California: We are fucked

[purplkat]

God, I'm feeling chatty, lately.

Really, I kinda need to vent. I realized that after I spent god knows how long practically yelling on the phone to nickel -- not because I was remotely mad at him, but because I was mad at my state, and my state government, over the budget fiasco. Specifically, I'm mad about what they're cutting. And you should be,

Comments

[miintikwa]

As goes California, so goes the rest of the country, too. We're next.

[purplkat]

I'm hoping that in this case, it won't carry over. The US government doesn't have anything as hobbling as prop 13 or the initiative system (something else that's royally fucked in CA) to screw them up quite so bad.

I do think that when things go to hell with China, and they're going to sooner than we want to think, we are going to be in for a world of hurt, though.

[akumadaimyo]

I think we might be speaking Chinese or some other langauage if people keep fucking everything up.

[weaselofjustice]

I'm not sure that things are going to hell with China. It definitely has its problems, but I don't see its society or economy as unsustainable. The only thing that worries me is the possibility of them no longer buying US debt or loosening up their exchange rates. This would hurt the rest of the world (especially us), and hurt them a little bit, but the world can deal with it.

What makes you think it's boogered?

[purplkat]

What I'm worried about is that China have the perception that they have a considerable amount of power over us because they're the ones financing our government spending -- which is a pretty good assessment of the situation, really. They're starting to show signs of using that power including, recently, flaunting a weapon designed to destroy aircraft carriers. They know they can do this because seriously, what are we going to do?

So I'm worried that China is going to push it too far and that we're going to have a dual (triple?) problem of whatever happens to push it too far, plus the retaliation, plus China no longer buying our debt.

As a country, we have a similar problem to the California problem -- we want all of these lovely things that government gives us, but we think that the government conjures them for free, and we're outraged at the thought of having to pay for them.