Is California "in Shambles"?

"In shambles"? Really? I'm so tired of this narrative. No state is perfect, but California is hardly "in shambles."

Imagine you're a family raising children. That kids go to school, and have made friends, etc., and you only started renting there due to proximity to work, schools, etc. you signed the year(s) long contract, same as the landlord. You don't think that family has rights? What's the point of a contract, otherwise? You'd want one when you purchased insurance, rented, or bought a home...

As of 2024, America's GDP is ~ $30 trillion. Of that $4 trillion comes from California. 13%! That's much more than 1/50th. We are one of a very small handful of states that pay more into the federal government then we take out. There's no other state that has anything close to California's GDP and no other territory that deals with a population or economy as big and powerful as California does without also being a sovereign nation. And among sovereign nations, there's only three that are bigger in size of economy of the 200+ countries on the planet.

All the desirable/livable areas in California are densely populated or are farms, and pricing reflects the lack of supply for land and housing. Plus: we're geographically disconnected from most of the nation, an island of sorts. Did you know that in addition to being a huge producer of oil, we also import it from other states and from other nations, via boat? The Rockies made it hard for oil to flow through the same pipelines as the rest of the nation uses.

Despite all that, it's a magnet for innovations, upon which much of the entire country or world relies. You're using X right now on a PC, a smart phone, etc. Guess where all of that was developed? And the data's being conducted over the public internet. Guess where the public internet was developed?

There's a reason that California has grown in population most (with the exception of 2020, 2021, 2022) years of the last 100+ or so years.

California is not "in shambles."