Hotel California is bankrupt

More to add about California failing:

What went so wrong? The answer lies in a change in the nature of progressive politics in California. During the second half of the twentieth century, the state shifted from an older progressivism, which emphasized infrastructure investment and business growth, to a newer version, which views the private sector much the way the Huns viewed a city—as something to be sacked and plundered.

Joel Kotkin does not mince words here, does he!
And the state of the state now?

Between 2004 and 2007, 500,000 more Americans left California than arrived; in 2008, the net outflow reached 135,000, much of it to the very “dust bowl” states, like Oklahoma and Texas, from which many Californians trace their origins. California now has a lower percentage of people who moved there within the last year than any state except Michigan. Even immigration from abroad seems to be waning: a recent University of Southern California study shows the percentage of Californians who are foreign-born declining for the first time in half a century. For the first time in its history as a state, as political analyst Michael Barone has noted, California is not on track to gain a new congressional district after the 2010 census.

I am more in agreement than otherwise with Kotkin pointing the fingers at public employees and their unions gone amok; environmentalists gone amok; and would add one more to it: Republicans gone amok.  It seems like social conservatism is the one and only litmus test for Republicans running for office, which has eliminated any possibility of moderate and intelligent Republicans ever winning one, even if such a candidate could gain the plurality of all voters.  (Recent example: Meg Whitman, the Republican nominee for California's governor race has already stated her opposition to the Prop 8 verdict!)  Well, I could repeat the same lines for Oregon too.

What California needs is a healthy dose of Libertarian-Democrat politics.  This would combine the best of the Earl Warren and Pat Brown policies with the Reagan approach to a focus on budget (in California--not when he was in the White House).  Or, let us see, California needs its own Tory-LibDem government.

Speaking of LibDem here in America, yesterday I came across this site devoted to Libertarian Democrat perspectives.