Hi Tom-

As you know, The Abyss is fond of popular music. And so I was going to lead off this post with a little Phantom Planet (ok, so The Abyss is fond of kinda-popular music) when I was stopped in my tracks by the audio upload policy of the Tumblr kids. Even a giant pulsating mass of negative energy which is fed by the greed, savagery and pestilence of Wall Street and .gov minions doesn’t want to create any trouble for the blogospherians who make Tumblr possible, so please just hum “California” as you read.

Moody’s Stuns California With Debt Warning

“California, struggling to close a $24.3 billion budget gap, faces the prospect of a ‘multi-notch’ downgrade in its credit rating if the state’s legislature fails to act quickly to produce a budget, Moody’s Investors Service warned on Friday.” http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1944927320090619

Is it really all that stunning that California’s debt has fallen below investment grade, given that the Governator bonded out the state’s assets within months of taking office, instantly turning the once-Golden State into a Banana Republic on the order of Woody Allen’s fictional San Marcos in the aptly titled “Bananas”? (The Abyss suggests, “Rent it today!” Did I say that right Mr. MPAA?)

Calling the shortfall a “$24.3 billion budget gap” is probably under-reporting by half and ignores the math that dictates that the deficit compounds by about $2 billion every month—but at this stage, what’s the point in counting? And now the most pumped state leader since Governor Moonbeam (Tom, that’s a reference having to do with Jerry Brown pumping your beloved Linda Ronstadt at a time when that was considered something positive) is promising to free 19,000 inmates and eliminate welfare. So that means Cali (as those who don’t live there sometimes refer to it) will be the first to test the .gov’s resolve over what to do when a state goes hillbilly apeshit and roving bands of plastic surgery-altered reality TV stars and semi-professional models rampage crumbling strip malls to quench their unslakable thirst for wheat grass, designer enemas and major agency representation. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1904936,00.html?imw=Y

Zerohedge.com’s Tyler Durden said it best, by observing: “(I)nstead of confronting the problem head on and possibly finding (a) way to resolve the state funding crisis before it is too late, the administration, day in and day out, keeps its head in the sand, pretending that things are getting better when in fact the economy is collapsing. In three months, when California “pays” all its vendors with IOUs and state refunds are indefinitely delayed into the next decade, any mention of ‘green shoots’ (will) just come from Dick Bove, who will likely issue a Strong Buy rating on Sacramento despite “horrific” mass hysteria and bands of roving Mad Max copycats coasting along I-5 at 120 mph in nitrous-retrofitted China-made Hummers.” http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/california-to-get-multi-notch-downgrade.html

See you in Cali real soon, Tom. It’s gonna be a party.


The Abyss