California DeathWatch (Part One)

It has been said that California is the trend-setter for the U.S. in many social and political movements. Working from that assumption, I'm instituting a California DeathWatch. California will be the testbed where the pathogenic mix of gangs, economic implosion due to debt overload, ethnic tensions (African American, Anglo, Hispanic, Asian) goes prime time in the U.S.

Generation after generation has come to expect an easy lifestyle in a service economy and ever-rising property values. Debt fueled this delusional lifestyle and the many good and bad things that went with it, such as the optimism to construct a vast social welfare structure that has turned from a lifeboat into an anchor tied around the throats of California citizens.

Watch how the governing elites handle the coming crisis - you'll get a preview of what will be instituted in the rest of the country, be it currency controls, debt defaults or restructuring, riots, a restructuring of property laws to deal with the coming wave of squatters settlements, etc.

I watch this from out in Fly-Over Country with great interest. Here it comes.

Schwarzenegger Will 'Declare Fiscal Emergency' In Weeks
NBC 11 - San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday he will declare a "fiscal emergency" in January to give him and the Legislature more power to deal with the state's growing deficit.

Schwarzenegger made the announcement Friday after meeting with lawmakers and interest groups this week to tell them California's budget deficit is worse -- far worse -- than economists predicted just a few weeks ago. The shortfall is not $10 billion, but more than $14 billion -- a 40 percent jump that would put it in orbit with some of the state's worst fiscal crisis, those who have met with him said...