Hmm well in 1988 Japan had a huge surplus, but when they had their real-estate bust in 1991 they had to revert to very large defect spending to keep the unemployment below 5% (building highways bridges etc…) (BECAUSE THEY (the Japanese population) ABSOLUTLY WOULD NOT TOLERATE INFLATION)

Well I am fine with the defect spending I just think they will need to get the unemployment down or they (we) are looking at revolt fairly soon.

I would need to get the data together but I would think, you could attribute most of the difference between the current 11~13% to the more normal 5-6% unemployment in ca directly to the real-estate industries.