A $35 billion gash in California’s budget has Governor Davis scrambling to raise taxes and slash services though Ken Lay has yet to leave the links for the grey-bar hotel. Sales tax will jump one percent while a pack of cigarettes will cost $1.10 more The once Golden State is also hocking its 1998 settlement with the tobacco industry by offering $3 billion of municipal bonds backed by future payments from cigarette companies. Never mind that those funds were specifically earmarked for victims of smoking-related illnesses not the Mercedes-driving denizens of Orange County looking to reduce their marginal tax rate. Don’t fret, however, because payments to the state aren’t fixed, but are based on cigarette sales which will be dented by the new taxes. Hence bondholders, when its all said and done, might watch their portfolios go up in smoke.

In my high school days getting a hummer was indeed a big deal, but it certainly failed to make the evening news (not that I would have been opposed to that – it would have saved a measure of locker room skepticism). But times are different and the Hummer in question is a $80,000 H2 SUV. Moreover, the owner is LeBron James, just 16 and the latest next Michael Jordan. LeBron’s father is in jail and his mother lives in the projects and so the question begs: Who’s Franklins be keepin’ LeBron drippin’ in bling-bling? Some deride the corruption in amateur sports, others say the boy is just getting what will soon enough be rightfully his. I just hope the young man doesn’t go Dale Earnhardt before he can fulfill so many dreams.