And California's fiscal hole keeps getting deeper

"CALPERS Returns 1% For Fiscal Year".

An opposing view, "The True Story Of How California Came Back From The Brink And Started Kicking Ass Again". 

UPDATE: Steven Greenhut offers an opposing view to the opposing view: "California, Unsaved, Speeds Toward a Wall of Debt".

We'll see, won't we?

Comments

[Jack]

The positive spin story is a good one (kudos for lots of graphs), but misses the point. The story says: The economy in California has recovered. Fair enough. But it is not nearly enough of a rebound to help pay for unfunded liabilities.

Suppose I were to say, two years ago I had some debt, I lost my job, had to work at a fast-food joint for a year, piled on even more debt, but now I got a new, well-paying job again! Well, sure it's good news, but you've got enormous debt to pay off and the new job isn't nearly good enough to solve the problem.

Note: One of the graphs is misinterpreted. Housing prices are not booming, they simply are not falling as much as they used to be. (The y axis is percentage change, so it is incorrect to interpret a rising trend as rising home prices.)

[Ted Craig]

Not mentioned in the pro-Cali story is that housing prices have risen because the state let the market clear. Lots of people lost their homes, which was bad for them but good for the majority. Turns out markets work.

Also, I'd worry a little about the heavy dependence on tech. Zynga might be the canary in the coal mine there.