B0ycey wrote:So let me get this straight; California, one of America's richest states is none other than a Shithole. Someone should inform Trump.
I'm sure he already feels that way. California is a beautiful place with a lot of structural problems. Here, I'm solidly middle class. However, to purchase a house like mine, you need a good $120k in cash for a down payment for 20% down. It's probably even more now, AND that's in an exurb. Otherwise, you are subject to mortgage insurance and a higher interest rate, unless you accept a riskier 5/1 ARM loan--which is what led to the financial crisis. The so-called "working middle class" are simply priced out of the market. If you want a house like mine in the town I grew up (about 20 minutes by car), expect to be paying $1.5M or more. In San Francisco or Mountain View? $3M easily.
We have high tech workers making $80k-90k per year who live in motorhomes, because rents are astronomical.
Bulaba Jones wrote:Here in the Portland area, it is common to see lines of tents on the sidewalks downtown, along parking lots, parks, spaces between highways and roads, etc.
Portland: The Capitol of Smug. I was there for a conference last year, and overheard the typical elitist liberals complaining about the mentally ill homeless littering on the sidewalk, and there was no excuse (beyond profound depression or schizophrenia) because there was a garbage can on every corner.
Bulaba Jones wrote:Conditions in California are far better than poor "red" states. If sensationalist idiots on YouTube think California is a failed state, they haven't been to some of the Appalachian states.
The failure is one of the welfare state, the cost of living, low skilled immigrants, the alcohol and drug addicted homeless, and the mentally ill homeless. I can say that my quality of life is quite good, but it takes a lot of capital to live this way. For example, it would cost me $400 a month to heat and cool my house, as it's about 3100 sq. ft. So I have 30 solar panels on my roof, and that cuts my bill to essentially nothing from PG&E for electricity, and I simply pay $180 a month on my solar note. However, to own the panels, you essentially have to own the home--we're not talking Solar City, or some leasing scam where you don't own the panels and there is an encumbrance/easement on your roof. I have enough for a couple of more down payments on houses, so I may get into the landlord game. However, I'd like to see a firm like Petersen Dean extend my solar system with a few more panels and add a battery pack so that I can further my solar gains and tax credits. Whereas, the working class is getting fucked over by cap-and-trade and all this global warming bullshit, and they keep voting for politicians who screw them over because they don't know any better.
Being paid not to work by the welfare system leaves many people utterly destitute and dependent on the state. You just don't see native born Californians entering the lawn mowing business for example; yet, it's a cash business. You just have to hustle and work hard. I pay my gardner $140 a month, and he comes once a week. I had him do my Christmas lights this year and paid him nicely to do it. So I had him help me put stands under my washer and dryer this week. It took us about 90 minutes to get it all done and leveled up. He wouldn't charge me for it. He said, "you help me, I help you" in his broken English. That sort of working class grit is gone among the native born now. They all want a "job" with an employer and benefits. Yet immigrants who can barely speak English are living better than the typical high school grad that can speak English.
Rancid wrote:Austin has a lot of homeless. Largely because Austin in the only city in the state that offers a lot of support for homeless folks. Thus all the homeless people across the state travel here.
San Francisco is the same way. It is literally like a Charles Dickens novel in San Francisco. It is the home of the very wealthy, and up-and-coming techies. It is home to businesses like Twitter and Uber. Yet, there are homeless people everywhere. The BART escalators are caked in feces and urine. It's absolutely appalling.
Tainari88 wrote:Where do they go? To the states to take low paying jobs. It is the most feasible alternative for them. The American economy relies on them a lot. I had to go to almost every service industry place in this state and thousands upon thousands of people here who speak only Spanish and are Mexican and work here in jobs that the employers refuse to hire white Americans for.....the excuses they gave me for not hiring white Americans, "The white Americans are lazy. They don't show up for dishwashing jobs consistently. They are on drugs, don't want to do the job, for long. You got to pay them more. The Mexicans show up and are dependable and accept my wages and no benefits. You don't need English and skills. You need work ethic....etc. etc." They exploit them. Let us be honest.
Well, native born Americans can get paid by the government for not working. Drugs and alcohol have a lot to do with the lack of reliability, but welfare is a massive disincentive to hard work. My maid works her ass off at my house. I pay what she asks, and I usually add a tip. She also has a job at Target, which I assume is to get benefits as she certainly makes about $20 per hour cleaning houses, and probably only $12-13 at Target + withholding. I find it fascinating that American born people won't do those jobs.
Tainari88 wrote:The white workers who are 'available' don't want those jobs. They don't.
Nobody "wants" those jobs. They are just willing to do them if they don't have other alternatives. Welfare, phony disability claims, etc are a huge reason native born Americans won't do those jobs. Just because you got a 4-year college degree in music doesn't mean you are exempt from low wage employment. Yet, government provides them with unemployment if they can't find work in "their field."
Tainari88 wrote:They are good, humble, hard working, sweet, rural, down to earth people.
Many are. Most legal immigrants are good. The problem with illegal immigration is that it allows criminals to immigrate to the United States with no background check, and they end up as drug mules and muscle for the drug cartels. If they don't have resources to get here legally, they are subject to exploitation.
B0ycey wrote:There are a number of issues at play in America in terms of poverty, but you'll find they all stem from greed from the Capitalists or the GOP.
The problem with this analysis is that these problems are the worst in places governed by liberal Democrats.
B0ycey wrote:And the fact to question one of America's richest states in being a failure says it all for your sanity.
The gap between rich and poor is pretty medieval here. That doesn't mean that Mark Zuckerberg isn't rich, but Facebook isn't one of the companies that announced any bonuses for their employees, and neither is Google.
Truth to Power wrote:CA committed suicide when it passed Proposition 13 in 1978, because since then, the state constitution forces CA's state, county, and local governments to give exorbitant and relentlessly increasing subsidies to landowners. Everyone in the state will ultimately be sacrificed on the altar of landowner greed, privilege and parasitism.
That's ludicrous. California has the third highest median home value in the country behind DC, and Hawaii. The state rakes in enormous amounts of cash from California landowners. Even at an effective rate of 1%, they pay more property tax than most people in the US. I pay 1.5%, because my home is brand spanking new.
Truth to Power wrote:In the 40 years since Prop 13, CA has become dramatically worse in virtually every measure of good government. And it is guaranteed to keep getting worse. The forced monotonic increase in the subsidization of landowning means that everything in CA will relentlessly regress lower and lower, except one thing and one thing only: land value.
That has almost nothing to do with it. You have no such problems in Montana, Arizona, Kentucky, or North Carolina who are taxed at very similar rates. States like New Jersey and Illinois would be absolute paradise if high property taxes were some sort of panacea; they are not.
Hindsite wrote:As I recall, Trump said that was the fault of a contractor that he used.
That was only a demolition crew. It was not the construction workers on the tower. That was all union labor.
B0cey wrote:So he didn't visit the building site when construction was taking place? If he knew the contractors were breaking the law, why didn't he notify the border agency? Trump is a true capitalist. Greed runs through his veins so he wasn't going to pay American workers wages for a project that was a tax dodge to begin with. He will step on his supporters if it means he'd earn a nickel. You cheerlead for a man who bleeds you dry .
Trump Tower was not built with illegal alien labor. The preceding building had about 15 illegal Polish workers who were working for a demolition contractor who sued the contractor for not paying them, which is why illegal aliens should rethink coming to the United States if they want to have standing to sue. The Polish workers here are understandable since they were fleeing communism.
B0cey wrote:Yes, yes he has. By hiring illegal migrants to fix them for him.
That's neither true nor funny.
B0cey wrote:The Obama card is not longer any good. He has been in power for over a year and the poor are getting poorer, not richer as promised.
Unemployment is going down, especially for minorities. As illegal aliens are being thrown out, Hispanic Americans are seeing their lowest unemployment rate ever.
Hong Wu wrote:Let's keep in mind that this is the same state that has done things like reduce knowingly giving someone HIV to a misdemeanor, pays transvestites with goat horns on their heads to read books to children, didn't repair their dam because of global warming (it promptly rained and the feds had to be called in), manspreading and incorrect pronoun use are crimes depending on where you are/where you work, the Kate Steinle verdict punished the guy for using a firearm but not for killing someone with it (not even a criminal negligence charge, yet you'd think that shooting off a gun you aren't allowed to use would be negligence per se), and this is just the stuff I can describe to non-Californians. As a Californian refugee myself, if you lived there I could share a bunch more things with you and you would only be able to nod your head.
True. It doesn't require deep analysis though. Everything the left touches turns to shit. California is not Venezuela only because Democrats like iPhones made with slave Chinese child labor more than they like marijuana.
B0cey wrote:Your hypocrisy is outstanding. Great job. So let me get this straight, it was OK for Trump to break the law because back then nobody paid much attention to illegal migrants?
Trump didn't break the law. The Polish workers and the contractor did.
B0cey wrote:Back then one person was needed to work in order to feed a family.
And then feminism was hatched by the welfare state to get women into the workforce so they could collect more taxes. That drove wages down along with trade agreements and put much more pressure on the working people of the country. GATT, NAFTA, MFN status and WTO admission for China all happened under Clinton.
B0cey wrote:And today you need santuary cities to solve this problem.
Sanctuary cities aren't a solution. They are the problem.
B0cey wrote:You cannot remove them as it is economic suicide to do so and a logistic nightmare.
I'm all for it. Why are you suddenly defending the rich people that you were trashing in previous sentences?
B0cey wrote:And if your feeling are hurt that I and the Democrats believe that people should be treated with dignity and not have their lives destroyed so you can have white neighbours then I suggest you start blaming the real people for this problem and that is the wealthy elite.
Who are ironically Democrats who want to exploit cheap labor like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, etc. Why do you attack the rich and defend them in the same sentence?
Tainari88 wrote:Because the little lily white blondies from Malibu and the working class white people from Imperial Beach and etc are either on drugs, don't want those bad jobs or won't be caught dead picking fruits in the hot sun.
That's fixed very easily. Provide the unemployed with bus tickets to the valley, and slash welfare. The problem fixes itself overnight when politicians stop bribing the poor with welfare so they don't have to work.
"We have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics."
-- Joe Biden