The great California tax hoax: $577 billion in hidden assets never revealed to voters
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) Is California really as bankrupt as its governor claims? Not if you believe in mathematics and accounting. As this story shows, California has hidden away $577 billion in assets, all revealed in CAFR documents (Comprehensive Annual Financial Report) that are becoming increasingly well-known.
California's government, you see, has two main funds in which money is kept. The first fund, which is bankrupt, covers all government activities and expenditures. But the second fund -- the hidden "slush" fund with $577 billion in assets -- holds all the money the government generates by conducting "nongovernmental" businesses and activities that aren't officially part of the government. This money is hidden from California's taxpayers who are repeatedly lied to and told they have to pay more in taxes to prevent the state from going broke.
This list includes organizations and assets such as:
• Independent System Operator: $876 million • The Economic Recovery Bond Sinking Fund: $484 million • Receipting and Disbursing Fund: $16.6 billion • State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund: $3.1 billion • Financing for Local Governments and the Public Fund: $5.2 billion
California's criminal government hides hundreds of billions of dollars in these funds, then uses that money to hand out juicy contracts to their crony friends and political supporters while financially soaking all the businesses and taxpayers in the state who are trying to make ends meet.
The California pension system is outright theft
Even worse than all this is California's pension system for state employees.
Mark my words when I say that many pensions funds will soon be LOOTED by the California government when the global debt collapse arrives (or soon thereafter). All those people who worked for the California government as teachers, peace officers or government office workers will find their retirement to have suddenly and magically vanished under some doublespeak excuse by whatever governor happens to hold office at that time.
The scam is that people who contribute to California's retirement pension system have NO equity in that system. Sure, you earned the money, and they "owe" you the money, but you don't own anything. If the California government decides to change its mind about its schedule of payout obligations, you don't get paid a single penny! (Or you get paid in increasingly worthless dollars that don't buy as much.)
Hundreds of billions of dollars to be looted from pension funds
According to CAFR documents, the state of California had $456,488,666,000 in pension money funds as of June 30, 2011.
As pointed out on this blog website, from 2010 - 2011, the fund grew by $67,974,593,000 (68 billion dollars). This is above and beyond what the fund paid out to retirees!
Keep this in mind when you see videos of California Governor Jerry Brown warning Californians that if taxes aren't raised, he'll have to start shutting down schools because the state is short $15 billion.
But wait a sec: The state profited $68 billion in one year just from returns on its pension investment funds! So how can California be "broke" when it's rolling in cash to the tune of $68 billion a year of investment surpluses just from pension fund investments?
The answer is because California is the land of runaway government corruption and thievery where the government steals from the People, incarcerates innocents, criminalizes real food and then taxes its businesses to the point where many of them just pack up and flee the state (taking their jobs with them).
Unfortunately, far too many Californians flee their own state and end up relocating in Austin, Texas, the "California of Texas." Once there, they re-create the same socialism, tyranny and corruption they once fled in California. This is why Austin is largely run by devout communists who are literally trying to turn the city into a Mao-style "refuge" for people who hate freedom and worship Big Government.
Government is always about theft
The fact that California is hiding half a trillion dollars in assets from its own people should come as no surprise: Every government is, by definition, in the business of stealing money from those who actually work for a living.
As Bill Bonner explains in his brilliant article "How Government Works," the very essence of government is to create an "insider" power monopoly of bureaucrats and politicians, then use that power monopoly to steal wealth from those who actually produce it. The monopoly is kept in power by redistributing part of that confiscated wealth to those who have never earned it but can nevertheless vote. But the majority of the confiscated wealth is pocketed by the bureaucrats themselves who run corruption rings, drug rings, prostitution rings, white slavery (sex slavery) and every other crime imaginable.
There are District Attorneys in California who are outright scum-of-the-Earth power-hungry tyrants who believe it is their personal mission to find some innocent person and absolutely crush their lives just because they can. I know of one D.A. investigator in Los Angeles whose personal life is an absolute mess. She's going through a nasty divorce, she's arguing over custody of her child, and her mother is hospitalized with a life-threatening disease. So what does she do? She takes out her anger on some innocent person facing some fabricated charge completely dreamed up by the DA's office.
This is what tyrants do: They destroy innocent lives for sport. That's the arrogance they now exercise in California. Any idea that the government "serves the people" has been completely and utterly abandoned. The California government now oppresses the People and rules over them with an iron fist... all while hiding half a trillion dollars from the taxpayers and then screaming that Californians have to pay more money to the insider government or bad things might happen.
California taxpayers are now paying a tax rate over 50% when you count federal and state income taxes. And that doesn't even count property taxes, fuel taxes, sales taxes and other taxes. In total, a typical Californian is now paying over 75% of their income in both direct and indirect taxes.
No wonder it's so hard to get ahead there. No wonder everybody in California seems to be pulling their hair out, desperately trying to stay afloat as the economy sinks all around them.
Here are some websites to read on how states like California hide huge assets from the public:
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