the Tax and spenders are now reaping what they sow ($120K+ a year cops BEFORE overtime, you gotta be high ) Even Wal-Mart moved out. I guess there is a limit to how much you can charge for property taxes and still keep businesses from leaving. To all those that think its a privilege to own a business better take a closer look. Its a privilege for a city to have a business open and stay. I think we are going to see a lot more govt bodies that couldn't manage their finances at the end of the rope and soon. After all it didn't take a financial guru to figure out if your spending every last penny you can get in the good times what your balance sheet is going to look like when the market turns down.
There is a sense here in socal that the state is unmanageable and ungovernable. Even freakin Arnold couldn't do shit. He is going to have us borrow from "future lottery earnings". Flakiest shit I ever heard of. Yep, more towns here are going under. Some of them have bonds out there.
Bond failures are only going to make things worse...and bad investments. There have been many places over time that have been threatened with going bankrupt but have "averted" such...probably through more borrowing. If not Chapter 9, receivership at the bare least...but good luck letting the state run it. This stuff has dire consequences and will affect any city or municipality for many years to come...if not in some of the smaller places that have filed, they disband entirely.
This is a little-appreciated problem that affects not only California but much of the northeast. The cause and effect train began when traditional policies that barred union membership for government employees were overturned. Unionized public employees, from teachers to firefighters to police to garbagemen et al, became the dominant force in many local elections. Politicians catered to them with lavish benefits packages. After all, everyone knows they are "underpaid," notwithstanding the fact these jobs are very tough to snag in most areas. DEcades later, we enter the chickens-come-home-to-roost era, when those lavish retirement packages have to be paid off. Surprise, people don't want to pay another mortgage in the form of local property taxes. They move to NC or Nevada, not that those areas will be immune either.
there's no money left in the state pension funds either. all that money is "invested" with hedge funds and private equity firms. the states will never get that money back when they need it.