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California’s population shrinks for third straight year

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Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#91

Post by wonderwonder »

dionidium wrote: post #85
khazhoux wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most analogies, those fail. One person's quality of life is not affected in any way by another person having a sofa. More housing and population density does lead to increased crowding, which some people consider a decrease in quality of life. We can argue which QOL argument outweighs the other, but it's plain wrong to say that increasing housing has no impact on existing residents.

Of course allowing more housing impacts people. And people on their iPhones impact me -- when they're behind the wheel, when they're talking loudly in a restaurant, when I can't get their attention in a shop. The towers impact me (they're ugly and ubiquitous and use valuable spectrum). And lawnmowers? Those impact me, too! They're loud and stir up dust. I'm struggling to think of anything objectionable about sofas, b…

Sure, that's the beauty of democracy though. Everyone gets an equal say. Seems like not enough of the voting population agrees with you and as such no new houses are built. America is a huge country though, plenty of very affordable housing elsewhere. Everyone doesn't get to just have what they want where they want it though, that's capitalism for you.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#92

Post by BeetleB »

friedman23 wrote: post #72
BeetleB wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People inflate the amount of state income tax they have to pay in California. Yes the rates are high but so are the deductions. Some years ago I had to deal with California income tax for various reasons. I think at that time you had to earn over 50K to hit 9% marginal. In my state you hit that at about 16K. And this is after deductions where California had a ton more. I believe one needed an income of over 100K befo…

I think overall taxes are undercounted in California because the state taxes absolutely everything. California has the highest income tax and highest sales tax in the US. Throw in the grocery bag taxes, and all the other random taxes in that state you are just paying an absurd amount for nothing.

California has the highest income tax only if you earn a lot. For most earners it definitely is not the highest income tax state.

Median household income is $84 K in California. The tax rate is only 6%. And in reality it's less due to having more deductions. Contrast with Oregon where the tax rate is almost 9% for anything over 10K.

California ranks 9th for overall tax burden.

And property tax is ridiculously low, although that is offset by the high property values.

As a random data point: In my state, I got zero tax benefit for having a kid - and my household income is under $200K. I'm too "rich". I haven't checked, but I'm sure in California I'd get some deduction for the kid.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#93

Post by lkbm »

wonderwonder wrote: post #84
spacemadness wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get anger and vitriol because your views are part of the problem. NIMBY’s pull up the ladder and try to turn a nice semi-affordable car into a Porsche then tell everyone “sorry, it’s just expensive to be here. Not my fault!”

Pretty sure the basics of economics are your issue, not the people you pejoratively call NIMBY

The basics of economics are that housing prices is a function of amount of housing and number of people who want housing. NIMBYism is about keeping the amount of housing low, thus pushing prices up.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#94

Post by wonderwonder »

lkbm wrote: post #93
wonderwonder wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the basics of economics are your issue, not the people you pejoratively call NIMBY

The basics of economics are that housing prices is a function of amount of housing and number of people who want housing. NIMBYism is about keeping the amount of housing low, thus pushing prices up.

So control of supply... Is demand pretty high?

On a side note, how can you be mad at people who have a home, are raising their kids and don't want an apartment building smacked down next to them and their kid's schools flooded with hundreds of extra students?

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#95

Post by NigelThornberry »

natechols wrote: post #52
22289d wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a problem to me, that's the point. By saying I am a part of the problem, what you really mean is that my views are an obstacle to you getting what you want.

[flagged]

In what world does living next to a refugee camp improve quality of life?

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#96

Post by AlbertCory »

rsj_hn wrote: post #81
AlbertCory wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last paragraph is self-contradictory. Ending Prop 13 would not cause "significantly scaling back spending and decreasing its vast administrative bureaucracies." Instead it would have the opposite effect. All other taxes would stay the same, but now they'd have this additional source of money.

This may be difficult to understand, and I can accept if you refuse to believe it, but it's possible to say that two steps are needed without the first step also accomplishing the second. "e.g. 1) switch to more funding on property taxes and 2) reduce administrative bloat" Shockingly, this does not make the two steps "self-contradictory".

Despite your condescending tone: my comment was what WOULD happen. Yours is what you'd like.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#97

Post by reaperducer »

wysewun wrote: post #43

Moved from the bay to Texas because of everything i heard. It was such a horrible experience. The heat, the bugs, the lack of density. So few days of good weather. Maybe worth it to some, but a bigger house was not worth it to me at all. We moved back in 6 months. So many people want to live in California which causes more issues

We moved back in 6 months.

That must have been expensive!

You had to eat the second six months of a year lease on a house, maybe lost your deposit, too; plus you paid to move an entire family from California to Texas; then paid again to move from Texas to California. Then had to find another place to live in California and pay another deposit there.

Having helped a friend move from California to Texas recently, it sounds like at least a $40,000 mistake.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#98

Post by philsnow »

wysewun wrote: post #43

Moved from the bay to Texas because of everything i heard. It was such a horrible experience. The heat, the bugs, the lack of density. So few days of good weather. Maybe worth it to some, but a bigger house was not worth it to me at all. We moved back in 6 months. So many people want to live in California which causes more issues

Boot up google maps, go to east Texas, turn on satellite view, and zoom out a bit: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.162224,-97.8577697,1179315m/...

That easternmost part of the state is the "piney woods" and it's lovely compared to the concrete island that is Dallas. The forests have a mitigating effect on heat.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#99

Post by lkbm »

wonderwonder wrote: post #91
dionidium wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course allowing more housing impacts people. And people on their iPhones impact me -- when they're behind the wheel, when they're talking loudly in a restaurant, when I can't get their attention in a shop. The towers impact me (they're ugly and ubiquitous and use valuable spectrum). And lawnmowers? Those impact me, too! They're loud and stir up dust. I'm struggling to think of anything objectionable about sofas, b…

Sure, that's the beauty of democracy though. Everyone gets an equal say. Seems like not enough of the voting population agrees with you and as such no new houses are built. America is a huge country though, plenty of very affordable housing elsewhere. Everyone doesn't get to just have what they want where they want it though, that's capitalism for you.

It's not capitalism, though. In capitalism, I could use money to build an apartment building on the land that I own.

If wouldn't be capitalism if we demanded you let us build on your land, but it's certainly not capitalism when you won't let us build on our land.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#100

Post by dionidium »

wonderwonder wrote: post #91
dionidium wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course allowing more housing impacts people. And people on their iPhones impact me -- when they're behind the wheel, when they're talking loudly in a restaurant, when I can't get their attention in a shop. The towers impact me (they're ugly and ubiquitous and use valuable spectrum). And lawnmowers? Those impact me, too! They're loud and stir up dust. I'm struggling to think of anything objectionable about sofas, b…

Sure, that's the beauty of democracy though. Everyone gets an equal say. Seems like not enough of the voting population agrees with you and as such no new houses are built. America is a huge country though, plenty of very affordable housing elsewhere. Everyone doesn't get to just have what they want where they want it though, that's capitalism for you.

> Sure, that's the beauty of democracy though.

In the United States we have a Constitution that enumerates a set of Rights about which nobody gets to vote. It doesn't matter if you (or even 99% of all people) think it should be illegal for me to express this opinion, for example; you don't get to vote on that.

Private property rights in my view quite clearly fall under this rubric and it's only because of a few laughably bad SCOTUS decisions that this is even a live debate at all. For most of our history this was well understood.

If given the chance, most people will vote to ban new construction in their neighborhoods. I presume that if given the chance significant percentages of the population would also vote to ban certain kinds of speech. In neither case do I believe those positions are made legitimate by virtue of having majority support.

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