How's your fashion sense elle ? Some good advice from the WAGS on here, so you could spend a bit of your winnings with confidence. Some good tips on strikers on here too. Emigrating used to be a sure way to escape. ****ing technology seems to have nullified that myth. Bring back football I say.
It isnt that high. California is the 8th largest economy in the world so it isnt unmanageable. We have had a budget surplus for a couple years and a % of that surplus goes to pay more of the principle of debt off so its been going down a bit. We also have a rainy day fund like the Russians do and a % of that surplus goes into that so that when the economy goes down again like it did in 08 we dont run a whole bunch of debt up like we did then. We are not in any sort of desperate situation.
Good to hear - haven't really been keeping tabs over the last few years. Just remember about 7 or 8 years ago things looked pretty grim. Presumably the problem has been partially remedied by tax hikes as well as a general improvement in the economy ?
Not so much tax hikes, its Cali and our taxes are already pretty high by US standards. There were some tax hikes on gas that have gone to transportation though but the real purpose of that is to drive people to hybrids and electrics. They cut a good sized % from state workers and general cuts (like to state parks) which helped a a lot but the general economy getting better saved them and thats what has created the surplus now as expenses are rising but they are keeping them lower than the income growth. When the economy went down it took the tax revenue down but all the expenses like pensions didnt change so it made this massive deficit basically over night. That's the purpose of the rainy day fund (which we the voters forced upon them by ballot, as well as a % of the surplus going to pay the principle of the debt) that way next time they will have a fund in place to draw from while they adjust their expenses as it really takes a couple to few years to make those adjustments. Brown might be a liberal on 99% of issues but he is a fiscal conservative on economic issues so as long as he is Governor we will have a surplus.
Sounds sound. Question for you though elle - is there a potential major unemployment issue in Cali which could turn this promising situation ugly if the US gets hit by what seems to be a potentially serious global economic downturn (China & all that) ?
Come on Bengals..make a meaningful contribution. I tend to be a joker too, but when everyone's asleep back 'ome, surely we can be serious ( but not political of course). Economics I think is fair game.
I suppose everyone is at risk for that type of thing. I wouldnt think we were at any more risk than anyone else really maybe a bit more with all the tech in Silicon Valley. The bigger issue is the drought as a decent sized % of the Cali economy is agriculture and if it keeps up (which all the climate models show it only getting worse) it will destroy the farms in the valley and something close to 50% of the produce in the US is grown in Cali so if I wanted to say what the real threat was thats what I would list as the biggest threat.
Yes, I was sort of getting at that agriculture side of things...sounds bloody awful - it's impacting us here severely also - seems in the last 6 months the prices of fresh produce ( a lot of which comes from your State) has doubled. Global warming ? Yes. Man made ? Unproven i.m.o., and unlikely to be as significant as the scare-mongers suggest.
Hi olm I have ordered jeans and downsized as you suggest and bought a couple of polo shirts I normally vary between m & l so ordered the m was that the right call ? Cheers
Only the jeans are oversized, everything else is pretty much standard sizing, so with the tops it will depend on how slim fitting you like things, but you should be fine. If there's a problem you can always swap for another size, though at 50% off I hope I don't end up doing too much swapping.
