Wednesday, December 31, 2008

45-15.4=0

That's the latest fantasy budget proposal. it is getting hard to keep track. This one from the Governors office. Facing a deficit of $45b he is proposing $15.4 billion in spending cuts. The rest? well there's this idea that the citizens will vote for a 1.5% increase in the sales tax and other increases. Oh and that sales tax on goods? Well apparently they found a lawyer who imagines that aplies to goods AND SERVICES. Good luck with that as well.

22 comments:

Son of Brock Landers said...

Arnie's right because people always vote for more taxes!

I was just in Natick, Ma. I went tot he new Natick Mall witht he upscale crap and the 1 mil condos attached. Awful. Ghost town in the 'chic' section. It's another GGP property proposed during the bubble that will fail miserably.

Rob Dawg said...

GGP and the Natick Mall won't see the ides of March.

Unknown said...

Looks like Amazon will have a banner year in 2009 as Californians order from them to avoid 10%+ sales tax.

Lou Minatti said...

Looks like Amazon will have a banner year in 2009 as Californians order from them to avoid 10%+ sales tax.

I hadn't considered that but dang, you are spot on the money.

Akira said...

Is "aplies" like apples or ape lies?
Happy New Year!

w said...

I Love the Ides of March

I hate these fools in charge of this sinking ship. A tax on services. So now small businesses that provide services will have to start dealing with sales tax. Bravo Arnie. Maybe we can each adopt a public employee for their retirement years. We work, they golf.

Casey Serin said...

Happy New Year, Robbo... another year of me avoiding punishment for my seven-figure frauds. Sweet!

Yours in crime,
Casey

Lost Cause said...

Thay are already planning on charging me a bond.

Sun said...

Interesting note about Natick Mall.

I was just checking out deadmalls.com. I think one of the most interesting aspects is the nostalgia it invokes for some of us brought up on indoor malls. Dying malls are a good reflection of the current shift towards outdoor malls as well as the souring economy.

I don't really understand this referendum against indoor malls? It feels like a clothing line that became too trendy.

Northern Renter said...

Jeez...

You Golden State types are such novices when it comes to taxes. Our bureaucrats in Quebec City have a vicious sense of humour that .... well, judge for yourself.

There is a contribution to the taxes that everyone must pay. It is a fixed sum ($150 or so, if I recall correctly) and it goes right to the Dept of Health Services. But the buggers at the Revenue department had the nerve to name it a voluntary contribution.

Then the provincial sales tax is applied on top of the final price after the federal sales tax is added. Thus we are taxed on our taxes.

Sorry... had to blow off some steam after I slipped skating the other day and knocked myself unconscious. Sure put a crimp in the New Year's Eve plans.


NR

Pleather Murse said...

An upscale mall that I used to enjoy visiting has not yet become a ghost mall but I have noticed a change in the stores, for the worse. It's almost all clothing and shoe boutiques now. Just a few years ago it had a Waldenbooks, a hobby store, a media store and a tobacconist. Places you could hang out for a while and spend some time. Now nothing but expensive clothing, shoes, perfume, maybe a candle store and a Spencer Gifts. I'm sure there's some demographic targeting going on here (female/teen?) but it has reduced the value of the mall from my point of view. (Of course, there is a Borders in its own plaza not far away and a Best Buy in a separate plaze so that may have killed the media and book stores in the mall.)

Akubi said...

The interesting thing about dating is you can't recall who last punched you in the face.

Peripheral Visionary said...

(Checks calendar) Doesn't California have, like, less than a month before it goes bankrupt?

And on indoor malls, I thought they were a dying breed, but visited a couple over the holidays that were bursting with people. The demographic, however, has slipped; less upper-middle-class, and more working-class. Also, noticed that Wal-Mart was absolutely packed with people; but virtually everybody was buying groceries, not goods. I think we're at the winners and losers stage, where enough stores are going out of business that the survivors are picking up traffic.

And, of course, Happy Gregorian Calendar New Year!

w said...

First baby born in Oxnard in 2009

No big suprise the baby is Latino. Keep reading though...the mother is 15 years old!!!! Forunately, the father is a mature 20 year old. He works in construction so he will soon be able to afford to move into Riverpark with the state assistance for him and his family.

Peripheral Visionary said...

This is a blog and I am a semi-anonymous troll, so I can go completely off topic and say how I really feel: Krugman is a fool. Oh, sure, he's got a Nobel Prize, but in economics, which turns out to be not the same thing as politics (or common sense, for that matter.) The U.S. is headed straight for a fiscal funding crisis just like California is, and Krugman simply does not see it coming, and continues to call for ever bigger government. Within a few years the question will not be big government versus small government, but what kind of small government. And of course he sees a racist ghost lurking behind every conservative policy, but then it's much easier to simply play the race card than do any rational analysis.

The simple problem with progressivism, which I suspect that Krugman realizes, is that it requires a certain level of prosperity to provide government the taxes it needs to fund its social policies. When prosperity falls below a certain level, progressivism is no longer viable, and that, I suspect, is the reason for the increasingly hysterical calls from Krugman (and others) for Obama to do something, anything, to save the economy.

w said...

Well said PV.

H Simpson said...

50 year celebration in Cuba yesterday. Fidel was absent, but his brother partied on.

-Protect the people
-Free health care
-Same schooling for all.
-Governement calling shots on all industry

Maybe we ought to dig out their boats/waterproof trucks from the 90s and send them back filled with Democrats..

Akubi said...

@W,
Hey, the mother of the first baby in Marin county is also a Latino teenager!

Rob Dawg said...

Hah! Ventura's was a 15yo and "dad" was arrested for statuatory rape: Local Fishwrap

"Suddenly, her plans for a New Year’s Eve gathering at her parents’ house changed into a New Year’s Eve gathering in the delivery room with her mother and boyfriend, Omar Polvo.
Being a new father elicited a range of emotions for Polvo.

“I didn’t know whether to be happy or excited or what to do,” said Polvo, 20, who works in the construction industry. “But I am excited. I wanted a boy.”

Torres said she was initially scared when she found out she was pregnant. A sophomore at Pacifica High, she worried about how it would affect her future.

But she transferred to Puente High, another school in Oxnard Union High School District where teen parents can attend with their children."

Peripheral Visionary said...

“I didn’t know whether to be happy or excited or what to do,” said Polvo, 20, who works in the construction industry. “But I am excited. I wanted a boy.”

Shouldn't that be "worked", past tense? Best of luck to the new child; a massive economic downturn to be faced and a mountain of debt to be repaid over its lifetime. All for the noble cause of maintaining California's pretense of prosperity.

And to clarify my earlier post, I have nothing against Democrats (and have voted Democrat on several occasions), but I have had it with the self-styled shrillosphere, and am bracing myself for the loud, angry "we were betrayed" complaints which will inevitably come. Only a matter of time before a perceived lack of progress turns the shrillosphere against Obama (and it can't help that Krugman, DeLong and others were not offered public positions by Obama.)

H Simpson said...

comment on local Fox news station.

"Ever notice that for the past couple of years, whenever they show the parents of the 1st baby of the year, they never seem to be married?"

Just saying...

Akira said...

Gotta love the fact that the crappiest gene pool (a 17-year-old sophomore in a shitty high school...?)procreate like lab rats. It's a win-win for devolution!