What they know just ain't so

To The Eagle:

Will Rogers pointed out that it isn't so much what you don't know that will hurt you but rather the things you're absolutely sure of that just ain't so. That's being aptly demonstrated in California, where the voters ignored the financial disaster alarm bells that alerted the rest of the country last November, voted in the four Ls (leftists, liberals, loonies and labor) with Governor Moonbeam at the helm. He's pledged to build 20,000 watts of green power, connect all the major cities with high speed rail, and hire thousands of green employees, all of which are highly placed entries in the contest for the world's worst ideas. All this is against a backdrop of unfunded public pension liabilities that are gonna cost California taxpayers something in the neighborhood of $500 billion in the next 10 years. They are the eighth largest economy in the world, teetering on the edge of financial Armageddon and keep voting for reckless spending.

Enigmatically, the average California taxpayer is smarter than the average voter and will leave the state, as thousands have already. That's fortunate for them but not for us, since it hastens the day California will appeal to the feds for a bailout, which we will end up paying for. And since their energy deficit is nearly as big as their monetary one, that will put an additional strain on us, since, despite our own problems, Washington is still the major regional power provider. So when California cracks loose from the mainland and sinks into its self-induced San Andreas fiscal fault, the Evergreen state is likely to be caught in the undertow.

Wahkiakum County however is quite secure. The county is obviously rolling in surplus cash. The county commissioners (except Blair Brady) were able to find $25,000 to launch the brave new EDC/Chamber combo on a vague quest for economic development and then voted another seven grand (except Blair again) for a courthouse cyber equivalent of a school hall monitor. And big timber revenues are undoubtedly a sure thing for the county. Looks as if the time is right for me to start pushing stock in my international airport on Puget Island (CIA-PIGS) But I won't bother Commissioner Brady with it. He obviously doesn't know a good deal when he sees it.

Howard Brawn

Puget Island