"California is functionally bankrupt"

[Elderberry]

Molly O’Shea
@MollySOShea

BREAKING: David @friedberg  says "California is functionally bankrupt"

"People don't realize how screwed California is, & I worry that if California falls, so does the union.

"$250 billion to $1 trillion short."

"This is because for California to get rescued would be a big cost to red states, & I think it creates in the years ahead a lot of tension."

"California's functional bankruptcy is a major risk to the country. & I think we need to figure out what we can change to fix it."

How we got here:
"California has a public pension system, & that public pension system retirees have paid into it & they get some benefits out, & the amount that they're owed back out is somewhere between $250 billion - $1 trillion dollars more than has been paid in.

$250 billion to $1 trillion short.

If it was the federal government, it would be like, okay, we'll just print more money. California doesn't have the ability to print money, so California has to pay this out, and you can't restructure retirement benefits.

There is a Supreme Court case in California that said that once an employee has been offered retirement benefits, even if they're currently an employee, you can never restructure their retirement benefits.

https://twitter.com/MollySOShea/status/2037147893484970237

[MeganC]

Public employee pensions need to be changed from defined benefit programs into 401(k) style programs just like us little people get to have. Meaning that you only get what you pay into it.

The problem is how do you convert a Ponzi scheme into a viable financial model?

[catfish1957]

The nation?  Oh Bullshit.

You think the same government that can't functionally enact a simple law for voter ID, would fund a $1T bailout for this fiscal hell hole?

Oh hell no.  And if they did, watch for a national tax revolt.

[Fishrrman]

"People don't realize how screwed California is, & I worry that if California falls, so does the union."
"This is because for California to get rescued would be a big cost to red states, & I think it creates in the years ahead a lot of tension."

Solution:
EXPEL California from the United States.
Nothing in the Constitution that says you can't do that.
We'll keep our military bases and ports, however.

But do so with the proviso that if they attempt to turn to China for support, the state will be retaken with all necessary force by the U.S. military, and then "reconstructed", Civil War style...

Note that no "/s" appears at the end of this reply...

[Hoodat]

"This is because for California to get rescued would be a big cost to red states  .  .

Then DO NOT rescue them.

[libertybele]

So, let CA be bankrupt.  No need to rescue them. They keep voting in idiots like Newsom. I could care less about CA --  unless somehow they manage to vote in a CA governor.

I'm more concerned with the state of TX and FL affecting the rest of the country come the mid terms.  Lose either one and this country will never be the same.  At least not for a very long time.

[Kamaji]

So, let CA be bankrupt.  No need to rescue them. They keep voting in idiots like Newsom. I could care less about CA --  unless somehow they manage to vote in a CA governor.

I'm more concerned with the state of TX and FL affecting the rest of the country come the mid terms.  Lose either one and this country will never be the same.  At least not for a very long time.

It won't be long before we start hearing calls for the federal government to bail out California.

[Hoodat]

It won't be long before we start hearing calls for the federal government to bail out California.

They'll have to get in line behind Illinois and Connecticut.

[cato potatoe]

Dems will regain the majority, and the federal government will bail out the blue state pension systems.

With this president, it would not surprise me if it happened on his watch. 

[Hoodat]

Dems will regain the majority, and the federal government will bail out the blue state pension systems.

With this president, it would not surprise me if it happened on his watch.

Dems won't have to regain the majority.  Republicans will do it for them.  They've been doing the Democrats' bidding for the past 16 years.

[Kamaji]

They'll have to get in line behind Illinois and Connecticut.

Ca is bigger, and has more votes in Congress.  CT will get the windshield treatment

[mountaineer]

Multiple senior HHS officials estimate that, under Gavin Newsom, California's state Medicaid program has lost 25 percent of its budget to fraud. This would mean it is currently losing $50 billion a year to scammers, fraudsters, and organized crime rings.

https://twitter.com/christopherrufo/status/2039372032635482535

[mountaineer]

Newsom's response:

https://twitter.com/christopherrufo/status/2039404307435675930

[IsailedawayfromFR]

https://twitter.com/MariaDavidson/status/2039830726263419063

[Hoodat]

[DB]

California was printing IOUs and functionally bankrupt just before COVID hit.

Immediately after COVID they were flush with newly printed dollars from the federal government that just magically appeared.

The devalued dollar inflation trainwreck followed.

California did nothing to address the issue.

Stupid is as stupid does.

[Bigun]

The Evils of Paper Money: Roger Sherman and A Caveat Against Injustice

You are being ripped off.

When it comes to fiat paper “money,” Richard Sherman didn’t hold back. He saw it as an unjust and totally immoral weapon that turns government into a legalized protection racket for fraud.

He made that case in his incredibly important, but almost completely unknown pamphlet A Caveat Against Injustice, where he called for criminal punishment for the perpetrators.

CRUSHING PAPER

Start with the Constitution itself, Article I, Section 10.

“No state shall…coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”

The man most responsible for this clause was Roger Sherman, with an assist from James Wilson. The record of the debates at the Philadelphia Convention show exactly what they were intending.

“Mr. WILSON & Mr. SHERMAN moved to insert after the words ’coin money’ the words ‘nor emit bills of credit, nor make anything but gold & silver coin a tender in payment of debts’ making these prohibitions absolute, instead of making the measures allowable (as in the XIII art:) with the consent of the Legislature of the U.S.”

After one objection from Nathaniel Gorham, Sherman made his goal clear: put an end to paper money.

“Mr. SHERMAN thought this a favorable crisis for crushing paper money. If the consent of the Legislature could authorise emissions of it, the friends of paper money, would make every exertion to get into the Legislature in order to licence it.”...

Excerpt: Rest at headline link

[MeganC]

When it comes to fiat paper “money,” Richard Sherman didn’t hold back. He saw it as an unjust and totally immoral weapon that turns government into a legalized protection racket for fraud.

I often confront atheists and ask them if they hold any irrational beliefs and predictably they always say "No."

Then I pull out a $20 bill and ask them what it is worth.

They say "Twenty dollars". I ask them why they think this when on the note itself it says that you do not have twenty dollars but that you are owed twenty dollars...because that's what a 'note' is, a debt instrument.

Then I ask why they believe it has any value at all and they eventually say because other people believe it has value.

And I ask them why they have a problem with my belief in God when they invest such a belief in a piece of paper?