Mark;

Your comments are well taken. A report two weeks ago stated the three highest rents paid in the United States for a residence were in the following California cities:

1. Sunnyvale

2. Santa Clara (next to Sunnyvale)

3. Fremont

We lived in Santa Clara, moved to Sunnyvale and I work in Fremont. Such is the luck of the Irish!


An interesting thing about your comment “No government can tax its people into prosperity” is that there seems to be one exception – our federal government! When all else fails “increase the national debt”! The states do not have the luxury of printing their own “funny money”. Historically, the federal government has taken that measure whenever it needs more money. Not to worry – those are just a lot of zero’s at the end of the number that indicates our national debt. Zero is the lack of a value so we are not as bad off nationally as one might think. Ask Dr. Greenspan - he is full of zeros! :)

I remember early during the year 2000, when our economy still looked good. The federal and many state governments were actually projecting tax income based upon straight-line projections and expected revenues to continue through the year 2050 as they looked at that time. Monies were earmarked for projects extending years in the future and the commitment was made to begin many projects. In California we began several large projects, which have federal matching funds.

If our state government reacted like a business and ran into serious financial difficulty then they would cancel projects, dissolve departments, layoff huge numbers of people and become fiscally responsible. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. I have heard the statement from Sacramento that, “We cannot stop funding because of existing laws”! Well, change the laws and become fiscally responsible!

Our two party system as of the last 10 years at the state and federal level seems more interested in pointing fingers at each other rather than solving issues. An election year is coming up. Time for the politicians to plead for our loyalty and our votes to keep them in office. As soon as the election is over they will forget the people and get back to finger pointing.

In California it looks like we may have a recall election. We just voted for Davis 7 months ago and the Republicans want him out. Should we keep one jerk with known "qualities" in office or vote for an unknown jerk to run the state? My oh my - such a choice. :)

Tom

>Looks like the sources of your problems seem to converge in Sacramento. No government can tax its people into prosperity. Do you know what the numbers look like if you throw out the stats from counties in and around SF and LA? Seems to me SF and parts of LA would really skew costs of living. Even more so than the most expensive areas in Texas in relation to anywhere else in the State.
>
>>Since January 2001 192,000 IT jobs and 283,200 manufacturing jobs have been lost in this state. The manufacturing figure represents a 16% loss in our industrial workforce. What follows concerns the manufacturing sector.
>>
>>A recent Milken Institute study defined the following costs of manufacturing in California:
>>
>>1. Basic cost is 32% above the national average.
>>2. Electricity costs 94 % more.
>>3. Taxes are 34% higher.
>>4. Wages are 16% higher.