Economy

Is California a Failed State?

Disaster reminds writer of Katrina.

Things are looking less than golden in California these days. The economy is so weak out West that one economist recently declared, "California is on the verge of becoming the first failed state in America." Writing in The Guardian, Paul Harris finds areas of Los Angeles that remind him of New Orleans post-Katrina. The city has a poverty rate of 20 percent. Things may only get worse for the state financially, while California's irrepressible governor keeps fighting against the cynics. "There is people [sic] that sometimes suggest that the American Dream, or the Californian dream, is evaporating. I think it's absolutely wrong. I think the Californian dream is as strong as ever," Arnold Schwarzenegger tells critics.