That's what the talk show host I'm listening to now suggested will occur some years down the road.
He said something about the projected revenue for either the last month or last quarter being $1.3 billion less than expected - his theory being there is much less "flipping" going on in the real estate market now. This in turn leads to less construction work for remodeling, etc., and also affecting supporting businesses to construction via the "multiplier effect."
As he pointed out, in the days of the "Dot-com" boom, the state legislature didn't look upon the revenue as a one-time windfall, but thought it would last forever. Just as now they don't look upon the 380 million in taxes from the first 16 or so employees of Google, including the two founders, exercising their stock options as a one-time windfall.
And the host also stated the legislature is spending money faster than either the state population or revenue is rising. And that the state has actively driven away employers to other states which provided the income for people to make their house payments. And finally that once enough homeowners are driven out of the state, there will be no more homeowners to replace them (or to pay property taxes anymore)
There are a number of politicians here who believe the following, so I'll just call them the "Powers that be": private home ownership needs to be drastically reduced and people forced to live in high-density housing along public transportation corridors. This neglects, of course, that you're turning those people into "sitting ducks" in any emergency, whether they can't get to a hospital if the transportation systems fail in a natural disaster, or whether they become victims to gangs or terrorists. There was an interesting article, within a year of 9/11, suggesting people should "decentralize" their lives, using the internet to work and for school, while converting to living in small villages dotting the entire U.S., instead of the centralization of major cities, which are tempting targets of attack.
My own belief is that too many politicians have political science degrees and/or law degrees. Some, of course, have other liberal arts degrees. But it's the students who graduate with business or engineering degrees who learn that everything eventually costs something. That eventually, the bills have to be paid. I guess I'd add some of the "hard sciences" as well (e.g., chemistry) and possibly nursing (due to what hospitals have to charge in order to avoid going bankrupt).



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