Jeff Baxendale

…union membership shrinks. By 2000, union leaders and their allies had gone to war against charters. They claim that charters are a product of “corporate reformers,” a right-wing effort to “privatize” our public schools. These accusations are nonsense. More accurately, they are lies born of self-interest, designed to protect the jobs of mostly white, middle-class teachers and union officials at the expense of mostly poor, minority kids.

Californians will end up like the landed gentry in interwar England. Lovely houses, illustrious history, and no conceivable way to pay their bills.

Over the long term, California’s future looks like New York excluding New York City, albeit with nicer weather. There will be big companies that slowly decline, the tax base will deplete, and politicians will have to find ways to raise taxes on the remaining citizens while getting them to tolerate the same or diminished levels of government services.[4] Eventually, this will reduce the price of housing, but not in a way that revitalizes startups. I…