321–330 of 543 posts
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I grew up in Atlanta and highly recommend it.
Aren't you concerned that Californians will turn Atlanta into Little California by supporting the policies that caused the problems they are fleeing in the first place?
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Thanks for this comment. I must have misread at what income the 9% rate kicks in. Is your friend an assistant prof, or does he/she have tenure?
It is 9.3% on income after $58k until $300k (single filing), but the first $58k is taxed at a lower rate, so you never get anywhere near an effective 9% rate. That’s just the way marginal rates work, Republicans throw out the top tax rate to argue that California is high taxed, but it turns out the taxes are very progressive (the first $100k is taxed very lightly). He should have tenure. The UC system doesn’t pay tha…
Those aren’t low rates compared to other states, especially considering the COL.
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Yes, in many jurisdictions voluntary contributions are accepted. I assume you've already explored this option?
I am not interested as I don’t think voluntary contributions can change anything. This argument goes both ways: why not lowering taxes since people can just donate instead? The next thing you know you don’t have hospitals, roads, police, firemen, army, education, healthcare, oops
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Stop growing rice and fucknuts in the fucking desert. That solves the water problem.
Is _rice_ really grown in California?
California has a rich delta, the San Joaquin River Delta, which is a natural rice growing region.
People who are ignorant of geography, and think water is much more fungible than it is, would prefer that some small amount more of this water be expelled into the San Francisco Bay, as the great majority of it is already.
Contrast with alfalfa, which is grown mostly from aquifer water in the Central Valley, constitutes 50% of the entire agricultural water use for the state, and is used as cattle feed. That we can do without.
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i.e. the original sin that gave us this problem in the first place. It makes absolutely no sense to have the older, wealthier, luckier, "I got here early, therefore I'm set for life" generation pay $300/year, while the couple in their thirties who moved in two years ago, have a new baby, and can barely afford the mortgage and daycare despite both parents working in tech have to pay nearly $15,000/year. I know the ori…
You can absolutely afford it on two tech salaries. I was exactly the person your describing 15+ years ago, but my wife wasn’t working so we only had one tech salary. Fast forward all that time, and the housing market you complain about will likely be a huge wealth generator for you, where as this cheap houses in the middle of no where won’t be.
It's been a couple of decades since I lived in California and my parents moved out to Nevada five years ago so my current knowledge of the state is pretty much from media and online sources. Despite that, I have to wonder if the state has simply become too unwieldly and if it's time to give the idea of splitting it into multiple states some serious consideration. While I didn't like the "Six Californias" plan, some o…
3 states would work best. 1 NorCal which would be heavily blue. SoCal which would lean blueish-purple which Orange County and SD. Then you can carve out a Central Valley state which would be red. In effect we'd be adding 2 new senators for central/southern California, and it would be 1 red and 1 blue.
Not if NorCal starts north of the bay. SF and friends can have their own state.
California is just at saturation level. There's just too many people for the small strip of coastal land that is inhabitable. All I could think while living there for 5 years was how damn cool it must have been in the 60's/70's with literally half as many people. The traffic, the crowds everywhere at all times, it's all just too much at this point. It's still an amazing paradise playground if you're a millionaire. Bu…
What's the evidence that CA's problems are caused by just too many people? Do you think the East Coast (from Boston to DC) is oversaturated?
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To me it feels like that’s why it’s expensive. Either that or it just very coincidentally started getting extremely expensive at the same time housing segregation and home-loan discrimination were banned federally (1968 and 1974 respectively. People ask “WTF happened in 1971?” ( https://wtfhappenedin1971.com ) like they never took a high school “american history” class.
Is the answer that the US left the gold standard and switched to completely fiat currency? Or the US ended the trade embargo with China? Or Walt Disney World opened in Florida?
I feel like it's only going to get worse. California has a good number of problems: housing costs, traffic, wildfires, homelessness, ... and the high tax rate you pay for the privilege of enjoying them. But I haven't seen California take meaningful steps to solve any of these. We're still in the stage of "problems are getting worse", and any solutions will take a long time to materialize. I grew up in California. It'…
Most of California's problems go back to lack of housing and opposition to building more. Everyone wants to live in Cali for nice weather and jobs. If you stop people from building more housing your property value just keeps rising. Property costs are high because NIMBY blocking denser housing. Traffic is bad because housing density is too low for the population. Homelessness is bad because houses are too expensive.…
Certainly just increasing density with no other controls just increases traffic congestion.
The best approach would be increasing density while decreasing reliance on personal transportation.
https://www.transformca.org/transform-blog-post/our-take-gre...
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All those problems get better as the population declines.
This is the biggest asshole response to real problems that I see Californians say all the time. Maybe I just know too many assholes – but there has to be a better answer to “people are fleeing California for legitimate reasons” than “good riddance.”
Population growth is a real problem, we are living in an finite system called planet Earth. With 1/4 of the world population everyone would live better - less pollution, 4 times more resources per capita, etc. Imagine California with 10-15 million inhabitants, no homeless people, enough water for everybody.