NPR reports Arnold's capitulating on the layoffs and salary cuts. I guess the picketers in front of his Brentwood mansion over the weekend, scared Maria.

No, he never had any intention on doing what he said he was going to do on this one.

Too bad they didn't call his bluff and save the state millions through political one-upsmanship...

Ok, lets put it this way: this accomplishes NOTHING. Students, interns, retired annuitants and temporary employees get terminated. Once the budget passes, they are all getting re-hired.

Ok, so lets push a ton of paperwork to fire everyone, and then push a ton of paperwork to rehire. Ok, cool, thats efficient.

All while half the state workers are wearing purple barney outfits rallying at the state capital that this is "unfair." Yup, efficient.

Did I mention this accomplishes nothing?

In a nutshell: Until the budget passes, state workers are even less likely to do any actual work, and instead spent time b*tching (this is ironic btw) and rallying at the capital, signing terminations, and soon to be rehiring everyone. Way to go. What an idiotic plan.

Yep

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1218052909.jpg

And tune in next year at this time for a replay of this circus!



this wouldn't be happening if we had elected Gary Colman as Governor!

Or Mary Carey! :cool:


Confirmation of The Guhvinator's blunder continues...

State employees union sues over late checks...
The largest state employees union filed a lawsuit today in Sacramento County Superior Court alleging that the state mishandled the termination of some temporary and part-time employees last week, potentially costing the state hundreds of thousands of dollars.

http://www.sacbee.com/749/story/1137108.html

Went to the DMV yesterday morning to pay a license renewal that was over due. They accepted payment but said they it would have to be done my mail from now on. 1/2 the staff is not there now. I'll bet a buck when they get the budget in and hire the other 1/2 back they won't take payments then either, just one more government service being cut back. And the budget in CA is only 25% higher than it was four years ago. Funny thing, I don't see 25% more roads or government services. Oh!, it goes to the full pensions and medical plans in retirement that I won't be getting, but that my taxes get to fund for them.

Hugh~

You may be focusing on the wrong give away program here...
Deport all the illegal's, and we'd have a balance SURPLUS!

Patrick I agree 100%. I know you work for the state, and I have no problems with state workers. I just think the state is way too liberal in its pension benefits. Same for many of the counties and cities. In the civilian workforce "normal" retirement is at 62-65 y/o and pension is maybe 25-30% of your retiring salary. Most medical in civilian retirement has gone away.

In my line, we retire at about 90% with 20 years in. Unfortunately, the average C/O that puts in 20 plus years, dies within 2 years of retirement... Believe me, I have NO intention of putting in 20 years!!!

Pension obligations are not calculated in the budgeting of the state for purposes of compliance with Prop. 58. If it were, the State of CA would be bankrupt today.

TODAY.

This state is on borrowed time. It's only a matter of figuring out when the shennanigans will end and the Day of Reckoning will come (the day when the state's credit rating is so beaten up that nobody will be willing to buy bonds or otherwise underwrite the deficit spending that currently REALLY keeps this state "solvent" - at least on paper).

The longer the state puts this off, the bigger the implosion is going to be when it happens. Not "if". When.

If only life were that simple.

Have you looked at property / rental prices in LA and other places in the world like Sydney lately?

Oh, I can totally relate to insane housing prices. Believe me, this area is ground zero for one of the most idiotic and unsustainable run-ups in housing prices in history - in the last 5-7 years. The fallout from that is just starting to hit (separate topic I suppose).

The key is living below one's means. Which means we continue to rent. It's frustrating, but it beats being overextended...

Rent vs buy.

$400,000 at 6.5% over 30 yrs is $2,600/mo. Maybe $2,000/mo after tax deduct.

When a condo/townhouse/house equivalent to an $2,000/mo apartment gets to $400,000, and price stops going down, would make sense to buy. Depending on life situation of course.

if interest rates are not too bad buying is the way to go. Start with a small, cheapo condo or something to get your foot in the door, build equity a few years and unpgrade. Lived in some crappy cribs, and ate a lot of ramen noodles to do it at the start

It's simply not worth the trouble right now. *sigh* I've been over this 1,000 times and I don't want to hijack another thread, but here are the biggest reasons I see to keep renting right now:

1. Carrying costs are way too high relative to rental rates (either comparables or revenues, in the case of rental properties)
2. Asking prices are still way, way, way overvalued (still have to fall another 25-30% in most SoCal markets)
3. Overall prices still way too high relative to salaries/gross household income
4. Financing becoming too difficult to count on (some exceptions and tricks you can play here, but in general it's virtually impossible to get financing without bringing tons of cash to closing, which most people either (1) don't have or (2) would rather not do because there are better things one can do with it and higher ROIs to be realized elsewhere).
5. Tax benefits are overstated (federal tax credits get eaten up/offset by maintenance costs/HOA fees/PMI and/or local/state property taxes). At the end of the day, it's a loss or a wash at best.
6. More flexibility to move (trying to move requiring selling a house in this market virtually ensures taking an enormous loss)
7. This will be an "L" bottom, not a "V" bottom. As such, there's no hurry.
8. Best thing to do in a recession economy is pay down debt, not accumulate new debt.

I can probably list 100 more but let's get this thread back on track. It was originally about how the governator's efforts to try and balance the state budget by cutting spending have once again been thwarted by our "drunken sailor spending" legislature. How long do y'all think we REALLY have in CA before the state's bond rating goes to "junk" status? A couple of years? 5 years? Less?