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I have considered retiring in California but, even in the less expensive parts of the state, my pension is short by a factor of 10 or so. Cali is beautiful, except for most of the really big cities, but unaffordable.
That's because a lot of poor new immigrants migrate to CA and they start from the bottom. Studies show that many move up the economic ladder, their places at the bottom filled by new poor immigrants.
How many people live below poverty is the WRONG question to ask, it's a slight of hand meant to fool the dim and the dumb.
The key is how many poor stay poor, and here CA does better than many red states; where the opportunity to improve their economic standing is bad compare to CA.
.
Put another way, the country's stagnant poverty rate would fall if WE SIMPLY STOPPED IMPORTING POVERTY.
When adjusted for cost of living California has the highest rate in the country.
Prove it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nononsenseguy
Wow, this must be the lie of the century! Socialist California is working! I guess we all need to become socialists then, right?
California just had to raise their gasoline tax 12 cents/gallon to cope with their deficit. They are drowning in red ink. California has the highest cost of living in the U.S. A home that my wife and I paid $21,500 for in 1972, doubled it's size in 1980 for another $25 K, we sold in 1993 for $179,900 and it is now worth over $500,000. That tells you something. It isn't just the desirability of living in California that has driven the price of homes up so much. Most of those homes (looking at Zillow) still look exactly the same as when they were built by Pardee Construction in the 70's.
California taxes are sky high too.
There is a reason that so many people are leaving the state, like we did.
California has a significant budget surplus, plus a rainy day fund. Your remarks about home prices represent simply this: California is like America, only more so. Housing between the 70s and today has risen virtually everywhere in the US. That's particularly marked in California because of how much the population has grown.
More people are coming to California than leaving it--a lot more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lifeexplorer
Dude, the propensity of California is from Reagan's policies. The democrats just haven't completely destroyed it yet.
I think you are looking for "prosperity." Reagan was governor 50 years ago. His influence on the State is nonexistent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nononsenseguy
And, being a former San Diegan, I'm here to testify to this. It's why we left. There are even restrictions on watering your lawn in California, so most people don't even have lawns anymore. They have crushed rock. My brother-in-law was fined for collecting rain water in a barrel to use on his garden! That is liberalism.
That's not liberalism, that's a Mediterranean/semi-arid, drought-prone climate. Leave it to conservatives to blame liberalism for geology.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 3~Shepherds
Strange the focus would be on the same man who has ignored the biggest water supply out of Oroville, California. If that damn breaks, CA can thank all the money that went to supporting illegals and ignoring their major watering supply for all that crop income!
Sad, how California has become the land of cover ups, instead of the state that excelled above others!
The Oroville Dam disaster is yet another example of California's decline - LA Times
The most vivid example of how wrong they were is that California’s majestic Oroville Dam is currently in danger of spillway failure in a season of record snow and rainfall. That could spell catastrophe for thousands who live below it and for the state of California at large that depends on its stored water.
The poor condition of the dam is almost too good a metaphor for the condition of the state as a whole; its possible failure is a reflection of California’s civic decline.
The water projects created cheap and clean hydroelectric power. (At one point, California enjoyed one of the least expensive electric delivery systems in the United States.) In addition, dams like Oroville ensured that empty desert acreage on California’s dry west side of the Central Valley could be irrigated. The result was the rise of the richest farming belt in the world. Complex transfers of water also helped fuel spectacular growth in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles Basin. Their present populations often do not fully appreciate that their dry hillsides and Mediterranean climates could never have supported such urban growth without the can-do vision of a prior generation of hydrological engineers.
Finally, besides, flood control, hydroelectric power and irrigation, California dams created over 1,300 reservoirs that presently provide the state with unmatched mountain recreational and sporting opportunities — often for the poor and middle classes who cannot afford to visit expensive coastal tourist retreats.
California currently hosts a third of the nation’s welfare recipients. Over one in five Californians lives below the poverty line. One in four Californians was not born in the United States. These social transformations pose enormous political challenges and demand that infrastructure and schools grow commensurately to meet soaring populations.
Instead, California is eating its seed corn.
State lawmakers spend their time obsessing over minutia: a prohibition against free grocery bags and rules against disturbing bobcats. When they do turn their attention to development, they tend to pick projects that serve urban rather than rural populations — for example, that boondoggle of a bullet train whose costs keep climbing even as the project falls years behind schedule.
The crisis at Oroville is a third act in the state’s history: One majestic generation built great dams, a second enjoyed them while they aged, and a third fiddles as they now erode.
My dad was a foreman on the damn and at the time it was the biggest break for Northern CA, it put the north on the map. Plus, many people working finally close to home, not in the next state over.
It's a "dam." Query: is investing in dams wise when they deliver little energy or water in drought years (which are becoming more frequent)?
California's population is 88% urban. So shouldn't 88% of California's investment focus on urban development? Do you think that it does?
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Originally Posted by 3~Shepherds
Exactly! Not to mention the cost of driving a car, that is if your car can pass all the BS laws. They have more pollution laws for cars and don't even question those who will not afford garbage pickup or do drugs in the wide open.
After all who the F else would think up this!
Open-air urinal in San Francisco park has no designs on privacy - LA Times
Patrick Sullivan has lived across the street from Mission Dolores Park, one of the most scenic patches of recreational space in this increasingly crowded town.
From his kitchen window, at the southwest edge of the park, Sullivan, 63, a retired personal trainer, has a spectacular view of the skyline and the Oakland Hills, unobstructed, thanks to the park's steeply raked sloped. These days, his view includes the backs of dozens of men relieving themselves in a new open-air urinal, the city's latest solution to a pervasive lack of restrooms.
And, being a former San Diegan, I'm here to testify to this. It's why we left. There are even restrictions on watering your lawn in California, so most people don't even have lawns anymore. They have crushed rock. My brother-in-law was fined for collecting rain water in a barrel to use on his garden! That is liberalism.
Lol, just FYI: we have had water restrictions in Texas for a long time now.
And while, they have been relaxed now, several years ago it was absolutely terrible, with watering once every two weeks (yes, during the summer).
Which studies?
Because the state's own studies show that economic mobility is horrible in the state, the worst in the nation, and that economic inequality is growing more rapidly in California than any other state.
(In other words, the poor are staying poor and in numbers never seen before.)
The administrative data mined by Chetty, Californian mobility looks pretty good.
Among large metros—commuting zones with more than two million people—children born in Californian cities into the bottom income quintile have an above-average chance of rising to the top quintile (the Golden State cities are represented by the light blue bars):
The same pattern holds for another measure of relative mobility: rank-rank correlation, or the correlation between the parent’s percentile rank within their cohort’s income distribution and the child’s percentile rank as an adult within their cohort’s income distribution.
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The only thing I miss about California it our house, and the weather (but only in Jan and Feb).
