In the history books of positivism, American mysticism, and their consequences in actual implementation, there is a new great solemn event: the 2012 California budget.
In their forecasted budget, California accounted for the taxes that a successful Facebook IPO would have brought to the state.
The forecast accounted for an extra 2.5 billion over five years. The interesting fact about this type of decision making is that the consequences tend to double the effects in the negative direction. It is one of those interesting proportion rules in nature.
They just didn't loose the 2.5 billion tax revenue they predicted leaving them at zero. Now they are probably an extra 2.5 billion in the red.
The ramifications of simple decisions like the Facebook IPO ripple throughout society just to amaze us. It makes it so easy to visualize the collapse of a system. Probably only another mystic positive outlook forecast could fix the situation this time.
