Who would have thought that America’s largest state [California], a state whose economy is larger than that of all but a few nations, could so easily become a banana republic?

– Nobel Laureate and Princeton University economist Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times, May 25, 2009.

The state of California stands on the brink of a financial disaster and will most likely receive some form of bailout in the not-too-distant future.