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When I was younger, CA was the place to be. The success of the state has perhaps never been more vibrant than it was in the 1980's. Hollywood made movies (and stayed away from politics), it seems all sports teams from the state were great! The economy was booming with a surplus and the middle class was the envy of the nation. About the only negative you heard from CA was the LA traffic and smog.
Now, even with a 3 billion dollar economy, it is but a shadow of what it once was. The beautiful Golden State is deteriorating to what some would call a third world state. Is it it's socialist tendencies of the past 30 years? Is it the wrong kind of immigration? Did it just become too big, too quick and is my home state of Texas in danger of suffering the same fate one day? Thoughts?
California has a GDP of $3 trillion - and could be calculated as the fifth largest economy in the world. I don’t know how you translate that into a ‘third world state’, as you call it. It has increased in excess of $125 billion the past few years; how is that a ‘shadow’ of what it once was?
In re: immigration. It is a global (and extremely competitive) market - and there are too many positions to fill. According to Yoh (an outsourcing company based in Philadelphia), there are five open jobs for every software developer who is looking for work; and it is expected by 2020, there will be approximately 1.5 million computer specialist job openings (of which the US can only fill about 30%). The US simply can’t meet the current, yet alone growing, demands of the market by itself. The 1980’s are gone - you can’t ‘make CA great again’.
True. As aerospace moved out of California in the 1970s, the integrated circuit, software and computing industries took off. Teradyne in Agoura Hills is an example. It started out as a little industrial building in Chatsworth, then moved to a bigger facility in Woodland Hills and now a huge campus in Agoura Hills.
Same with medical devices. Irvine and Aliso Viejo continue to boom with medical devices and the bay area has all those software and internet companies probably rooted from Hewlett Packard.
That’s funny, we’re just buying two office buildings, one in Aliso Viejo and one in San Jose. It’s not that we (family) are big CA fans by any means, I sure am not, but there’s so much business there and despite the state’s issues sometimes it makes the most sense to secure investments in places with the business infrastructure there and the talent pool.
I would never live in CA again. Spent my 5 years in LA, enjoyed quite a lot of it but that was career (film) related and I didn’t enjoy the traffic, high taxes, and high cost of living or being surrounded by third world peasants. Just joking on the last one, but I loved that description lol.
If you focus on just the inner city, you miss a lot of the suburban migration by Hispanics and Asians that took place in the last 20 years. Some of the newest suburbs and schools are known for being mostly all Indian. Asian and Latino supermarkets are expanding. Most churches are Korean.
California and Massachusetts have had boom/busts in tech. Most of the PC makers, database software, network equipment, and the mini/mainframe and client/server systems are gone. This boom period is lasting much longer because of the sustained high level of defense spending.
Seriously. Clearly it's just some hick from Texas that thinks living in a 3000 SF mcmansion that cost him a quarter million dollars makes him some sort of cultural hero.
Taking shots I see. Brave of you on this forum. Trying to have a decent conversation and degenerate scums like you pop out.
As Walter Matthua once said......"why don't you do the world a favor and pull your top lip over your head, and swallow".
Biggest problem with California today is that the cost of living is too high. A lot of people would still love to live in California. It's just that living a high quality of life there has become unaffordable for most. There has to be a balance between cost of living and economic opportunity. California had that in the '80s.
California has a GDP of $3 trillion - and could be calculated as the fifth largest economy in the world. I don’t know how you translate that into a ‘third world state’, as you call it. It has increased in excess of $125 billion the past few years; how is that a ‘shadow’ of what it once was?
In re: immigration. It is a global (and extremely competitive) market - and there are too many positions to fill. According to Yoh (an outsourcing company based in Philadelphia), there are five open jobs for every software developer who is looking for work; and it is expected by 2020, there will be approximately 1.5 million computer specialist job openings (of which the US can only fill about 30%). The US simply can’t meet the current, yet alone growing, demands of the market by itself. The 1980’s are gone - you can’t ‘make CA great again’.
Valid points. I recently saw that CA had a recent surplus and the economy is thriving. I have no doubt that a state with such rich resources and diverse industries will have big numbers.
CA reminds me of Brazil. A beautiful country with a vast economy and a very diverse population. Economically it is near the top of many areas. It attracts world events like the world cup and the Olympics in recent years. However, these events turn out to be an economic failure or don't meet the economic expectations. What the world sees is the beautiful beaches of Rio De Jaeiro and and the incredible views. Brazil, like most Latin American countries, has a small upper class, small middle class and large poor population. What made California great up to the 1980's (IMO) was that great middle class that seems to be getting smaller and smaller. By the time the 2028 Olympics hit LA, it will be interesting to see how the region comes together to make it a successful event economically or if it will be a financial burden.
Well at least he graduated from thinking the presence of graffiti in a city is an indication of third world status to thinking the existence of a race he considers mostly failures presents same.
You and your buddy are a riot! Fools actually. Well professor, I am part of the race that you assume I think is a failure. Try to stay on topic you pompous J.A. What are you 12??
California was the beneficiary of a ton of military spending. Much of that got cut in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Not all of it but a lot.
During this time it also became the place to go. Everyone was moving there. Developers built entire new cities in a year. That made it boom, but also set up a downfall. Housing got insanely expensive. At the same time, economic opportunity brought people by the millions from all over the world. This resulted in some people living 20+ to a house in order to afford real estate. Close quarters leads to crime and other social ills.
Shortages of everything started being the norm. Electricity, water, parking, space.. . .
Warm weather and generous social programs brought in homeless people by the hundreds of thousands.
Too many problems popped up all at once and the society has been unable to deal with them.
Is it awful? no, it is still a magnificent place, but it is not what it was. What is really dismaying is where it is going. The positive aspects of everything booming have leveled out while the negative aspects continue to grow. A basically dysfunctional government at most levels is making things worse.
Still it was awesome. Now it is only great. Eventually it will be Meh. Can it become an awful place? Maybe. It got pretty bad in the early 1980s. Huge crime issues. Huge smog problem.
Biggest problem with California today is that the cost of living is too high. A lot of people would still love to live in California. It's just that living a high quality of life there has become unaffordable for most. There has to be a balance between cost of living and economic opportunity. California had that in the '80s.
The fact is this is because the locals here decided to limit new housing for a variety of reasons. The net result is that only the better educated and/or those with money can afford to move here now. There are still plenty of areas in this state with cheap COL but they aren't nice places to live or have decent jobs. Too many people with money have crowded out the "middle class".
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