Word: californiaisms
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...California is the poster child for dysfunctional state finance. A week past the legal deadline for passing a budget, the state has yet to close a $26 billion hole. State workers are - yet again - being told to stay home. The National Park Service is threatening to take back parks it gave to California should the state try to save money by closing them. Taxpayers are getting IOUs in the mail instead of refund checks since there's no cash to pay them what they're owed. You can now buy the IOUs on eBay...
...California's crazy budget laws make it an extreme case, but that doesn't mean it's alone in financial duress - there are plenty of other states in serious hot water. (See how Americans are spending...
...costs that, much as society may value them, eventually weigh on states' financial health. In New York, unfunded state pension liabilities average $2,633 per person. Massachusetts' tab is even larger, at $3,372 per capita, although that's nothing compared to New Jersey's $9,833. By comparison, California seems in something of a sweet spot, at $1,325. Still, that's hefty compared to Florida...
...have passed budgets for this year," says John Miller, chief investment officer of Nuveen Asset Management, which runs, among other things, municipal-bond funds. "Those are areas where obligations are probably growing faster than their revenues." That spend-now-pay-later attitude eventually catches up with a state. Ask California. (Read "Can the U.S. Afford to Let California Fail...
...disproportionate number of people who suddenly stop making payments and never try to catch up. This, they surmise, might be an indication of walk-aways - as opposed to struggling borrowers desperately trying to stay in their homes, making payments when they can. The states with more sudden stops are California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona - places where property prices have plummeted and more than 30% of homeowners are underwater. "That's consistent with the idea that there should be more walk-aways in those states," says Foote. "But outside of those states, I would think that walk-aways are more rare...