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Indeed, California even today amplifies its boom-bust cycles. Consciously or not, it has built a tax system that is not only incomprehensible to its citizens but unusually volatile, relying disproportionately on income taxes, and especially on the capital-gains taxes of its wealthiest residents. When times are good, taxes spout. When times are bad, revenues disappear. The state, constitutionally barred from running deficits (as the nation as a whole may), thus expands and contracts in an automatic and anti-Keynesian wave pattern that exaggerates ups and downs.
But to conclude from this history that California merely needs to wait for the economic tide to turn once again would be disastrously wrong. Warren Buffett, renowned as much for his aphorisms as for his investing, has said that “you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.” And each ebb during the three decades since Mr Brown’s first reign has revealed California less dressed than before. Each flood then briefly restored its modesty. But this latest ebb has shown the state to be stark naked.

The rip tide of democracy
That nakedness, the result of a gradual stripping over decades, has nothing to do with housing or foreclosures or internet shares. Nor is it the fault of individual governors. Instead, it has to do with governance. For what is unique about California is not its set of challenges (pupils, pensioners, prisoners, to list just the Ps), which differ in scale but not in kind from those elsewhere. It is its brand of democracy, as this special report will show.

A. 어휘
amplifies 확대하다. Consciously or not 의식적이든 아니든.
incomprehensible 이해할 수 없는, 不可解(불가해)한.
volatile 휘발성의, 변덕스러운, 輕薄(경박)한.
disproportionately 불균형적으로, 부조화적으로. capital-gains 자본소득.
residents 居住民(거주민). spout 噴出(분출)하다, 솟아나오다.
revenues 歲入(세입). bar 금지하다. running deficits 경상적자.
contract 萎縮(위축)하다. exaggerate 과장하다, 악화시키다.
renowned 유명한. aphorism 警句(경구), 箴言(잠언).
ebb 썰물, 干潮(간조). reign 治世(치세), 통치.
restore 復舊(복구)하다. modesty 고상함, 정숙함, 겸손.
stark 완전히. rip 째다, 째진. stripping 옷 벗기기.
foreclosures 소유권상실처분. governance 관리, 통치.
unique 독특한, 유례없는.