Word: booms
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...state with a white-majority electorate. There are real differences between (crunchy, techy) Northern and (hipster, surfer) Southern California, and especially (richer, denser, bluer) coastal and (poorer, sparser, redder) inland California. But one generalization has held true from the Gold Rush to the human-potential movement to the dotcom boom: California stands for change, for disruption of the status quo. "California is not another American state," concluded Carey McWilliams in his 1949 history California: The Great Exception. "It is a revolution within the states...
...have launched an aggressive clean-energy initiative.) "Inventing a better gadget isn't enough anymore. We're trying to reshape the way people live," says SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive, a South African who went to California for the world underwater-hockey championships, got caught up in the Internet boom and never left. He built and sold an IT-support company; now he's reshaping its software to monitor solar panels...
...well as the notorious Proposition 13, which has severely restricted local property taxes since 1978. California is also one of only three states that need a two-thirds supermajority to pass a budget or raise taxes, a virtual impossibility in its ultra-partisan legislature. So it relies on a boom-and-bust tax base that even many liberals admit is overreliant on the rich. The state's economy actually grew last year, but its revenues crashed because its top earners had lower incomes and capital gains. That meant sharp cutbacks, especially in education, which in California is unusually dependent...
...neutral. On Thursday, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index dropped by 0.5% and the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.6% on concerns that China would begin to tighten monetary policy in response to fears of expanding bubbles in real estate and financial markets. (See pictures of China's infrastructure boom...
...China has subsidized purchases for some goods including small passenger cars and household appliances, which has led to a boom in spending in certain sectors. Passenger vehicle sales climbed 84% last month, and China is expected to surpass the U.S. as the largest car market this year. Consumers have also bought hundreds of thousands of refrigerators, washing machines and other appliances under a government promotion this year. (See pictures of the best-selling cars in China...