• by Mark Sommer
• Tuesday, July 21, 2009
• Inter Press Service

The California dream has turned to nightmare. On July 1, facing a USD 24 billion budget shortfall, the state began issuing thousands of contractors IOUs that major banks warned they wouldn't honour, writes Mark Sommer, host of the award-winning, internationally- syndicated radio programme, A World of Possibilities.

this article, Sommer writes that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has presided over the end of the state's fiscal viability, but the origins of the calamity are more deeply rooted: hyper-individualism, self-indulgence, and the dreamer's contempt for everyday realities and responsibilities have produced a political system of epic paralysis.

Some observers say an increasingly under-educated populace, disincentives for business development, and decaying public infrastructure and services will drive away the kinds of catalytic initiatives that have traditionally made the state a field of dreams. Will the state -and state of mind- that gave us Google, iPhones, and the modern environmental movement finally grow up and dispense with childish things?

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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