via just say “yes!” legalizing drugs is good for society … and the economy harvard prof. says: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance.

via Schwarzenegger, Whitman and Brown: Three peas in a pod – latimes.com.

There’s some rather flawed logic in this – Schwarzenegger came in saying stuff that any rational person should have known was not going to work. from “blowing up the boxes” to not needing special interest money Arnold was in over his head.

In more than 30 years of public service, other than name calling Jerry brown has demonstrated being a man of principle.

Whitman has had to give back ill-gotten gains, outsourced teh ebay workforce and didn’t bother to vote until a few years ago.

With Brown we have a leader that knows how to work the system. with whitman we will get an unknown who has consistently demonstrated that private money can buy access.

Arnold’s inability to get anything done will look a huge series of accomplishments compared to the gridlock Whitman will create.

With Brown, we should get investments in green technology, education and a reduction in our police state. With California on the brink of termination, what will it be Californians – more of the same failed terminator policies or a chance at rebuilding our state with Jerry brown/

City Council members, meanwhile, failed to oversee Rizzo’s actions and instead collected more than $1.2 million in pay since 2006 for presiding over city agency meetings that never occurred, Cooley said. Rizzo’s attorney, James Spertus, did not return calls seeking comment but in the past denied wrongdoing by his client, saying that the investigations were motivated in part by politics. Cooley is running as the Republican nominee for California attorney general.

via ‘Calculated greed’ at heart of Bell criminal case, D.A. says | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times.

Stock prices of for-profit colleges plummeted and calls for stronger government regulations mounted as investors and consumer advocate groups alike reacted Monday to an Education Department report that showed nearly two-thirds of the schools’ students weren’t repaying their federal loans.

The government data, released after the market closed Friday, focused on the 2009 loan repayment rates for more than 8,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. Such rates are used to gauge the potential effect of the department’s proposed “gainful employment” rules, which would cut off federal aid to programs in which less than 45% of students are able to repay their loans.

From the LA Times – http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-for-profit-colleges-20100816,0,2092662.story

And according to an analysis by the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. has one of the most unequal income distributions in the world. In this field, most of the developed world is pretty much in line — Japan, Italy, Australia, Canada, Norway, Great Britain. Some are more unequal than others, but all are comparable. In each case, of course, the rich make more than the middle class, sometimes a lot more. But they generally occupy the same economy.The U.S.? Our income distribution is more in line with Zimbabwe, Argentina, and El Salvador. We think of Russia as the land of oligarchs, but America’s inequality is actually slightly greater than Russia’s.

via how-the-rich-are-winning: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance.

Statistics demonstrate that the middle class is being eliminated at a faster pace that at any time in our history. There are a number of reasosn as to why this is happening – which are skillfully enunciated in the following article.What’s missing is any remedy to the situation.

Imagine where we would be now had Ronnie Raygun left the solar panels up that Jimmy Carter put n the White House. Had Arnold actually shown some forethought and invested in solar – on every school and governement office in the state, our solar and other alternative energy programs would be light years ahead of where we are now.

And this is just another set of statistics that help document how Arnold destroyed California.

Giant Sucking Sound

The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more plus benefits to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new “global” labor pool.

via the u.s. middle class is being wiped out here’s the stats to prove it: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance.

This story form the AP points out that part of the Enron convictions’ is based on a misinterpretation of “the rules.” While it offers Skilling a chance at get his convictions overturned, the story makes it sound like the convictions will stand.

Skilling was convicted in 2006 on 19 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading and lying to auditors for his role in the downfall of the once-mighty Houston-based energy giant. The company collapsed into bankruptcy in 2001 under the weight of years of illicit business deals and accounting tricks. Skilling is serving a sentence of more than 24 years at a minimum security prison outside Denver.

via High court sides with ex-Enron CEO Skilling – Yahoo! Finance.

“Why do, basically, people with money have good health care and why do people who live on lower salaries not have good health care?” she said. “Health should be a right for everyone.” She is president of the Global Health Corps, an organization that champions global health equity.

via Bush women run afoul of GOP orthodoxy – Yahoo! News.

via Politics: Poizner, trailing in polls, slams Whitman’s ‘obscene’ spending – latimes.com.

Which of the plans Whitman or Poizner have outlined have any chance of success in leading California out of the current financial mess? What will be the focus of her “new jobs” programs? Even Arnold was unable to cut state spending – how will Whitman find programs she can cut? What will her solution be to failing schools?

While you can’t find specifics on any of these programs on her website. you can bet that many of these answers will be more of the same. There is enough evidence that she believes in “quid pro quo” (Goldman Sachs benefits) that we should not expect her to change “business as usual.”

While it’s easy to point the finger at teachers and the school system, without help for housing, medical care and food, as well as other problems in “failing” schools districts, some families and students will continue to struggle to keep their kids progressing in school.

And how much of California’s infrastructure can she outsource to India – one of EBay’s strategies to compete in the on-line auction marketplace. How many Californians are going to call 911 and be happy transferred to a call center in India? Her experience in the corporate world – while enviable – will be as much help as Arnold’s successful career as an action hero in “breaking the boxes.”

According to statistics, less than 3% of all Americans make more than $250,000 in adjusted gross income. People making less than that – those that rely on social services – should find a Whitman or Poizner governorship against their best interest, but for some reason, many will continue to vote for simple, easy to understand one-liners – even when it is against their own best interest.

With the primary a week away, I’m hoping that my fellow Californians will stand up and say “My vote is not for sale.” Let’s see what happens.

via PG&E defends backing Proposition 16 – latimes.com.

If PG&E, SCE and Sempra want to take spend millions on this, there must be something bad in it for the people of California. Making it tougher for local governments to invest in renewable energy seems like a bad move – based on our experience with electricity rates here in California (Enron, FERC and the Sempra lobbyist scandal), you would have to be on their payroll to vote for Proposition 16.