California is a one-party Democrat state with an incredibly wealthy tech sector and, through Hollywood, control over the American psyche. For a while, thanks to that tech money and Hollywood’s continuing (albeit diminishing) popularity, it looked as if California could sustain its mad spending, drug policies, pro-criminal policies, and generally huge government without imploding. Several recent reports, however, indicate that the implosion is coming fast.
To begin with, the state has gone from a $100 billion budget surplus last year to a probable $25 billion budget deficit this year. The accepted wisdom is that this is the first indication of a coming recession (never mind that we long ago entered a recession), but that’s not the whole story.
California’s draconian COVID policies ravaged large parts of its business sector. By the end of 2020, California’s economy was “fast losing momentum,” with over 300,000 people giving up on jobs. This was at the height of pandemic madness, but California never let up on those policies. Since COVID began, 53 companies with over 100 employees have left California, the majority of them heading to the Southeast (Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida, along with a handful of other states)…
