cawacko
Well-known member
That's not what the backers of rent control claim
California real estate is so expensive that families, retirees, and even tech workers
- Thread starter signalmankenneth
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That's not what the backers of rent control claim
cawacko
Well-known member
Thank you Captain Obvious
You have personally spoken to all of them?
Apparently they do need to live in a car. If the economy there is vibrant and high paying, they should be able to afford to live somewhere besides a car. Tells me that they aren't capable of doing something worthy of high pay or the economy isn't as vibrant as is being claimed.
Fentoine Lum
Verified User
Folks claim all kindsa shyte.
Fentoine Lum
Verified User
You'd have to ask those that live in one. How much are the taxpayers funding for your government housing, boy?
Let's say I have $100,000 and I'm deciding between buying a new Ford Fiesta for $14,000, and buying a new S-Class Mercedes for $90,000. If I choose to buy the Mercedes, I have a lot less money remaining. Does that make me poorer than if I'd instead bought the Ford? I'd say no -- that my decision to opt for the extravagance of a luxury car didn't make me poorer, because I was enriched by that vehicle. That may or may not have been a wise choice from someone else's perspective, but I made the decision I valued having a nicer vehicle more than I valued having an extra $76,000.
In the same sense, if I make the extravagant choice to live in California, rather than a cut-rate location, and as a result I have less money after housing costs, does that mean I'm poorer? I'd say no, because I was enriched by that living arrangement, which, by my own choice, I showed was worth more to me than the extra money (or I wouldn't have made the choice).
To be clear, I'm not arguing California has any of those advantages, in particular. What I'm saying is that there's a reason that many millions of people prefer California to every single other alternative, even with the high housing costs. That reason will differ from person to person. For some, it may be the weather. For some, the job opportunities. For some, the culture. Etc. But every single one who is in California has a reason for being there when they have the right to live in any other state if they wanted. In effect, every single person's choice is a way of saying "there's something about living here that I value more than I'd value lower housing costs." If that's what their choice is saying, then in what sense are they poorer than if they moved to a low-housing-cost area, thereby suffering a net diminution of value (from their own perspective)?
I can see why a progressive would want the measure adopted, since it would benefit progressive states if it were adopted. If we accounted for housing costs when determining tax tables, eligibility for government assistance, etc., more money would flow from Washington to states like California, instead of states like Mississippi. But, I think that moving to that would be built on a fiction. Basically, it involves ignoring the value of location.
cawacko
Well-known member
Ok. What would be your solution or plan for dealing with the high cost of housing?
Yes, I've spoken to every single one of them. I've spent the last year of my life bouncing around California at nearly the speed of light, stopping only to converse in microbursts of conversation with each Californian I encounter. You'd think the hard part would be having to learn all their languages, but it turns out the real difficulty was the constant acceleration and deceleration. It was hell on my shoes. In retrospect, I shouldn't have even tried to do it in heels.
It's relative. It's vibrant and high-paying enough, or has enough other things going for it, that they prefer to live there, even in a car, rather than move to any of the other states they could move to.
That's for admitting your claim to know about something was nothing more than unsubstantiated bullshit.
Now, you're changing what you said. Hope those that choose to stay there are negatively affected by the illegals they grant sanctuary to. Maybe more of the Spics will do to them what one did to Kate Steinle.
Fentoine Lum
Verified User
States Struggle With 'Hidden' Rural Homelessness
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/researc...tates-struggle-with-hidden-rural-homelessness
Fentoine Lum
Verified User
Seems that might require dealing with jobs folk can live on, 1 in 5 kids in america in poverty and the economic system as a whole, not picking one bad indicator and letting all the usual corporatists keep their share by sodomizing the working and underclasses like we have since the early 1970s.
cawacko
Well-known member
Here's how the differences were described from UC Davis and to me all the factors they take into account give a much clearer (not perfect but much better) picture of poverty in today's America. The measurements used from a half century ago are sufficient today.
https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/policy-brief/supplemental-poverty-measure-better-measure-poverty-america
It's a legitimate question to ask why people live anywhere when there are so many other options. I go back to what I wrote earlier about family and familiarity. People tend to want to stay around family as well as what they know.
If you are well educated and a high earner California is an amazing place. The sky is the limit here. If you're just a regular working joe, not so much. It's why we have had more people leaving the state then coming in (from within the U.S.). Our high cost of housing has forced many to move and now cities like Portland, Seattle, Denver and Austin hate Californians because we move there and drive up the price of their real estate.
If you bought a home in Cali in the '60's, '70's or '80's you are sitting on a gold mind today. If you are young and want to move here to work, buy a home and start a family you better be in the top 1% of earners because that's what it takes.
cawacko
Well-known member
Seeing as how with technology and globalization, along with rise of countries like China and India, we aren't going back to the early '70's what would you like to see done now?
Fentoine Lum
Verified User
Sure, we can't have the working class, middle class and working poor earning wages that mirror their productivity, that would be unheard of.
cawacko
Well-known member
And how would you envision this being accomplished?
Certainly family ties are a huge factor..... and not just for California. For example, consider Alaska, where they have almost 7% unemployment, even now. Why don't they pick up and move to, say, Hawaii (unemployment rate of about 2%)? Or consider a hellhole like Louisiana, with a murder rate of 11.8/100k. Why not relocate to somewhere like New Hampshire (a rate of 1.3)? Or look at incomes or life expectancies. Why live in horrible places like Mississippi instead of nice places like Massachusetts? Mostly it's about living where your family support network happens to be. There's a ton of inertia in settlement patterns.
Mass migrations can happen when things get bad enough (e.g., the exodus from the South during Jim Crow, or from Ireland during the Famine, or the middle of the country during the Dust Bowl). But it takes a lot to get more than a trickle of movement.
Anyway, California has its issues, but it has the nation's fourth-highest life expectancy and high incomes. Health and prosperity have an allure. And that's a big part of why California's population rises every year, even with a moderate fertility rate.
Fentoine Lum
Verified User
We used to do all that. Are you unaware of that? Maybe that was before your time. Revisit the Powell Memorandum.
cawacko
Well-known member
We did it all for a span of 20 to 30 years in a post WWII time period when much of the rest of the world was in destruction or under communism. We're not going back to that time. Today we technology and globalization. So it's easy to sit on a message board and b*tch about how things aren't like they were a half century ago but it doesn't do much other feeling good to vent I guess.