Actually, there is an end game here. When Califoria gets so broke they cannot fund Calpers, and so broke that no one will lend them money to fund Calpers, then they will stop paying retirements.

When the state can't pay retirements, I believe the entire mess will be turned over to the RTC, which will pay pensions only up to 50k per anum. Anyone with a California State pension above that amount will take a hair cut.

Then California can renegotiate pensions and benefits with current employees, this time, hopefully at a sustainable level.

However, with businesses and tax payers fleeing California in droves, there may be NO way to achieve a sustainable pension system, in which case, it will be rinse, and repeat.

I could, of course,be wrong, but that is how it has been explained to me.

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Agreements made wheerin people not able to vote, indeed people not even born, are resposnible for the payments are quite simple to break.

Refuse to pay taxes, or if you arent willing to go that far, write off everything you can, file for extentions and demand all your money come to rather than being paid to the governemnt peicemeal in every check. Earn interest on your money instead of letting the govenrmne learn interest on it

While we're at it everyone should try and get food stamps, and medicaid. Overload the system and destory it.

demand all your money come to rather than being paid to the governemnt peicemeal in every check. Earn interest on your money instead of letting the government earn interest on it

Unfortunately, you'll wind up paying more if you do this, as there's a penalty if your withholding is less than your tax due by more than a certain amount. I was unaware of this until it happened to me a few years ago.

Here's how I think this all ends: California comes to the federal government for a bailout. But the federal government can't borrow the money, and foreign holders of Treasury bonds threaten to call their loans if the Fed tries to bail out the Treasury by massively inflating the currency.

At that point, with the state facing riots and cessation of essential public services, Congress will be forced to suspend California's statehood and install a military government. All existing state government contracts will be nullified. Lockdowns, curfews, and rationing will be imposed in many areas. What happens after that depends on the foresightedness of California's leaders, and whoever Washington appoints at the state's governor. I'm not too hopeful on that score.

Nurses or NP's? That would be a perfectly normal salary for a well trained experienced NP running a clinic. Are you suggesting hourly employees not be paid overtime? Maybe it makes more sense to pay someone trained OT than hire in and train new. Maybe there is just no one to hire-nurses are understaffed almost everywhere.

Isab,

Taxpayers and businesses are not leaving Calif in droves if we can believe the population data from Dept of Finance

http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/view.php#objCollapsiblePanelEstimatesAnchor

Calif population has remained the same for the past couple years.

But you might be right about CalPers. They probably won't be able to reach the 8% growth in investments year after year like they expected.

$280k a year for a nurse practicioner? That seems a little outrageous - even with overtime. And then there's this guy:

Mohammad Safi, graduate of a medical school in Afghanistan, collected $822,302 last year, up from $90,682 when he started in 2006, the data show. Safi was placed on administrative leave in July and is under investigation by the Department of State Hospitals, formerly the Department of Mental Health.

But of course nobody would ever abuse overtime.

Well some states as a perk had it so teachers don't pay sales tax on either certain items or at all, so they could do the opposite, charge gov't employees double sales tax.

The FAA has been having similar problems with the Air Traffic Control Union. WHat they would do is person A would work his full time early in the week, and person B would call in sick or be on vacation, and C, D,E and F would be strangely unreachable, so A must work overtime. Next time B would be the one who did his time early and others would be unavailable. So hiring more people doesn't help if the workers arrange their schedules to make sure.

Overtime *is* a problem:

" The police and fire departments also manage to drive up their salaries, some of them almost DOUBLE, with overtime. It’s the classic repo-man grab – they say they need to write overtime into the budget, and the contracts guarantee officers a certain amount of overtime. They say overtime is cheaper than new hires. But then they turn around and bitch for new hires"

http://chicotaxpayers.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/we-need-to-dump-structural-overtime-and-ask-public-safety-employees-to-pay-more-of-their-own-health-and-pension-costs-so-we-can-hire-more-personnel/

@Jason

Replacing tax payers with tax takers, will have a cascade effect that will sink the economy.
Doesnt matter if the population remains the same if the ones left are in prison or on public assistance, which way too many of California's citizen's are...

http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_4_california.html

California is in a death spiral. It may not be the "only" but it is one of the ones with the worst problemm.

@Jason

Another article that demonstrates the problem.

http://floppingaces.net/most_wanted/exodus-california-tax-revenue-plunges-by-22/

Unfortunately, you'll wind up paying more if you do this, as there's a penalty if your withholding is less than your tax due by more than a certain amount. I was unaware of this until it happened to me a few years ago. -- Rex Little at December 13, 2012 11:52 AM

Well from what I can tell from a quick google the penalty for underwithholding is about $500. But just think if 200K or more people changed their W-4's to eight dependents. The persons getting the extra money diverted it into a checking account and paid it in on a quarterly basis.

The government couldn't do shit about it. Or even if they witholders just paid the $500 penalty. The loss of about $2M+ in (bi-)weekly income would screw the IRS and Fed Reserve in so many ways.

I'm seriously thinking about it.

Well, then (dons smug expression): Haven't I read here somewhere that the taxpayers need to pay attention to the agents paying out pensions - part of the salaries - of public workers?

Why, yes I have. And until the public realizes that they are the ones paying teacher's union dues, to cite one example from New Jersey, this sort of thing won't be fixed.

Isab,

Thanks for the links.

I was surprised to read Victor Davis Hanson's optimistic, almost sunny, descriptions of California toward the end of that piece. I don't read his work habitually, but I've come to expect his depressing bike rides around his family's farm and his descriptions of California's deteriorating rural society (which is happening).

I like this part:

But at its best, California still creates a ’49er bustle of self-invention that makes little allowance for class, titles, or hierarchy. As someone who established a classics program with mostly minority students at California State University’s Fresno campus, I can attest that real talent is often found unfettered by hierarchy. In a state with no majority culture, where it is almost impossible to determine a person’s income by race, dress, accent, or bearing, performance tends to trump reputation or appearance. The proverbial “millionaires and billionaires” whom I see drinking coffee on University Avenue in Palo Alto on Monday are dressed no differently from the loggers I talk with in the Huntington Lake bar in the Sierra on Friday. Some of the wealthiest farmers in the world are indistinguishable from their tractor drivers.

But, yeah, I have a feeling that the new tax revenue from Prop 30 won't be used very efficiently. (Gov Brown says that the revenue will be protected from "Sacramento politicians", which is hilarious.)

Here's more population data from Manhattan Institute: http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_71.htm#.UMupD-T7K8C

Since 1990, domestic migration to California has flipped to a deficit. In the last two decades, the state lost nearly 3.4 million residents through migration to other states. In other words, it lost about four-fifths of what it had gained through domestic migration in the previous 30 years. Foreign immigration filled the gap only partially. Inflows from overseas peaked at 291,191 in 2002 and sank to just 164,445 in 2011. Meanwhile, net domestic out-migration has averaged 225,000 a year over the past ten years.