|
No.
The money lost from piracy is theoretical at best. The fact is most people that pirate pirate tv shows, and those that pirate movies generally see and buy a lot of movies.
Our money problems have to do with quite a few things, but mainly they simply have to do with a lot of spending. We tend to have more severe reactions to national economic trends, which means a recession brings a lot more welfare recipients in California than it might in say Oregon. Our prison system is heavily privatized and our prison guards make a shitload of money. If we had a public system, we could remove a good 40% of the prison budget. We have wildly inconsistent public salaries, including some recent discoveries that there are public officials pulling in 7 figures for $50,000 a year jobs. The worst problem, though, is our state legislature. We need a 2/3 majority in both houses on a budget bill, and then it has to make it past Republican governor Arnold, which means it's almost impossible to get a fucking budget passed. It's very frustrating.
|