The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: SSG Snuggle Bunny on January 04, 2017, 05:20:24 AM
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Just like the much-predicted failure of ObumbleCare was the GOP's fault...
agincourt (1,791 posts)
Will the GOP try to sabotage the California economy?
I remember when Bush/Cheney got in in 2001, that Texas based power companies gouged California bad on electricity rates, it was flagrant market manipulation. People were getting outlandish bills and it added to the budget shortfall of the golden state. I think it had some role to in the Gray Davis recall. My question to fellow DUers is what the GOP might pull now to hit California? I'm sure they're going to target Jerry Brown just like they did Gray Davis. I don't think there would be any recall, but I'm sure the GOP would love to hit Jerry Brown if they can
Bradical79 (2,291 posts)
1. I'd be shocked if they didn't
Enron was deliberately creating blackouts in California and got Arnold Schwartzneger elected. And the amount of hatred for California from their base make it an easy target. They know it can be done, and their deplorable supporters will gladly look the other way.
mopinko (47,072 posts)
3. i have thought often about the parallels to that recall election.
a flood of idiots and bimbos on the ticket made gropenator stand out, just the way it happened in the thug primaries this year.
the whole thing stunk to high heavens, but nobody ever asked the right questions.
kimbutgar (4,104 posts)
2. Then I hope the local media reminds everyone what happened in 2001
We have to think up the devious things they might do and be prepared to counterattack. Something tells me though Jerry Brown anticipates this.
Auggie (22,278 posts)
4. I think they could try by cutting Federal appropriations ...
and blame any ensuing budget crisis on Brown and the Senate/Assembly supermajority. That's the target -- or should be, IMO -- the supermajority. Brown will be termed-out in 2018.
Hekate (40,141 posts)
6. California's a "donor state", that is, we give more in federal taxes than we get back....
So, cutting what we get back would hurt, but not be fatal.
Unless, that is, we have a natural disaster (for instance) on a scale where we actually need federal help. At that point, one would really hope FEMA is still a viable organization and has not returned to the wreck Dubya made of it.
Actual sabotage, like what Enron did to us, shit I just do not know.
McCamy Taylor (16,492 posts)
7. Summary: Enron price gouged California with the aid of the Bush administration
including Nora Brownell, Karl Rove's pick for the position of head of the FERC. Thomas White is said to have bragged that Enron's plan to stay solvent involved "California". They would stage phony brownouts and inflate the price of energy. A federal judge shut down the price gouging operation in Summer of 2001, which precipitated Enron's massive financial crisis. However, Ken Lay did not give up. Enron turned to the Taliban to broker a deal to save their asses. When the deal fell through, the Bush administration promised to rain bombs down on Afghanistan---a promise they were able to keep after 9-11. Also in the wake of 9-11, the Bush administration asked Congress for a huge infusion of cash into a few companies as "economic stimulus." Enron was one of those companies. The House readily agreed tp give a bundle of money to Enron but the Democratic controlled Senate said "**** you, Enron" at which point Enron collapsed like the house of cards it was.
But that was not the end of Enron. First, the administration had to distract from the investigation into the price gouging. They did that by pushing up the invasion of Iraq so that it happened the exact same week the report detailing the administration's involvement in the price gouging. Was scheduled to be released. As a result, the story was buried by the press. And, since Rove had handed control of the Senate to the GOP using e-fraud and war mongering, there was no more federal investigation.
However, the state of California under Davis was launching a massive civil suit against Enron that would have exposed the Bush administration. So, they engineered the recall of Davis and installed Arnold with a mandate to shut down the Enron civil suit.
And that, in a nutshell, is Enron--the crappy company that directly caused 9-11 and two foreign wars.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028401611
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Note to lurking Proglodytes: It ain't us...
El Monte’s retirement costs totaled $16.5 million this year. That’s equal to 28% of the city’s general fund. Among California’s 10 largest cities, only San Jose paid as much toward retirement costs relative to its general fund. Los Angeles spends 20% of its general fund on retirement costs.
El Monte’s outsize pension bill weighs heavily on the San Gabriel Valley city of 116,000, where half the residents were born outside the United States and a quarter live below the poverty line.
The idea for the supplemental plan arose in 2000, after the city council granted El Monte police officers the right to retire with up to 90% of their highest salary guaranteed for life.
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-el-monte-pensions/#nt=oft12aH-1gp2
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I did hear something about cutting federal money to sanctuary cities (those that make their own laws).
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California is doing ok with failing on its own.
Is California in debt?
California leads the pack with $778 billion in state debt, mostly as a result of the state's $584 billion unfunded public pension liability. New York ($388 billion), Texas ($341 billion), Illinois ($321 billion), and Ohio ($321 billion) round out the top 5 states with the largest amounts of state debt.
The bold part is the main reason the state is in such bad shape (other than being run by lefties for the longest time).
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Well, if they think Texas skinned them on energy charges, they could always build more generating facilities on their own turf...
:evillaugh:
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agincourt (1,791 posts)
Will the GOP try to sabotage the California economy?
I remember (1) when Bush/Cheney got in in 2001, that (2) Texas based power companies gouged California bad on electricity rates, it was flagrant market manipulation. People were getting outlandish bills and (3) it added to the budget shortfall of the golden state. (4) I think it had some role to in the Gray Davis recall. My question to fellow DUers is (5) what the GOP might pull now to hit California? I'm sure they're going to target Jerry Brown just like they did Gray Davis. I don't think there would be any recall, but I'm sure the GOP would love to hit Jerry Brown if they can
(1) GWB came into office in January, 2001. Enron went bankrupt in December, 2001, and had ceased operations months earlier. IOW the attempt to link CA electricity prices, Enron, and the Bush Presidency is an anachronistic fail.
(2) I've got an idea! Let's place the blame for CA's high electricity rates on the root cause, CAs' failure in the late 1970s and beyond to expand electricity and and transmission capacity!a failure that started with - you knew this was coming - Jerry Brown's first gubernatorial regime.
(3) What in Hades is (s)he talking about! CA's budget deficits - and accounting flummery to conceal it - have been vastly larger than the State of Californias' electricity bills. Now, the 2000-2002 bursting of the DotBomb bubble, that was relevant to CA's budget issues. Also CA's twin bad habits - habits yet unbroken, BTW - of spending money it didn't have and starting ongoing programs using one-time money.
(4) That is correct, as far as it goes. Governor Brown's anti-growth policies of the 1970s were never reversed - even when Deukmejian and Wilson were Governor the Ds controlled the legislature. So, that CA was in a position of needing to buy power out of state traces back to CA Ds, Jerry Brown especially. Further - "agincourt" failed to mention this, possibly due to ignorance - contracting purchases of power was under the control of Governor Davis. Rather than purchase a long-term need/commodity on long-term contracts, Davis chose to buy CA power on the "spot market", whatever the market price happened to be at the moment of purchase. A very stupid move paid for with CA rate-payers' money, in the midst of an bad recession!
(5) "agincourt" here reveals his/her abject ignorance of CA's political and economic situation. First, Jerry Brown will be leaving the Governors' office in 2018. That's the end of his present term in office, and he is out, due to CA's term-limit law. The Rs wouldn't spend the $$, even if they had it, to kick Jerry Brown out of office 12 or 18 months early. Second, CA political reality is that the Ds own CA, a veto-proof majority in both houses of the legislature. That means that even if Brown faced a Recall election, he'd win, easily; the Rs know this very well. Third, CA's legislature, Envirocrats, and regulocrats are driving businesses out of CA. Tech has been slow to start moving engineering, marketing/sales, and management out of CA, but I think even that is starting to happen. Once a tech exodus gets underway, tech will no longer mask the prior exodus of so many other businesses. IOW, the GOP - whether at the state or Federal level - could scarcely do more harm to CA than CA's legislature, Envirocrats, and regulocrats have been doing for decades.
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Will the GOP try to sabotage the California economy?
Do we have to? Isn't it already circling the drain?
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I thought they were going to leave the Union and join Trudeau up in Canada?
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So the takeaway I got from that thread is that California citizens vote against their own best interests. :popcorn:
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So the takeaway I got from that thread is that most California citizens vote against their own best interests. :popcorn:
Fixed it to correct for the few of us conservatives who still live here...
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agincourt (1,791 posts)
Will the GOP try to sabotage the California economy?
I remember when Bush/Cheney got in in 2001, that Texas based power companies gouged California bad on electricity rates, it was flagrant market manipulation. People were getting outlandish bills and it added to the budget shortfall of the golden state.
BS. If anything, those outlandish bills added money to the state's coffers. Most states have taxes on electricity bills.
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Fixed it to correct for the few of us conservatives who still live here...
Thanks it is painful to be here but it is where my long term investments are.
In the last two weeks I received something that has never happened in my decades of living here. I got notices to cut down on my natural gas usage. I've gotten lots of third world notices about rolling blackouts and brownouts. Happens several times every year. But never had i got a notice to cut down on natgas usage. Leftism can even take down a more than first world state in just a couple of decades. The super majorities here in Sacto will hasten the decent into the third world. We legislate it and we import it.
I do have one hope. Trump has a chance to make the 9th Circus court sane. That could make lots of silly laws go bye bye.
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There is no natural gas shortage in CA. At all.
And since we use our heater just a few hours a day, with thermostats set to 66, any PUC idiot who tried to call our home would get an earful.
Hope you like rain, jukin, wet weekend ahead.
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I never thought of stupidity as a skill that could be cultivated until I started observing the (D)Ummies.
Part of me still doesn't believe it, but that part grows smaller by the day.
CMD