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The hottest properties are near corporate shuttle bus stops—where employees for companies like Google, Facebook, Genentech, LinkedIn and Apple line up daily for the ride to Silicon Valley. Real-estate agent Amanda Jones calls it the "Shuttle Effect" and said proximity can command as much as a 20% premium. Some real-estate agents said they're dying for a map of where the buses pick up. "When a listing gets deluged with people—that tells me it's close to a stop," said Ms. Jones.
The residents with power and influence always vote for nice amenities that increase housing values they don't have to pay for. The property tax freeze means none of this revenue can be captured, and its a land owner free lunch. So they keep voting for more "free amenities". Then of course all these "values" are mortgaged as they cash out and securitized where the value is shipped out of state as interest payments.
That is the reason why public transportation goes broke. They operate at "a loss" when its not even remotely true. The value just goes to land owners which by law can't be taxed. Why are the owners of these properties getting the 20% windfall while the state goes broke and jacks up taxes across the board?
As the article points out, it's a new and experimental system for calculating income, which is also apparently driven largely by the state's high cost of living, not by immigrants (aka "illegals").
Which is kinda like that saying fewer folks can afford to buy a Lexus on a Corolla budget now (duh...)!
Also under the old - and still official - system, California's poverty rate is 16.3 percent, which translates into slightly over 6 million of the state's 38 million residents. That rate is somewhat higher than the national rate of 15 percent, but by no means the highest in the nation, that honor still being held by Mississippi. Though unlike MS, CA also has some of the lowest rates in diabetes, infant mortality, domestic violence, and the highest levels of college grads, venture capital, Fortune 500 companies, with the best beaches, schools... and weather (among other things). In other words, if you're gonna be "poor", there are far worse places to do it in!
Last edited by mateo45; 11-16-2012 at 04:09 PM..
Reason: link..
who cares as long as the checks keep coming in the mail,,,,,
I'll bet you'd like the bigger checks you'd get from proposition 13 which has probably as much of da guberment check as to the underclass they keep creating with tax policy.
It's actually a completely different accounting measure, but I understand what you mean.
What do you think are doable solutions for this? Do you think a prop 13 repeal (arguably not doable though) would have a strong enough desired effect? Also, since you mention immigrant shuttle buses and probably follow up on the stats for this, have you the stats about net migration? I heard the illegal immigration population US wide has actually been going down due to the recession, but it's good to have some sort of greater understanding of the trends through seeing how different states are varying in this regard.
Seriously, what are the actionable solutions? What do you guys think are the causes for this? Prop 13 is commonly cited as is the huge legal and illegal immigrant population which includes a lot of poor people. There's also the huge federal tax to federal spending ratio for California where California is by far the largest total giver and one of the higher per capita givers in federal taxes but is one of the lower recipients of federal spending so a secession where tax revenue went straight back to California would make a huge difference; if you want to tie it into federal government or opt out options (like Iraq War costs and/or benefits are for states which continually voted for it) maybe that's defensible, but I don't think that's actionable so pretty much a dead end.
People are drawn to California looking for better... maybe not as many as in the past... still significant.
When I worked overseas for a brief time... people were without exception interested in California... San Francisco, the Redwoods, Death Valley, the long Coastline, Hollywood and even Disneyland.
If you are poor... there are plenty of programs to assist once you successfully qualify for aid... Housing, Food, School Programs, Daycare, Medical Insurance, Discounts on Utilities, etc...
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