a tsunami of last-minute bills. 665 bills are scheduled to be debated by policy committees from Monday through Thursday, the final days for 2012 legislation to get off the ground. California has some issues—its fiscal and economic policies haven’t been a raging success recently. Hence, numerous crucial proposals in that pile of bills. For example, a strip club tax.
Monuments instead of Education
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Monuments instead of Education
Tuition at the California State University will be double of what it was in 2007-08. But it’s still not enough. Now CSU threatened taxpayers and prospective students with stunning enrollment cutbacks, unless—this smells of extortion—it gets its tax increases on the ballot and passed. University of California is also jacking up tuition and cutting enrollment. And yet, a lavish multi-billion-dollar building boom continues on campuses around the state.
The Astounding Fuel Price Conundrum
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Republicans are trying to tar President Obama with gas prices that are creeping up on $4 a gallon and are shooting for an all-time high. The strategy is working. Obama’s approval rating on handling gas prices has plunged. In San Francisco, gas is already $4.50. Yet across the Bay are five oil refineries that together are the largest exporters of petroleum products in the nation.
California’s Search For The Missing Moolah
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on California’s Search For The Missing Moolah
Optimism has always been the hallmark of California—especially when it comes to tax-revenue projections. Now the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office laments that Governor Jerry Brown’s budget is another extravaganza of optimism, particularly the projections of how much moolah can be extracted from wealthy residents. Which the Governor expects to skyrocket, magically.
That Giant Sucking Sound in California
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on That Giant Sucking Sound in California
There never was that “giant sucking sound” that Ross Perot had warned about during his quixotic presidential campaign in 1992—the sound that manufacturing jobs would make as they head south to Mexico. Turns out, he was wrong. The jobs went south silently. However, yesterday in San Francisco, there was that sound. From money going east. Lots of it. From fundraisers.