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Elon Musk moves to Texas

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611–620 of 1001 posts

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#611
post #158

Pretty interesting to see this move makes people so salty. There does seem to be a trend of people fleeing California, I dont know enough about the situation out there to comment on whether or not its valid. I suspect something must be going on for several high profile folks moving out. And before you bash Texas, its not perfect. But its pretty diverse, and it seems that folks with opposing viewpoints can still coexi…

My birth certificate says "Texas" across the top and people have been "fleeing California" to Texas for as long as I've been alive. There's nothing special about Musk; he just happens to be high-profile about it and managed to extract more from California before decamping to a "cheap" state than several of those who came before him. I disagree with your assessment that Texas has wide acceptance for opposing viewpoint…

> For example, to this day I do not recommend being openly gay and living near Tyler.

I've never heard anyone in Tyler scream at random strangers calling them "f*t". But that does seem to be a pretty much daily occurrence from the illustrious cast of characters that hang out around the Powell Street BART station.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#612
post #420
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in San Francisco. I literally do not see black people. I largely do not see brown people outside of the service industry (i.e. they are "kept back in the kitchen"). I will largely interact with only white people and asian people on any given day. Where I will be moving to in TX has more diversity than where I live in San Francisco, which is something I am happy about. My children will be seeing more black & br…

That's... strange. SF's black population has definitely been on the decline (but they're certainly here, all over!), but you must have been actively hiding if your only exposure to brown people was people "kept back in the kitchen". I'm not going to claim that SF is some amazingly perfect bastion of racial diversity, but if you're mainly only seeing and interacting with white and Asian people here, that speaks more t…

The city of SF is approximately 40% non-hispanic white, 34% asian, 15% hispanic, 5% black, 5% mixed, and 1% other.

Other Bay Area cities have different distributions. For example Oakland is approximately 29% non-hispanic white, 26% hispanic, 23% black, 15% asian, 5% mixed, 1% other.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#613
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's rather my point: if you're living just in the larger metro areas, you're choosing to insulate yourself from the rampant discrimination and bigotry that, numerically, forms the bulk of the electorate and shape the cultural mindset. To be clear, that's not a bad thing that people make that choice; I would, were in that position. If Texas voters will finally vote in someone who is more like Ann Richards than…

Turnout says far less about political views than you might think. Voter suppression is a common and effective tool used to keep a political party in power even as they loose popular support. All it takes is realizing changing X rule like a deadline will help or hurt your party and then voting based on that rule. Eventually this can fail, which oddly enough tends to flip states so they can quickly go from solidly part…

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/08/texas-ken-paxton-ele...

Having satisfactorily worked hard to make voting as difficult as possible in Texas, he wants to use the state's limited funds to sue other states that dared to improve their democracy. This is the government of Texas.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean abatements & subsidies required to push "clean" vehicle policies that are among the most aggressive in the world? Without Tesla & CA's policies, auto electrification would be at least a decade behind what it is today... Being at the forefront of environmental policy has real costs.

Paris climate targets will have done far more to push EV forward than Tesla/CA. Most governments e.g EU, UK, China all looking to curtail/ban ICE cars within the next few decades. And of course this has resulted in car manufacturers rapidly pushing EV cars.

Interesting take given that the US has made more gains on carbon emissions without being a Paris Accord signatory than most of the signatories have...

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#615

I was on the edge of the same decision. This move by the new district attorney in LA is so far beyond the pale that if it's not rescinded soon, I am gone too: "NEW: L.A. County DA George Gascon has issued a directive to prosecutors that the following misdemeanors will be declined for prosecution, with exemptions. -Trespassing -Disturbing the peace -Driving without license -Prostitution -Resisting arrest" This is an a…

>They'd be attracted to municipalities that they know will not prosecute them.

Sounds like you have a really solid understanding of the sociological nature of crime! /s

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, framed differently, California is looking for deep pockets to bail out their failing budget rather than adjust their policy to match what they can afford. The same has been happening in New Jersey with its insane taxes that don't really go to pay for services anymore and have diverted from transportation & infrastructure projects for decades now to bail out their severely underfunded pension funds...where the pen…

> Or, framed differently, California is looking for deep pockets to bail out their failing budget rather than adjust their policy to match what they can afford. You mean the budget that included tax abatement and subsidies for his factories and the people who buy his cars?

If California wanted to make those subsidies conditional on folks like Musk maintaining residency, they certainly could have done so.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#618
post #6

California is actively looking for ways to extract more money from Elon. It likely posed an appreciable risk to his business ventures that CA at some point will try to tax unrecognized capital gains, which would require him to liquidate shares to pay the tax. Basically akin to a hostile government takeover. If CA were to aggressively pursue such a policy, they would likely go after anyone they perceived as fleeing ju…

What are unrecognized capital gains?

Forget metaphors, here's a real example.

You have stock in amzn, say you buy at 3200 a share. A year from now it's 4k a share. 800$ capital gains...you get taxed on that.

It is a terrible tax law bc it is unrealized. What happens when you get taxes on that 800$, then the share drops down to 3300, you sell at 3300, making a REAL profit of 100$?

Do you feel fairly taxes at 800$ profit despit having only 100$ profit?

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socializing what risk? What are you even talking about? Musk put his entire fortune from PayPal on the line for Tesla knowing that in all probability it would fail. It turned out well for him but it was still a huge risk he took. I would argue that the opposite is true. California wants a larger cut of profits from business activity within their borders without any risk on their part, or even having to provide better…

I'm curious how many people educated by the University of California work for Elon Musk.

Yeah I wonder how many people work for Musk and pay taxes to California while building EVs that reduce pollution in California.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: how do states like Texas, Florida, etc. get by without taxing income? Do they not need that money for their operations? What is the difference between their government and California's? I figure Florida makes it up with their tourism industry but Texas decidedly does not have that.

Texas has a really high property tax.

On a percentage basis, yes. But property values are so much lower that you're likely to come out ahead.
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