Conservative, but less conservative than FM, for kids (Dallas, Richardson: neighborhood, buying)

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by SolarCoaster

I'm sorry my presence in your city is so unwelcome, would it make you feel better if I go kill myself?


Do you regularly introduce yourself to women by going 'hey I'm bob, I have a big penis and I'm a geek?'

I'm female, therefore I don't have a penis to boast about.

I don't want you to kill yourself because suicide is a sin against God. But I wouldn't mind if you moved back to California.

I'm not going to apologize if my honesty offends you. I merely have the guts to say what a lot of people here in DFW are thinking.

[Siphon9r]

Originally Posted by Gravy Train

In some cases, they're bringing their economic problems with them or leveraging their employers' relocation as a means to make faster reparations. Not that there's anything wrong with an approach, but jobs moving to Texas should make opportunity for Texans first.

Among the means to get ahead faster, I'm noticing a fair number of cars on DFW roads with out-of-state license plates. Expired tags on an out-of-state plate are one thing, but adding traffic to Texas roads while leveraging your foreign plate to skirt Texas registration is just dirt people problems.

Is Texas among the 'flyover states' a progressive west-coaster would otherwise ignore on most facets aside from cost of living?

Faster reparations? I'm not following. As for bringing their problems with them I don't think that applies to people moving here either with a job offer in hand or under a relocation package. Someone gainfully employed isn't typically an economic problem.

Why should jobs moving to Texas go to Texans first? If a company like Toyota is relocating due to a complex combination of inputs (real estate cost, taxes, regulation, incentives, flight times, etc.) why shouldn't the people who already have those jobs continue to have the first shot at them if their employer is willing to pay them to make that move? Further, what rational business would want to turnover 100% of their corporate staff in any case? Texas still gains from these moves overall as not all positions will be filled by relocation and the economic activity generated by the business still benefits locals and local companies.

I doubt many people consider Texas a "flyover state" despite it being literally flown over due to its location in the middle of the country. Its economy is robust and its large cities rank up there with those on either coast or the upper midwest. What do you think a progressive west coaster should be paying attention to? I imagine most people don't spend a lot of time pondering the facets of other states or regions until they need to. When I lived in Washington I largely ignored Texas unless it was in the news for some reason, just as I did Pennsylvania, New Jersey or any other state outside of maybe Oregon ('cause screw the Timbers).

[Gravy Train]

Originally Posted by SolarCoaster

I moved in December for work and had to spend the first few months, you know, working - so it took two months before I was able to get the registration for the vehicle

I'm not prying into your personal challenges but vehicle registration fees are fairly reasonable here.

Registration fees vary depending on the county in which you are registering. There are some statewide standard fees:
Cars and lighter pickup trucks: $50.75
Vehicles weighing 6,001 to 10,000 lbs.: $54
Motorcycles and mopeds: $30

It's funny I get my topics moderated and removed and stuff like this passes as normal around here. Dirt people problems - is that a combo of both brown and poor? Or just white trash? Help me out, I'm from out of state so not up to date with the insults out here

Anyone can be a dirt farmer, racial profiling doesn't belong on this forum. Fortunately I haven't found C-D overly moderated.

[Gravy Train]

Originally Posted by Siphon9r

I doubt many people consider Texas a "flyover state" despite it being literally flown over due to its location in the middle of the country. Its economy is robust and its large cities rank up there with those on either coast or the upper midwest. What do you think a progressive west coaster should be paying attention to?

Perhaps pay attention to local culture and find a personal fit to his/her lifestyle instead of asking for, or implying others change theirs to suit? Let's start the countdown to the next transplant appropriation topic.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by SolarCoaster

You're insulting random people in an internet forum - why don't you meet me at Watermark this Sunday and tell me in person what your thoughts are? I shouldn't be hard to find, I'm the guy from California who will obviously stand out in the crowd.


What exactly are they thinking? That they don't like people moving here? Or just liberals? Or just conservatives? Is it a land thing? Pride thing? Money thing?

I'm not Christian so you won't see me at Watermark...like...ever. I think I'd burst into flames if I went in there. However, I know a couple dozen people who do go to Watermark and you shouldn't flatter yourself about "obviously" standing out.

I can't speak for everyone but I can speak for myself on your last question: I don't want more people here because you fill up our roads and drive up our taxes. No other reason. It's not personal, so stop whining about it.

[Siphon9r]

Originally Posted by EDS_

My wife and I own a little place in SF and we love going out there. A few things to chew on and this all correct not me projecting - I can provide links if you'd like to see some.

Somewhere between 25 and 30% of all people on welfare in The US live in CA. CA holds about 11-12% of the population.

U6 unemployment in CA is 11.1%, 11.4% in LA County. It's 9.0% in Texas and less than that in Dallas/Irving/Plano.

Best guesses from experts indicate there are more homeless people around LA than in all of Texas.

Five of the ten US cities/areas with the most homeless are in CA.

CALPERS/CA state retirement programs are in real trouble. A taxpayer bailout is more likely than CALPERS earning 7.5-8.0% yoy forever.

My wife has employees in SF who earn $80-120K and without gifts from family very few of them can/will take the risk to buy a home within a reasonable commute of work. Several of those who do own homes have long car commutes then ferry rides and then long walks to work.
A friend of mine is a medical researcher/MD at UCSF. His rent is $11K per month for a place that could be rented around here for $2500/3000. His kids go to a worse high school there than when they were here in DFW - he can't afford private schooling out there under any circumstances etc.

Younger, working poor and lower middle class blacks are fleeing CA coastal cites in huge numbers - to be far this is also a big problem in Portland and to a lesser degree Seattle and has been for years.

We can go into effective pay, tax burdens, migration of young professionals another time.

I love CA and want to see the state succeed. As things stand now we are one national recession away from another CA mass home value decrease.

Thank you for the statistics, very interesting. However, I don't see that this supports the idea that people are predominantly moving to conservative areas to get away from liberal areas, somehow bringing their ills with them. Texas may be outperforming California in areas, but its not like people are moving because the economy is bad. Your friend with the unfortunate rent isn't seeing that price because there are no companies and no jobs in the Bay Area, quite the opposite.

The young, working poor and lower middle class blacks are leaving coastal cities, but that is because they are expensive not because they are often run by liberals. Humans have been congregating on the coasts for millennia, it is not surprising that cities on either seaboard are crowded and expensive. Many of the same questions/complaints I heard in the PNW are being heard here in DFW (and people up there were complaining about Californians as far back as the 80s). As homes/rent get more expensive where will the young, working poor and lower middle class blacks live? The last electoral map around here was pretty darn red outside of Dallas proper so I don't think this problem is due to imported Democrats.

Anyway, my main point is not to succumb to the temptation to lay all ills at the feet of our ideological rivals as some seem inclined to do. It is intellectually lazy to do so and ignores far more fundamental causes that don't fall neatly into red/blue buckets.

[Siphon9r]

Originally Posted by Gravy Train

Perhaps pay attention to local culture and find a personal fit to his/her lifestyle instead of asking for, or implying others change theirs to suit? Let's start the countdown to the next transplant appropriation topic.

Ah, I misunderstood your target. Your suggestion is perfectly reasonable, someone new to a community should respect the existing culture and make an effort to understand it. However, once part of a community people should be free to request change and if they succeed in persuading enough others, institute it.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

I think a lot of people are hasty in their conclusions that liberal politics at the local level are the reason massive cities have the financial issues they do. There is a definite chicken/egg problem here. Large cities have large swaths of poor people, and poor people tend to vote Democratic. Pointing at this situation and essentially saying "See, liberal policies make cities poor" is to make a very large assumption about which way the causal ties run.

[LMKH]

OK..conservative was definitely the wrong word. I meant business and image oriented, not people oriented. There is definitely a vibe that people do not matter, image does, in this town now.

[LMKH]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

Nonsense. The government living within its means is not a tenet of either liberalism or conservatism in particular. Whether one is fiscally conservative or liberal depends largely on how one perceives the role of government in society. Let's say I support universal healthcare, free college tuition, progressive taxation, etc. Those views don't imply that I think the government should spend more than it brings in any more than the position that overall tax burden should be reduced (tax cuts) implies the government should run at a deficit.

But I digress. I highly doubt you have any actual evidence that there is a correlation, when adjusted for income, between political fiscal conservatism and personal financial responsibility.

Fiscally conservative does not mean politically conservative. A fiscal conservative, by definition, works to live within means. When someone is referenced as "a conservative" or "a liberal" it does not mean fiscally.