What's Happened to California??? (San Jose, Ontario: housing, electric, nice areas)

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Cyanna

I fully understand the alienation thing. I never played that nasty game with my ex and tried to promote regular visitations, but my current husband's son has been alienated from him for 7 years now. We fought one hell of a battle, but in the UK even mentally unstable mothers tend to come out the winners. Its a very sad situation. Last I heard she was turning him into a mini-version of herself.

I hate to admit it, but my daughter is just as bad as her husband. We all tried to keep communications open, especially after my 6 year old granddaughter nearly died in Indiana back in January, due to my daughter running a stop sign in the snow. My granddaughter took the full impact in the collision with the SUV. However, when said daughter and her scumbag husband are in debt to ALL family members to the tune of over $50,000, with not one cent paid back to anyone, its time to pull the plug on the United Bank of Family. Its a long, sad story involving drugs, drinking, refusal to hold jobs and a general lack of responsibility. Attempts to get the authorities involved have failed

Both of those are sad; very sad. I understand the family bank reference. We've doled out thousands over the past few years to adult children, including hundreds just this month. We finally let everyone know that the Bank of Mom, and Dad is closed!

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by delnote76

Something I have noticed with people who are native Californians is that they often have a skewed view of the rest of the country. They think it's rotten, like it's a bunch of woods and shacks or something. When I lived in California, I noticed the same thing slowly happening to me. When I moved toanother state, I snapped out of that mindset. California does strange things to one's perception of the rest of the country, and the only cure for it is to move to another state .

Yes, there is an arrogant sense of superiority among some here.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by Highnlite

Poor poor state.

California is a high income state, which is what Gross State Product measures. But high income people can run up huge debts and go bankrupt. Actors, rock stars, and other high income celebrities do it all the time.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by KC6ZLV

This isn't the East Coast. We have different issues to deal with in the West. The biggest two are water resources and air quality. The East Coast receives rainfall year round, and the weather there reduces the problems with smog and particulates.

Air quality has improved dramatically over the last 30 years and will continue to do so, since emissions standards for cars, factories, etc keep getting stricter. The Los Angeles Basin and the Central Valley still have a smog problem, but it's much, much less severe than it used to be. Below is a list of the air quality violations from 1976 to 2008. It turns out that there was an air quality violation somewhere in the LA Basin on 194 days in 1976. That number dropped to 28 in 2008 (using the old 1976 Federal Standard, which has since been tightened). Yet during this time, the population of the LA Basin grew dramatically and people drove more miles per capita.

http://www.aqmd.gov/smog/o3trend.html

The ports, which are major contributors of particulate pollution, are also being cracked down on, with good results so far:

http://www.joc.com/maritime/pollutio...rt-los-angeles

That water isssue is a resource management issue as well. I tend to agree with environmentalists that the farmers need to be forced to implement more water wise practices. Heck, if Californians reduced their beef and poultry consumption, we could conserve water and save on health care costs at the same time!

We can also desalinate water from the ocean. It is even possible to desalinate the water and then pump it back underground to fill up the water table.

So the water issues are solvable....it's just a few powerful insterests block the solutions, as usual.

In short, your arguments don't hold up. As I've always said, people who like to cry overpopulation either 1. overlook resource mismanagement or 2. have a NIMBY agenda, or some combination of both.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by KC6ZLV

The difference with many of the non-European ethnic groups is quite a few of them don't care to learn English. They send their born and raised in the US children to school when they reach five, but many of them can't speak English because their parents seem to think they aren't obligated to learn English. They complain about English literature as not being "theirs," and insist the schools change their curriculum and teach the kids Asian or Mexican literature. They whine about being discriminated against if things don't go their way.

To many of us this behaviour is a clear message that these people are only interested in living here because it sucks less than wherever they came from. They have no desire to become real Americans.

This is the difference in the type of people you get when you only have to cross a land border vs. having to cross an ocean.

On average, the people who have to cross the land border just don't have anywhere near the same level of motivation and smarts as the people who have to cross the ocean.

As you said they "are only interested in living here because it sucks less than wherever they came from".

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by Ludachris

Sadly, the same can be said for just as many, if not more natural born citizens. The only difference is most of them speak English as their first language and they were lucky enough to be born here.

That may be true....but must we add fuel to the fire?

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by newenglandgirl

I just read the OP of the person who started this thread. I was interested in his question because I have relatives in different parts of CA. Somehow the thread took a very heavy turn - concentrating on folks pitching against Mexicans. I don't think the OPoster is still on his own thread!

What are the other factors he is asking about, aside from what many of you are saying about illegals/Mexicans? There's got to be more reasons why so many are disgruntled with your beautiful state. Or, are you saying that the economy (as in the youtube thing I posted a few pages back) is ALL to do with the illegals??

Finally, what is your dear governor doing about the financial woes?

Well the illegal immigration issue is emblematic of how other issues are handled---badly. Taxes are high, yet services are poor. It's true California doesn't create immigration policy, but we have 12% of the US populatiuon and 32% of the US welfare cases. A lot of that is driven by illegal immigration and overgenerous state welfare policies.

We also have issues with overgenerous pensions for public sector workers. I work in the public sector, and I know the pensions are too generous. I wonder if I'll actualy get that pension in 15 years as promised.

As far as "what is the governor doing"....well the problem is more with the legislature than the governor. The governor can't make laws or budget changes all by himself.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by Highnlite

There are several hundred thousand anglo type Americans living in Mexico, mostly in anglo type American enclaves speaking english.

In Brazil there is an area that was settled by American Slave holders who fled there after the Civil War, they speak english, attend protestant churches, have rodeos and picnics with red checked table cloths. Just like usn's, been doing that for 150 years

And those countries only let in people from other countries who won't be a drain on their tax base.

But that isn't the case for uneducated immigrants from the 3rd World. They're inevitably a drain on the tax base.

[Chimérique]

What Happened to California? Read below:

In the late 90's, championed by Gov. Wilson, and pushed by Texas Energy Companies, the California legislature reluctantly relaxed Energy regulations in the State of California. The Texas Energy companies were very happy about this because they, along with wall street energy speculators drove up the price of energy creating a fake energy crisis in the Pacific-Western states. California was hit the hardest. This fake energy crisis was in 2000, 2001, 2002.

California's govt had a huge surplus up until the Texas energy companies and speculators drove up prices. The surplus was in the 100's of billions largely has result of California's healthy economy created by California's High-Tech industries in Silicon Valley.

Unfortunately, the Texas Energy Companies pillaged that surplus when they raped California on Energy prices. California's gov't was forced to purchase energy at astronomical prices and to bailout the Utility companies that went bankrupt because of the energy companies. Keep in mind, the Utility companies like Southern Cal Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric were powerless because they did not own the energy they simply delivered it and ran the power grid. They were at the mercy of the Texas Energy Companies (every single one of the energy companies has their headquarters in Texas, except one in Oklahoma).

The Federal Energy Commission in Washington could have stopped this at any time but the Commission was stacked with Jr. Bush's Texas energy company cronies. They turned a blind eye to California and basically said "F...ck You" to California.

The result is that California's gov't has never had a surplus since then. The California surplus was in the 100's of billions. After the pillage the surplus was gone and has never been built back up. California won lawsuits to mitigate those losses but the payments were fractions of what they lost. We can thank Bill Lockyer, Attorney General and recently Jerry Brown, Attorney General for winning those lawsuits.

The majority of Californians, along with the rest of the country, blamed this crisis on “a lack of planning” and they made Gov. Gray Davis the scapegoat. Davis was basically powerless during this crisis and actually did a decent job in securing energy during this crisis. The fact is California was duped and robbed, California didn’t need to do any special planning for this fake crisis because it was completely manufactured by energy companies and speculators.

If there is any industry that needs to be regulated it is the Energy Industry. They have always been regulated up until the last decade. Another “fake Energy Crisis” in California could occur again. California needs to become Energy self-sufficient like Texas. Whatever means necessary either through Solar, Wind or Oil; California cannot be at mercy of the Energy Companies again.

Something to ponder: France is completely energy self-sufficient and has a surplus of energy; they have so much energy they sell it to the rest of Europe. Apprx 80% of their energy comes from Nuclear power plants. The Province of Québec is also energy self-sufficient. Their energy is mostly hydro-electric, they sell their surplus to the rest of Canada.

[jaynetarzana]

Originally Posted by mysticaltyger

That water isssue is a resource management issue as well. I tend to agree with environmentalists that the farmers need to be forced to implement more water wise practices. Heck, if Californians reduced their beef and poultry consumption, we could conserve water and save on health care costs at the same time!

I agree wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, most people are not interested in being the solution because it requires them to make changes. They think it needs to come from government.