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Elon Musk moves to Texas

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Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#771

Post by jofer »

dctoedt wrote: post #733
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houston, unlike the rest of Texas, has a strong Louisiana influence stretching back generations because of the shared oil and gas economy, and was enhanced by immigration and outflow from New Orleans by Katrina in 2005.

Hmm; apart from restaurants, I'm not sure many Houstonians would agree that Houston has "a strong Louisiana influence stretching back generations" — if anything we'd probably say it's the other way around (but then that might be just local boosterism). As to Hurricane Katrina: We took in about 250K evacuees but only about 40K stayed permanently (which is a bunch, of course). I'd guess most of those were the sort who…

I think a lot of what folks see as a "Louisiana influence" in Houston is mostly "Gulf Coast TX" vs the rest of Texas.

It's not that it's a Louisiana influence, it's that we're all on the gulf coast and all have a lot in common. (Not with New Orleans so much, but certainly with Lake Charles/etc.)

That somehow gets misnamed as a "Louisiana influence", when really it's just the region we're in.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#772

Post by imgabe »

wolverine876 wrote: post #234
zaroth wrote: 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…

Many, many billionaires live, have lived, and thrive in CA - probably more than any place in the world. In fact, I'd guess that more billionaires have made their fortunes in CA than any other place. The grievance rhetoric has gone too far (and had awhile ago) when it's used by billionaires. There is also strong reactionary political rhetoric here, the premise that taxes on wealthy people are nearly criminal theft, an…

> nobody would want to live someplace where they democratically invest in their community (i.e., pay taxes)

I don't think anybody has a problem with investing in their community, but when there's no return on an investment you cut your losses and move on.

Tent cities, rolling blackouts, no healthcare, no public transportation. What are you getting for the taxes?

I moved to Hong Kong this year. Public health care, amazing public transportation, no tent cities[1], and the top tax rate is 17%. It's not perfect, but this idea that the solution to every societal problem is just to pay more and more taxes is nonsense.

California has the highest taxes in the country. If the quality of life there is worse than in states with lower taxes, then it's time to start questioning how that tax money is spent, not shovel more of it into a black hole that isn't doing anything.

[1] I won't say there's no homeless, because I don't know that for sure, but there are hardly any panhandlers. I know there is subsidized housing available, but I hear the wait list is long. Whatever they're doing, there's hardly any homeless on the streets.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#773

Post by aluminum96 »

S_A_P wrote: 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…

Having grown up gay in North Texas and then moved to California for college, I strenuously object to your assertion that "folks with opposing viewpoints can still coexist here." It's truly leaps and bounds more accepting for LGBT people in California than in North Texas.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#774

Post by WalterBright »

manigandham wrote: post #555
ddoolin wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crime in almost every category has gone down over the last decade. You have to be crazy to think gang activity has gotten worse over the same time period. Immigration is not the domain of the state. I'd argue that given the number of people here, the traffic could be a lot worse. I've personally seen worse gridlock on worse infrastructure in other states with less people. Even if you account for the days that fires a…

Crime and gang activity is increasing, especially in prisons where every yard is now active. Local street gangs sets have multiplied with the influx of people (many homeless), drugs, welfare and larger organized crime operations. Also recent policies decriminalized many acts and have led to rampant street crime in areas like SF and LA. CA provides sanctuary status for illegal immigrants, along with driver licenses, f…

In Seattle, the official crime rate is down, but a lot of people have simply stopped reporting crimes because of lack of response. The actual crime rate is unknown. But the boarded up shop windows say a lot.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#775

Post by aluminum96 »

mrits wrote: post #378
techsupporter wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I grew up in Tyler but have lived in Austin for 15 years. I don't mean to be argumentative but you seem to be comparing Small town Texas with "Big City" California. I've vacationed in smaller towns in California and the conservative nature of those areas remind me a lot of Tyler,Texas.

Having grown up gay in Dallas, I didn't exactly have a great experience. While I'm sure Tyler is worse, even Dallas is not so accepting (unless you're planning to move to Oak Lawn and never leave your neighborhood).

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#776

Post by [deleted] »

techsupporter wrote: post #220
S_A_P wrote: 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…

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#777

Post by JKCalhoun »

wavefunction wrote: post #571
JKCalhoun wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, ironically property taxes are much higher in Texas than California. And toll roads, etc... In short, the money has to come from somewhere — if not from income tax then it will be from somewhere else.

He can just stick a few livestock on a corner of his property and get an Agriculture exemption.

I thought you had to be "grandfathered" (poor word choice, I know) into that.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#778

Post by mwfunk »

woah wrote: post #572
techsupporter wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's been a massive windfall to people who have been homeowners for 40 years in California. High rents due to the fact that you're not allowed to build new housing, high property taxes paid by new residents, while old residents pay nothing, high income and sales taxes to paper over the gap in the budget left by the lack of property tax paid by longtime residents. The whole system has been optimized to milk as much mo…

Not only that, but there's often comments about how people moving from CA to TX are fleeing the results of a presumably left wing tax code to enjoy the benefits of a presumably right wing tax code, but it's not that simple.

CA is as expensive as it is in large part because of NIMBYs and tax schemes that were absolutely the product of right-wing ballot initiatives for the most part. OTOH, a large part of the appeal of TX is that it doesn't have a state income tax, but the state is absolutely on the dole. IIRC TX takes in ~$150b from the Federal government, but only pays ~$100b into the system. CA (like NY) pays more into the system then it takes out, so about ~$50b of the annual budget of TX is literally bumming money from other states, albeit indirectly.

Which is a roundabout way of saying, the narrative about people moving from CA to TX often makes it sound like a narrative about left-wing economic policies vs. right-wing economic policies, but the reality is that CA is expensive in large part because of right-wing economic policies and TX is cheap in large part because it's basically on welfare from the Federal government. Which is fine, the system should allow economically healthier states to help the less successful states get by (looking at you KY), but it's so counter to the narrative that usually surrounds these stories that people tend to sweep it under the rug. And also TX is hardly an economically unhealthy, depressed state in need of assistance from the rest of the country. It should step up and stop being being a bum, because AFAICT it's not a bum but rather a state with well above-average prospects.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#779

Post by reddog »

nemo wrote: post #517
sdljfjafsd wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really any different from any other state, including California? Rural vs urban culture are completely different in every state in America. As Californians we still insulate ourselves from rural culture. The only difference in California those counties don't form the bulk of the electorate while in Texas they do. We still have the same problem: a cultural divide between rural and urban.

I live in TX. I am very, very careful when I'm out in the sticks since the shitkickers are dangerous. I also lived in CA and even in the sticks out in central CA there's just nothing like the scale of xenophobic belligerence in rural TX (or the rest of the Bible Belt).

It goes both ways. Try walking around Town Lake in Austin (where I live) wearing a MAGA hat and the tell me how much more diverse and tolerant folks are in the big city.

Re: Elon Musk moves to Texas

#780

Post by [deleted] »

WalterBright wrote: post #774
manigandham wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crime and gang activity is increasing, especially in prisons where every yard is now active. Local street gangs sets have multiplied with the influx of people (many homeless), drugs, welfare and larger organized crime operations. Also recent policies decriminalized many acts and have led to rampant street crime in areas like SF and LA. CA provides sanctuary status for illegal immigrants, along with driver licenses, f…

In Seattle, the official crime rate is down, but a lot of people have simply stopped reporting crimes because of lack of response. The actual crime rate is unknown. But the boarded up shop windows say a lot.

[deleted]
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