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Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

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Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#201

Post by czhu12 »

drekk wrote: post #135
gandalfgeek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t relate at all to that sentiment. California has got to be one of the most bloated and wasteful state governments in the entire US. High taxes and nothing to show for it. The entrenched far left seems bent on destroying the middle class, driving out business, regulating everything to death and displacing merit as a selection factor. Whatever glory Cali has— tech, entertainment, farming, weather, natural beauty…

California's government is center-right. There is no far left party in US politics. That's why you don't have affordable higher education or healthcare, why your infrastructure is decaying, why you don't have nice public transit, etc. It's also why your taxes are so high with nothing to show for them. Turns out austerity is expensive for most people. Canada and Mexico have cheap insulin because their governments are…

I’d argue there is a difference between what side of the political spectrum California is on and whether or not they are good at governing. You mention that we don’t have good public transit but California is famous for massively expensive infrastructure projects. It seems it’s less of a ideological issue and more of a competency one.

SF spends more on homelessness than any other municipality, but still has rampant homelessness.

SF’s muni is one of the worst in the country in terms of reliability and speed but we have a muni budget that is equal to London per capita.

Most complaints in California isn’t on its ideology, but rather its incompetence at executing its ideology

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#202

Post by jquery »

zanethomas wrote: post #66
enahs-sf wrote: post #18

Sometimes I feel like this is the endgame where the US overall kind of declines but California starts managing itself better and operates almost like an independent country. Probably wishful thinking but would be great.

California? The state with the highest poverty rate in the nation?

Poverty is a definitional thing, it does not refer to actual living conditions. Poverty in California and poverty in, say, your average red state are very different. Our people in poverty have access to a wide range of public benefits. Our poverty line is quite high which means people qualify for public benefits at higher levels of income. Living in California in poverty is far more tolerable than living elsewhere in poverty. Likewise how being in poverty in the USA is nothing like being in poverty in India or even China.

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#204

Post by ageitgey »

areoform wrote: post #94
gandalfgeek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t relate at all to that sentiment. California has got to be one of the most bloated and wasteful state governments in the entire US. High taxes and nothing to show for it. The entrenched far left seems bent on destroying the middle class, driving out business, regulating everything to death and displacing merit as a selection factor. Whatever glory Cali has— tech, entertainment, farming, weather, natural beauty…

While I respect where you are coming from, the data doesn't match your perceptions. California's governance is exceptional despite the corruption. Here's some data, - One of the best ways to match models to reality is to see if they have predictive power, for some time now people have predicted that California is doomed, see, “California doom: Staggering $54 billion deficit looms,” https://apnews.com/article/48a9ce5a…

> There are areas where California doesn't do well, such as homelessness, but by every conceivably metric, California has exceeded other US states. Surely some of this has to do with governance.

> If I was to sum up my position here, it's this. You get what you pay for.

I lived in California for years before I moved to London 3 years ago. I agree that California does a lot of things better than some states and there's an element of "you get what you pay for." But I think that doesn't let California off the hook for the value they return on the money they collect.

Between federal tax, state tax, social security and all the zany other taxes (CA SDI, etc), the tax rate you pay in California is very close to what you pay in the UK or a lot of other European countries. If you own a home, add in yearly property tax which is similar to what you'd pay in UK council tax.

But in London, you get 100% free healthcare (including all medications at a nominal fee), fantastic public transit, weekly trash/recycling pick-up from your local council, extensive council housing to actually house low-income people, etc. The same money is getting more done. I'm not claiming it's perfect or can't be improved, but the services you get for paying roughly the same tax rate are significantly higher (and the same applies in many other cities in Europe).

I think a lot of people in the US don't realize that CA taxes are essentially at the same level as many countries in Europe. So I have at least a little sympathy for people who throw their hands up and move to a low tax, low service state like Texas when they feel like they aren't getting a European level of services for a European level of taxes.

I think some of the inefficiency in California stems from the proposition system where large pots of money are allocated to seemingly good causes but it ties the hands of government who are trying to manage the overall budget efficiently. The amount of propositions included in every voting cycle is comical and in my opinion it is just shifting the work of detailed governance onto the general public who has neither the time nor the expertise to decide on a lot of the issues presented at the level of detail required.

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#205

Post by programmer_dude »

feet wrote: post #195
over_bridge wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's true that the terms are relative, there are countries in Europe and South America that have literal communist, socialist or anarchist parties. Hearing people describe Democrats as far left makes them sound like clowns spouting canned propaganda. It's not conducive to conversation as you know you aren't talking to a rational person who can argue in good faith.

People who call US Democrats far left likely don't have experience with culture outside of their own and their local/national mainstream news. Either that or they hang out on 4chan

>don't have experience with culture outside of their own and their local/national mainstream news.

Isn't this true of most Americans democrat or otherwise.

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#206

Post by throwaway7980 »

gandalfgeek wrote: post #28
enahs-sf wrote: post #18

Sometimes I feel like this is the endgame where the US overall kind of declines but California starts managing itself better and operates almost like an independent country. Probably wishful thinking but would be great.

I can’t relate at all to that sentiment. California has got to be one of the most bloated and wasteful state governments in the entire US. High taxes and nothing to show for it. The entrenched far left seems bent on destroying the middle class, driving out business, regulating everything to death and displacing merit as a selection factor. Whatever glory Cali has— tech, entertainment, farming, weather, natural beauty…

> nothing to show for it

That's why almost 12% of the US population chooses to live in California right?

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#207

Post by 86J8oyZv »

programmer_dude wrote: post #205
feet wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who call US Democrats far left likely don't have experience with culture outside of their own and their local/national mainstream news. Either that or they hang out on 4chan

>don't have experience with culture outside of their own and their local/national mainstream news. Isn't this true of most Americans democrat or otherwise.

For most Americans, exposure to outside cultures will happen much more through reading about them or interacting with, say, foreign exchange students and foreign cultural social groups, than visiting the places. Americans who grow up with the money to travel abroad a lot often come from general wealth, which also lets them afford to spend more time doing things like grad school. This affects the liberal causes well-traveled American liberals might support; they may care less about economic fairness than gender/racial equality for instance.

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#208

Post by feet »

programmer_dude wrote: post #205
feet wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who call US Democrats far left likely don't have experience with culture outside of their own and their local/national mainstream news. Either that or they hang out on 4chan

>don't have experience with culture outside of their own and their local/national mainstream news. Isn't this true of most Americans democrat or otherwise.

Basically yes. I think the internet has changed things quite a bit but many are still isolated

Rural communities need broadband internet access and we need to work to reduce the amount and impact of echo chambers on the internet

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#209

Post by prepend »

pempem wrote: post #145
rapsey wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coastal regions are always more prosperous.

Like FLA and GA? California has higher taxes, california also has internationally ranked economies at the city level. Of course things could be better, and like a previous commenter mentioned, there are missing investments in housing, transportation and more. That is however, because of the continuous specter of the right winning state offices and the "left" party basically being centerist.

FL and GA have grown phenomenally in the past decades. FL had 6.7M in 1970 [0] and 21.8M in 2020 [1].

It’s not as big as California, but has had substantial growth.

Georgia is similar.

[0] https://fcit.usf.edu/florida/docs/c/census/1970.htm [1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/FL

Re: Governor Newsom announces California will make its own insulin

#210

Post by refurb »

arrosenberg wrote: post #100
refurb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it’s not a new insulin, it’s just some manufacturer. Plenty of generic insulin’s exist already. Why build a new plant just to make something that’s already sold?

Government has no profit motive and the existing sellers are not competing on price efficiently. The CA Government can sell at cost plus and force the other players to lower their price.

Generic company margins are small.

Easier to negotiate a big volume, then sell below cost.

No need to build a new plant.

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