Left to right: Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mario Savio, president pro tem of the state Senate Darrell Steinberg and former President Ronald Reagan.

July 2, 2009 | The world's eighth-largest economy has just gone belly-up. When midnight tolled on Tuesday night with legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger still deadlocked over how to resolve the state's staggering $24 billion budget shortfall, California became unable to pay its bills. The state will have to begin issuing IOUs to its creditors as early as Thursday. It is the worst budget crisis in the state's modern history.