“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-a, wipeout.”
—The Surfaris
Maybe we just had it too great out here in California. Perfect weather. World-class universities. High-paying middle-class jobs. Reasonably priced housing. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. The Beach Boys. California girls. Hollywood. Disneyland.
Now the state is crumbling fast into the ocean. Still can’t beat the weather—until unemployment forces you to move to South Dakota. Home ownership, even after the recent crash, has long been out of reach for most middle-class families. A middle-class incomes starts at $100,000. Apple computers are stamped with “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.” Movie production increasingly shifts to Vancouver, Louisiana, and even Michigan. Disneyland promotes “Gay Days.”
After more than four decades of policy disasters at all levels of government, California was struck in 2008 by a “perfect tsunami” of policy and social disasters from which it will take a long time to recover, if it ever does.
What follows is a summary of some of the disasters that have built up over time and now are swamping California.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 allowed virtually open borders. ...