California Dreaming

www.armstrongeconomics.com

REPLY:

Yes. California is a complete black hole. The people do not even realize that government has been so corrupt, that every person in California owe $93,000 at the end of 2016 to cover state employee pensions. Back in 2015, Calpers, the State Pension system, sold out stocks and bought bonds because they thought the stock market would crash. They have been quietly supporting efforts in Congress to seize 401K pension plans and hand them to the States to manage. Their top two corrupt politicians would have had this through if Hillary won.

It would be a win-win for the rest of the country if California seceded and took its two leading politicians with them. Of course, I doubt these two notorious politicians would vote to leave. It would be like the Clinton Foundation having to close shop because Hillary lost her influence to peddle.

Nancy Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, representing California’s 12th congressional district. Pelosi made a fortune trading initial public offerings (IPOs) while she had access to insider information from Congress. Yet she would never allow Social Security to invest for the average person. Pelosi has confirmed how Democrats really do dislike Christians. She recently said: “They pray in church on Sunday and then prey on people the rest of the week.”  The Podesta emails that revealed the Democrats disliked Catholics and Evangelical Christians, seem to be on point about their attitude: Hillary’s staff said Catholics are “severely backwards” and further demeaned them saying they don’t know “what the hell they’re talking about.”

Then there is Dianne Feinstein. Of course it was Feinstein who supported the NSA and called Snowden a Traitor. Her Op-Ed justified taking everyone’s emails, phone calls etc claiming 911 would not have taken place if the NSA had full power to do whatever it desired – and did. Our models were showing California would move to secede back then and they too see to be on target. Even Zuckerberg of Facebook said he had personally called President Obama to voice his outrage at the NSA spying and Feinstein’s insane support of activity that everyone has come to see as standard. He said on his own Facebook Page:

“When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we’re protecting you against criminals, not our own government.” 

Then Feinstein’s husband won the contract to sell Post Office Department real estate. Of course they cover that up claiming Blum Capital Partners, L.P (Richard Blum, Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband), won the bid against 7 other competitors. They have never released proof of the bidding. Even the appearance of impropriety is reason to recuse a judge whenever it may be “reasonable be questioned.” It goes even further: Blum and Feinstein both knew that this transaction has the appearance of corruption and a Federal Judge would be compelled to recuse themselves from such a case if “his spouse or minor child residing in his household, has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”

To all my friends in California – it’s time to leave. Florida has good weather and no state income tax. It is the number one state in economic growth and job creation most of the time with over 3% and Orlando, even back in 2014, was the top city in the USA for job growth coming in at 3.7%. California is on target for going BUST in 2021. It already has the HIGHEST taxes in the USA and Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration miscalculated costs for the state Medi-Cal program, which is their excuse, by $1.9 billion last year. This is just a oversight that contributed to Brown’s projection of a deficit in the upcoming budget. However, Medi-Cal covers illegal immigrants. There is NO REQUIREMENT whatsoever to have a citizenship OR a resident status paying taxes. Hello! Yes call Trump a racist and secede because you want to cover everyone even if they do not pay taxes on the cash they earn. No wonder they do not want a wall. All of Mexico can go to California for free healthcare unlimited.

Only a handful of states, including California, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and Vermont, currently tax ALL retirement income and don’t provide any general income exclusion for seniors.

Worse still, California taxes people who retire and move to other states. So it may be best to get out before it is TOO LATE! Under federal law, states are now clearly prohibited from taxing certain retirement income unless you’re a resident of, or domiciled in, that state. California was attempting to tax people in other states claiming they earned their pension in California. The federal law applies to all qualified plans (for example, 401(k), profit-sharing, and defined benefit plans), IRAs, 403(b) plans, 457(b) plans, and governmental plans. So if you sell your home and get out and domicile in a state that does not tax pensions, you are OK on this level. However, the law provides only limited protection for other (nonqualified) deferred compensation plan benefits. This is called “top-hat” plan benefits that are paid over an employee’s lifetime, or over a period of at least 10 years. Stock options, stock appreciation rights (SARs), and restricted stock are not meaning California is completely free to tax these benefits even after you relocate.

How much longer can this California Dreaming continue? Our computer says 2021. It’s time to leave before they impose an exit tax.