California Defies Expectations of Doom, Promises Massive Tax Rebate (bloombergquint.com) 304
As California approaches the biggest state tax rebate in U.S. history, Bloomberg News co-founder Matthew A. Winkler questions its reputation as a state doomed by over-regulation and high taxes.
In fact, California "has no peers among developed economies for expanding GDP, creating jobs, raising household income, manufacturing growth, investment in innovation, producing clean energy and unprecedented wealth through its stocks and bonds." By adding 1.3 million people to its non-farm payrolls since April last year — equal to the entire workforce of Nevada — California easily surpassed also-rans Texas and New York. At the same time, California household income increased $164 billion, almost as much as Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania combined, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. No wonder California's operating budget surplus, fueled by its surging economy and capital gains taxes, swelled to a record $75 billion...
While pundits have long insisted California policies are bad for business, reality belies them. In a sign of investor demand, the weight of California companies in the benchmark S&P 500 Index increased 3 percentage points since a year ago, the most among all states, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Faith in California credit was similarly superlative, with the weight of corporate bonds sold by companies based in the state rising the most among all states, to 12.5 percentage points from 11.7 percentage points, according to the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate Bond Index. Translation: Investors had the greatest confidence in California companies during the pandemic. The most trusted measure of economic strength says California is the world-beater among democracies. The state's gross domestic product increased 21% during the past five years, dwarfing No. 2 New York (14%) and No. 3 Texas (12%), according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gains added $530 billion to the Golden State, 30% more than the increase for New York and Texas combined and equivalent to the entire economy of Sweden.
Among the five largest economies, California outperforms the U.S., Japan and Germany with a growth rate exceeded only by China...
Corporate California also is the undisputed leader in renewable energy, with 26 companies worth $897 billion, or 36% of the U.S. industry, having reported 10% or more of their revenues derived from clean technology. No state comes close to matching the 21% of electricity derived from solar energy. Shares of these firms appreciated 282% during the past 12 months and 1,003%, 1,140% and 9,330% over two, five and 10 years, respectively, with no comparable rivals anywhere in the world, according to BloombergNEF. The same companies also increased their workforce 35% since 2019, almost tripling the rate for the rest U.S. overall and four times the global rate...
California companies invested 16% of their revenues in R&D, or their future, when the rest of the U.S. put aside just 1%...
Much has been made of the state reporting its first yearly loss in population, or 182,000 last year. Had it not been for the Trump administration preventing new visas, depriving as many as 150,000 people from moving to California from other countries annually, the 2020 outcome would have been more favorable.
In fact, California "has no peers among developed economies for expanding GDP, creating jobs, raising household income, manufacturing growth, investment in innovation, producing clean energy and unprecedented wealth through its stocks and bonds." By adding 1.3 million people to its non-farm payrolls since April last year — equal to the entire workforce of Nevada — California easily surpassed also-rans Texas and New York. At the same time, California household income increased $164 billion, almost as much as Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania combined, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. No wonder California's operating budget surplus, fueled by its surging economy and capital gains taxes, swelled to a record $75 billion...
While pundits have long insisted California policies are bad for business, reality belies them. In a sign of investor demand, the weight of California companies in the benchmark S&P 500 Index increased 3 percentage points since a year ago, the most among all states, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Faith in California credit was similarly superlative, with the weight of corporate bonds sold by companies based in the state rising the most among all states, to 12.5 percentage points from 11.7 percentage points, according to the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate Bond Index. Translation: Investors had the greatest confidence in California companies during the pandemic. The most trusted measure of economic strength says California is the world-beater among democracies. The state's gross domestic product increased 21% during the past five years, dwarfing No. 2 New York (14%) and No. 3 Texas (12%), according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gains added $530 billion to the Golden State, 30% more than the increase for New York and Texas combined and equivalent to the entire economy of Sweden.
Among the five largest economies, California outperforms the U.S., Japan and Germany with a growth rate exceeded only by China...
Corporate California also is the undisputed leader in renewable energy, with 26 companies worth $897 billion, or 36% of the U.S. industry, having reported 10% or more of their revenues derived from clean technology. No state comes close to matching the 21% of electricity derived from solar energy. Shares of these firms appreciated 282% during the past 12 months and 1,003%, 1,140% and 9,330% over two, five and 10 years, respectively, with no comparable rivals anywhere in the world, according to BloombergNEF. The same companies also increased their workforce 35% since 2019, almost tripling the rate for the rest U.S. overall and four times the global rate...
California companies invested 16% of their revenues in R&D, or their future, when the rest of the U.S. put aside just 1%...
Much has been made of the state reporting its first yearly loss in population, or 182,000 last year. Had it not been for the Trump administration preventing new visas, depriving as many as 150,000 people from moving to California from other countries annually, the 2020 outcome would have been more favorable.
Simple question then (Score:3, Insightful)
If the state is doing so well, and going to issue large rebates - why not lower taxes on people and businesses there since things are going so well?
Wouldn't it be better to let people keep and spend money through the year, rather than having the government collect a large excess and then send some substantial amount to the people there?
Re:Simple question then (Score:5, Insightful)
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Also, California is heavily dependent on income tax. When recessions hit, the tax revenue plunges. So a permanent cut is a bad idea.
Since states can't print money or run deficits, relying on income tax is a bad idea. States should rely on sales and property tax and leave the income taxes to the Feds.
Rather than giving a refund, California could buy back state bonds and reduce future debt payments. That would be smarter but less popular.
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> States should rely on sales and property tax and leave the income taxes to the Feds.
Unfortunately, anti tax crusaders nixed that in California 40 years ago. Property taxes got nuked by Prop 13, and as a proposition, it can't be touched by the state legislature. So they have little choice but to use income taxes.
> Rather than giving a refund, California could buy back state bonds and reduce future debt payments. That would be smarter but less popular.
They are doing exactly that, see the budget propos
Re:Simple question then (Score:5, Informative)
Because a one time rebate is less costly than a full blown tax cut. Obviously they don't think it wise to permanently reduce the state's revenue stream.
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Because a one time rebate is less costly than a full blown tax cut. Obviously they don't think it wise to permanently reduce the state's revenue stream.
There is prior art here, when car manufacturers gave rebates on cars some years back. And it's because we can't see the future. so you lower the price via rebates, then resteor it if need be
Because if it's going well, why change it up? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Contrary to what some Alzheimer's addled corporate spokestool actor once said, government is not a problem. It is the necessary solution to some problems that can't be solved any other way. Take it from someone who lives in a southern state where the government is constantly scrambling for money to do absolutely necessary shit like hurricane defence. When government is competently doing what it is supposed to be doing, people notice and don't mind paying taxes. Ask someone from Europe about that while you try to figure out your last hospital bill.
I wonder how many Texans are happy they chose their method of power production.
Before any one gets too excited about Cali, Enron deliberately caused the power distribution problems they experienced a few years back? Everyone remember Enron?
California has a GDP of 3.2 Trillion in 2019. If Cali was a sovereign nation, they would be the world's 5th largest economy.
When you get your news from Fox or SkyMax, you wan't get those numbers. Many of the deep red states get a healthy chunk of Federal aid, and
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Before any one gets too excited about Cali, Enron deliberately caused the power distribution problems they experienced a few years back? Everyone remember Enron?
They did it because the government set it up to force it to happen.
To answer in reverse, The problem isn't corrupt politicians. It's corrupt humans. There was a system in place that was sending power to California for years, and pretty reliably too. All of the 'isms except pragmatism have a fatal flaw. They assume perfection. So yeah - Phil Graham of California was corrupt. But he was a rank amateur compared to the people he enabled. Like Enron.
It's pretty disingenuous to have people claim that regulation is bad, get the deregulation that is demanded, then blame the go
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What do you expect from a state that elects complete morons like this average republican, who wants the Forrestry Service to move the moons orbit? https://www.rollingstone.com/p... [rollingstone.com]
Not Texas, but perhaps also illustrative of the Republican mindset:
Republican philosophical truth leader Rudy Giuliani, stating “Before Obama came along, we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack inside the United States,”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politic... [go.com] With video.
There's that whole 9-11 thing, yaknow? Weird that ol' Nosferatu would forget that, considering he was mayor at the time. But since he said it, it must be true, and the base sucks it up like from Go
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Contrary to what some Alzheimer's addled corporate spokestool actor once said, government is not a problem.
The Republican party, which to a person claims to hate government is showing remarkable efforts to hold onto their positions in government. Continuously demanding recounts again and again - while getting the same results, Encouragiunng people to storm the capital, and hang a Vice president who did not declare an end to democracy.
It appears the Republican form of small government is just another one of their malicious projections.
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Because shit happens.
Sometimes, shit happens is good, and you end up with a massive surplus of cash.
Sometimes, shit happens is bad, and you end up with a massive deficit of cash.
Right now, they're in a happy shit situation. But it may not last. Couple that with the fact that states must balance their budgets, even when bad shit happens, and it makes more sense to treat this as an isolated event instead of a trend.
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Yeah, businesses love low taxes and light regulation. But there's two things that they like even more: good infrastructure and a government that ACTUALLY WORKS.
And the whole "return the money to the people" is basically weasel words for "trickle down economics" which simply doesn't work. Plain and simple. Full stop. I'm not a Tucker/Rush/Coulter/Jones moron - I actually know that MONEY DOES NOT TRICKLE DOWN. Mone
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God, please, god, please save that crap for whatever red state you happen to live in.
My money is on Alabama, the shining example of Far Right wing superiority
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My money is that Texas is going to peak and then decline, while California will be going strong for generations.
Nah, Texas will just turn blue, the same way California eventually turned blue. Private everything is great until you get hit with a $3000 power bill. Then you love the government.
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Re:Simple question then (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the tax rebate is mandatory, not something they wanted to or otherwise.
Furthermore the taxes are largely on windfalls, not on day to day operations. To give you an idea, someone making 100k a year, assuming they max a 401k, take standard deduction, and so forth, will pay around 6-7k annually in taxes. So over 40 years, they will get around to paying at most 300k in taxes.
Someone cashes out on an IPO, makes 5 million, will pay 13.3% of everything over 1 million, so they will pay over 500k taxes in one year. So in one year they've paid more in taxes then a working profession will pay their entire working life.
THOSE are the source of the current windfall, because California interestingly enough, DOES have a much simpler tax code, and thus it is far harder to play games (it treats all income the same), so they just get their money with less fuss.
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Because of fiscal responsibility! Revenues rise and fall, and expenses rise and fall. California requires a rainy day fund, something a lot more red states should have. When times are good the rainy day fund is filled up, and tax rebates are given. When times aren't so good then the state dips into the rainy day fund.
Giving back huge tax refunds and cutting tax funds in the long run is often a very bad idea. Even in the short run it can be bad. A lot of the so-called conservatives demands for cutting t
Re:Simple question then (Score:4, Informative)
Newsom is trying to buy his way out of getting recalled. It isn't rocket science just left wing political science and we're all told that we need to believe the science.
You have to be kidding. Newsom could win the recall doing absolutely nothing. All this talk about a successful recall is just noise.
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Polling shows Newsom was not in danger of losing the recall before this.
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Any other time you right-wing nuts would applaud a reduction in taxes. How about some consistency, or is that too much to ask for from the right?
Re:Simple question then (Score:4, Insightful)
Any other time you right-wing nuts would applaud a reduction in taxes. How about some consistency, or is that too much to ask for from the right?
It is the duality of the far right wingnut problem. As the 5th largest economy in the world, they hate California. They hate California more than they hate North Korea, or the Russian Federation.
Because although California is giving money back, the very fact that they have money to give back goes against the "Feckin leeeburls kent do nuttin right!" worldview.
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Petty name-calling stereotyping asshole. Must be a Tolerant Liberal (TM)!
Yup - I am an asshole - so you ain't calling me anything I don't hear a hundred times a day. I drink your pretend conservative tears as an energy drink. You bandy that "liberal" term about, my precious little snowflake. After Trump triumphantly returns in August, you can set up liberal camps to take care of anyone who doesn't obey.
Wouldn't you be happier on Mike Lindell's free speech blog, me hearty? I mean, there are mean people like me here, who will ridicule you until we get bored. There you can make a
Re:Simple question then (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the same old refrain (Score:5, Interesting)
The refrain from the pundits that California's legal climate is bad for business and that if they don't change it to be more business-friendly (and less employee-friendly and resident-friendly) they're going to see businesses going elsewhere is the same refrain we've heard before. And it always ends the same way.
Car manufacturers constantly complain about how California's emissions regulations are too expensive to comply with and that if California keeps them the manufacturers won't be able to afford to make cars anymore. Well, the manufacturers have a simple solution available: don't make cars for sale in California. If cars meeting California's emissions requirements are really too expensive to sell profitably, the car manufacturers' balance sheets should actually be improved by dropping that market. And yet, no car manufacturer has ever even contemplated dropping the California market as unprofitable. What they really mean is it isn't as profitable for them as they'd like and they wish California would change the rules to let them make a higher profit margin, but even at the existing margin it's still too profitable for them to just abandon.
The same with the business climate. What the pundits really mean is that the legal climate in California doesn't let businesses abuse employees and customers as much as they'd like to and they really wish California would change their rules, but California is still too large a market and too many of the employees those companies want to hire want to live in California to make it feasible for those companies to just move elsewhere.
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My impression is that California isn't business-unfriendly but rather resident-unfriendly. The Bay Area is a collection of small municipalities rather than one large one, so they compete with each other for tax dollars and would generally prefer to allow office buildings be built rather than homes, since offices pay property taxes but don't demand public services like schools and parks.
Building housing in the Bay Area is really, really hard [reason.com]. Aside from all the stories I've heard, I noticed a night and da
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" Then there's Prop 13, which for the last 43 years has meant that no one's property taxes can go up unless they sell their home. This discourages people from selling their property even as its value rises to astronomical heights. Bring on the Land Value Tax, says I. But it's hard to imagine passing such a law in California: it would force too many people to sell (sure, they could make a huge profit from selling, but that's true already and yet they're not selling). "
Prop 13 means property taxes can only go
Re:It's the same old refrain (Score:4, Insightful)
Prop 13 was passed for a very good reason though: prior to it's passage, a lot of elderly were being forced out of their homes of decades because the area became popular, demand for housing there skyrocketed along with property values, and on a fixed income after retirement they couldn't afford to pay the aso-skyrocketing property tax bills.
Right, so rather than being forced to move, it means they can't afford to move. If they do, even to a somewhat smaller house, they will pay much more in property taxes, Which lowers supply for larger houses that families could use, which drives up prices, and further prevents the elderly from being able to move unless they just cash out and move out of state.
Re:It's the same old refrain (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't help that there's a large group of people who don't seem to believe in the law of supply and demand: that extreme home prices have nothing to do with the housing shortage and everything to do with those blasted tech bros greedily trying to... rent an apartment, I guess?
The reason it's so incoherent is they're well aware of supply and demand, and they have the supply. So they fight like hell to block zoning changes that would allow an increase in density.
But "I want you to be homeless so I make more money" doesn't sound very good, especially to themselves. So they come up with whatever incoherent thing they can convince themselves is true.
And since they own property in that small city, they get to vote in the elections for zoning board and city council. The people who would like to create cheaper housing don't live there, because they can't afford housing, so they can't vote for the zoning board and city council.
Which means landlords and current residents dominate those elections, and a platform of "I'm gonna let people build more houses so your property values go down" isn't going to win.
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a platform of "I'm gonna let people build more houses so your property values go down" isn't going to win.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
The people who would like to create cheaper housing don't live there, because they can't afford housing, so they can't vote for the zoning board and city council.
If you're talking about renters, they actually do live in the same area as the owners. However there's simply not enough of them. And even if that wasn't the case, not all of them want their suburb to turn into an urban area.
Of course there's also a group of people who yell very loudly about these issues who are not impacted either way themselves. They are a tiny minority outside of Twitter.
Re:It's the same old refrain (Score:4, Insightful)
If anything people are giving up money by refusing to allow their neighborhood to be upzoned. In an expensive neighborhood, the most valuable part of land is the right to build houses there, not the land itself. If you increase the number of houses that can be built in a given area, you massively increase the value of the existing lots. That people turn that down in favor of preserving the character of the neighborhood is a sign that they're placing their lifestyle desires ahead of purely financial considerations.
If you meet someone who is obsessed with money it is as far as I can tell nearly impossible to persuade them that anyone else is not obsessed with money and will act accordingly.
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The problem with selling your extremely valuable house is that you still need a place to live. As long as you work in the overpriced area, you will need to buy another overpriced home.
A lot of people in the bay area view their home as their retirement fund -they won't sell it until they are ready to retire and move somewhere cheaper. If the remote work trend holds, there may be a lot of property for sale soon.
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Which isn't even a smart argument. Yes, it's a bit more expensive to meet California emissions regulations, but it's car buyers who pay for it, not car companies. And California buyers should be happy to pay, since the damage done by air pollution is far more costly
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California is a terrible place (Score:5, Funny)
You should never move here, and if you already live here, I encourage you to move somewhere else. That will make it much more enjoyable for me.
Occasional rolling blackouts never hurt anyone (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, the rolling blackouts that were "caused by deregulation", the kind of deregulation that caused electric companies to have to buy at high prices, sell at low prices, and keep power going for the government even when they didn't bother to pay their bills for six months.
I've lived in California and, it was charming but, ungodly expensive even for a one-bedroom rental. I pay about a third of that now for a two-bedroom with electricity that's only gone out due to a hurricane.
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Well, in functional states we do things like hook our electrical grids up to the rest of the country. It means you can get power from where it makes sense to generate it.
Instead of failing to generate power when it's both too cold and too hot.
Re: Occasional rolling blackouts never hurt anyone (Score:2)
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/business/enron-forced-up-california-prices-documents-show.html
While we're on the subject Texans pay more (Score:5, Interesting)
It's almost as if trickle down economics is back, has been for a while and we just kind a pretended it wasn't because reasons.
Immigration? Now? (Score:3)
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How do you know it's not even higher in good years? A denied visa is a denied immigrant. People don't pay $200 to apply for a visa because they felt like it.
Sounds like a paid ad (Score:3)
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Let 'em have it. 5% of their population just voted with their feet.
9,700 Homeless People in Santa Clara County (Score:2)
And for all that "wealth".... (Score:2, Insightful)
They also have:
some of the highest taxes in the country
a very high cost of living
homes that are unaffordable for average citizens
an enormous homeless population
etc...
And with all that regulation, high fuel costs, high electricity costs, etc....they still cannot maintain a reliable power grid and don't appear to be making much headway with their water management issues.
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an enormous homeless population
People keep on mentioning that California has a high homeless population as a negative thing. But it may not be the negative thing that you think it is.
1/ If I were homeless, I would definitely go to California. If I am to live in the streets, I'd rather be in a place where the weather is nice. It's too cold in winter to be in the midwest and north east. It's to hot in the summer to be in the south. Once you have removed all the places you don't want to be in the street year long, you'll end up in a place l
Don't tell r/conservative (Score:2)
It will destroy their alternate reality bubble.
Is it a rebate, or just a payment? (Score:3)
a rebate comes from paid taxes, if you paid less than that then you get less. so it helps the poor the least.
or are they just sending out checks?
Re:Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:4)
Re:Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:5, Interesting)
In my area of California, we have been trying to get a new desalination plant for years. The water company (who would own the new desalination plant that the taxpayers are trying to build) has been fighting against it.
It would be less profitable to them than the current supply methods. The penalties the state is charging them for overpumping from the aquifer help justify increasing our rates -they announced recently that our rates will go up 120% over the next year.
They did support the plan to build a new water processing plant which will pump fully treated wastewater deep into the aquifer as an alternative. The upside is that this will help to re-charge the aquifer. The downside is that there will be less grey-water available for irrigation purposes... necessitating the purchase of more expensive water from the water company.
Instead of buying votes with tax-rebates, we should be using the extra funds to invest in one-time infrastructure remediation projects. Fix what is broken with the money on hand.
Re: Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:2)
Re: Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:5, Interesting)
We have all of this sun that the state is known for. With ever more solar capacity being installed, we'll have the problem of too much power during the day. Desalinization is the perfect use for it. We just need to build out the capacity.
In addition, since reverse osmosis requires a lot of power, the opposite (which is just called osmosis) can be used for power generation. Excess energy during the day can be stored as fresh water, which can then be converted to salt water and power at night.
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At least locally, the power supply is not an issue. Many years ago there started up a local green power company (primarily solar and offshore wind) as an alternative electric supplier -they grew into the default power supplier displacing PG&E (my rates went down when they took over) and they have expanded to cover several counties along the central coast. They are currently supplying reliable power 24/7 and say they have the capacity to handle the needs of the proposed desalination plant.
The minimally
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Outlaw bitcoin?
I live in California. I pay 12 cents/kwh.
Mining breakeven is 3 cents/kwh.
Nobody mines bitcoins in California.
Re: Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:3)
Re:Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:5, Insightful)
They also have to learn to recirculate, capture rainwater, etc.
Los Angeles gets about 14 inches of rain per year. Rainwater isn't going to do shit.
Also, CA has the most aggressive water reclamation systems in the country. They literally have a program called "From Toilet to Tap".
Floods one year, drought the next.
They're mudslides, not floods. The full cycle is drought -> fire -> mudslides due to lack of vegetation.
It's almost like you live in an entirely different climate, and can't wrap your head around that.
Re:Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:5, Informative)
They also farm water intensive crops, like almonds and walnuts, and alfalfa for beef and dairy cows.
Re:Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:5, Insightful)
Lived there during the 70s drought
If you actually had, you'd have understood the difference between a mudslide and a flood, and the very critical role fire plays in causing the problem. Which would make talking about flood control like it's a river in Dallas idiotic.
Or did you just want to lie about something you do understand in an attempt to score cheap political points?
Got a big drought emergency, let's have a tax holiday! Burn the witch!
So in your mind, you can turn money directly into water?
Re: Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:2)
Re:Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:5, Insightful)
Los Angeles gets about 14 inches of rain per year. Rainwater isn't going to do shit.
Um: 14 inches over 27000 acres is a lot of water.. more than 8.5 billion gallons - that would be more than 2000 gal for every person in LA, and a person can live off about 4 gallons a day, about 0.2% of that, so if they could collect about 1% of that rainwater, then they would be more than good.
In the US, the average person uses about 100 gallons per day just for domestic use. Then you also need to cover industrial and agricultural use. And it is, of course, entirely implausible to capture even close to all the rainfall - and most of what you capture will be missing from the natural water cycle. How do you think wild plants grow?
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A state like Ca is dry much of the time, and then it rains like 'Ell.
Nope.
First, "a state like CA" has lots of different climates. While LA only gets 14" of rain per year, other places get much more. The place with the most rainfall (A small town in Northern California) gets 96" per year. Which is about double what Portland, OR gets.
Second, heavy rain events in Southern California are pretty rare. Most of the rainfall is 1/4" or less over a day.
1)won't manage forests like we used to do 30+ years ago
That's 'cause 30+ years ago they didn't do shit to manage forests. They did occasional controlled burns over a very small perce
Re:Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like they could do with a half dozen more.
The desalination plants are on the coast. The water is needed inland. The cost to pump it is way more than it is worth.
A cubic meter of water costs about $1 to desalinate and another $1 to pump uphill. A cubic meter of water sells for 6 cents in the Central Valley.
Rather than desalination plants, a way better solution to California's water problems is to stop growing subsidized rice in the desert.
Floods one year, drought the next.
That was before AGW. Now it is drought one year, drought the next.
It isn't really a "drought". It is the new climate, and it will get worse.
Re:Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than desalination plants, a way better solution to California's water problems is to stop growing subsidized rice in the desert.
What we really need to stop growing is almonds, they contribute only a tiny amount of revenue to the state and consume a massive amount of water.
Cutting back on the rice is probably a good idea too, but many people actually depend on that for food. Almonds are a luxury.
Cut back on rice and you cut back on ducks (Score:4, Insightful)
Cutting back on the rice is probably a good idea too, but many people actually depend on that for food.
Also if you cut back on rice you cut back on ducks - and geese, and a number of other migrating birds that use the western flyway for their migration.
The rice paddies provide water and a food source for migrating water birds. They are especially necessary, not just to increase the flyway capacity, but also to replace the wetlands that have been drained and built up upon, or otherwise become not-wet lands.
Much of this is done by farmers, with aid and funding from Ducks Unlimited - a large conservation organization (supported mainly by hunters who want to keep the sky full of targets. B-) )
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Well, if you cut it back a whole lot it would have that effect, sure. But if you cut back say 25% then you probably wouldn't cause any problems for waterfowl unless you made all the cuts in one part of the region.
Not really. As I understand (being only marginally in contact with it): The waterfowl support isn't just a side-effect of the farming. It involves things like reserving wetted land for nesting and feeding sites. Reduce the access to water and you can expect the farmers to use all they can get fo
Re:Not doomed by taxes, doomed by drought (Score:5, Informative)
Rather than desalination plants, a way better solution to California's water problems is to stop growing subsidized rice in the desert.
No one grows rice in the desert. All of the rice is grown in the Sacramento delta, a riparian water system. The rice growers argue that they have little effect on the water supply since the water they put on their paddies flows back into the river system via groundwater. The argument is mostly BS, water is being lost to the ultimate user (the ecological system of the delta), but it is at least partly true - its net water usage fraction is the lowest of any crop in California.
Now if you took of the alfalfa growers you would be hitting the bullseye. The value of this crop is so low and its water demand so high that it its production cost, when the full cost of providing the water to it is taken into account is less than its value. And 2/3 of this subsidized crop is exported to Asia (where beef production is subsidized) in essence exporting a big chunk of California's water at a loss to the state.
How big a chunk? Well, 40% of all the water that falls on or is consumed by California (less than 4% is from the Colorado River) is used by agriculture, and an astonishing 18% of that is used for alfalfa, so about 5% of all of California's water (0.4*0.18*0.67) is being exported to Asia. This is half of all the water usage by all the urban areas in California. And the total value of these exports is about $1 billion in a state with a $2.4 trillion GDP, a mere 0.04% "contribution" (a greater amount is spent doing it).
Why don't those stupid liberal Californian's stop such a ridiculous waste of water? Because the laws giving water rights to the land in the Central Valley were written around 1890, and the law regards those water rights as property of the land owners, and taking them away would be stealing from those landowners. The landowners, the grass farmers, are by the way right-wingers and are constantly enraged that the water deliveries and the subsidies they get are not larger. Drive through the Central Valley and observe the billboards of angry political slogans the farmers put up along the roads if you doubt this.
The solution to stop the waste is to buy the water back from them - pay them not to grow their alfalfa for export forever, which since operations cost go to zero would be a big boost for their income.
But the cities of California don't need it. The cost of desalinization now is roughly the same as water delivery costs to SoCal from NorCal, as is the energy cost (both rely on pumps, pumping water over the Tehachapis uses about the same energy as pumping through osmotic membranes). Power the pumps with soalr and wind, and you a "battery" that stores energy. That is, when the energy is not needed run the pumps and store the water.
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Of course California could just tax water at the point of extraction (well, pond, rain barrel under gutter downspout, river, dam, etc...).
Even though the farmers have "water rights", this would just be an example of the ever popular, among progressives, of a "wealth tax", but just on water (just as most states have a wealth tax called "property tax" on one specific class of assets - "real estate").
Everyone, residential, commercial, and agricultural would pay this tax directly or indirectly (those with "city
Re: Newsom (Score:2)
Re: Newsom (Score:2, Troll)
The weather is also a large factor. You can be homeless 12 months / year in California and sleep outside. This is not true in 1/2 the country where you will freeze to death in winter, nor in the other half where you will suffer heat stroke.
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Wonder about this myself.
California has a GDP equivalent to Germany, but about half the population.
Somehow Germany manages their welfare state without needing a feces app.
So with about twice the resources per capita, this is the best California can do?
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Well, CA has more Republicans than any other state, and those folks will fight you very, very hard when you try to do things like zone for affordable housing. Far harder than they'll fight tax increases, since zoning is local and taxes are state.
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Are you seriously blaming it on the republicans? The party who aren't in power? The party who aren't in charge? Your logic is fascinating.
Democrats blame Republicans.
Republicans blame Democrats.
No, it doesn't matter the topic or situation. And both parties, flip flop in the power/blame seat, because [some delusional semblance of democracy.]
The only thing that is fascinating here, is watching the masses continue to blindly waive pom poms and cheerleader that shit. Swamp love is stupid no matter what political gang colors you wear. No, we will never learn or accept the fact that a two-party system is designed to keep the gullible masses, dis
Re: Newsom (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Newsom (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the actual information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
In October 2020, California had 22,047,448 registered voters, comprising 87.87% of its total eligible voters. Of those registered voters, 10,170,317 (46.10 percent) were registered Democrats, 5,334,323 (24.20 percent) were Republicans and, 5,283,853 were No Party Preference (24.00 percent).
Total population: 39.78 Million
Registered voters: 22,047,448
Democratic: 10,170,317 46.1%
Republican: 5,334,323 24.2%
Democratic–Republican spread: 4,835,994 +21.9%
Other: 1,258,955 5.7%
No party preference: 5,283,853 24.0%
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The people who have the homeless problem don't have a way to deal with it. The ones who could deal with it don't have a homeless problem.
San Francisco doesn't have land to build cheap housing and they don't have the heart to tell those homeless people to go elsewhere. The suburbs also don't have the land to build cheap housing, but they're willing to chase the homeless people away. Rural California has plenty of space, so they don't have a homeless problem.
Re: Newsom (Score:5, Insightful)
California has to pay to bankroll welfare for the red states. There were only one or two years California didn't pay more in federal taxes than it got back. I think that may have been 2009 or something like that. Note, when it happened Republicans kept calling CA a failed state etc. We stumbled for a second and everyone had their knives out for us.
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So all you have to do is recall your governor and suddenly money is discovered for rebates? They have no water. If water dries up their hydro-electric power dries up. They have more transients and homeless than any other state. The crime is ungodly. The electricity is shut off regularly due to winds that "may" cause fires. The traffic is horrendous. According to the article they are great with renewable energy even though they constantly have power issues. Everyone I know (tech) is trying to move out and remote in so that will cause the money to further dry up. California would have had more population if visas were approved.... he thinks (blame trump)??? I think this article needs more substance and less used car salesman.
No idea why this is modded as "Troll". It seems to address the summary rationally.
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Probably because it massively exaggerates the issues, while ignoring the positive aspects. It is a trollish post.
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No idea why this is modded as "Troll". It seems to address the summary rationally.
I would say it is unfairly biased, but definitely not trolling. The issues are real... but the poster is exaggerating them.
Re:Newsom (Score:5, Informative)
They have no water. If water dries up their hydro-electric power dries up.
The thing about having no water is you don't make a ton of hydroelectric power. As of 2018, it was 11% of state sources, or half of what TFSummary says they get form photovoltaic solar today. CA building code now requires solar panels on new houses, so the quantity of solar generation is going up a lot more than any other sources.
They have more transients and homeless than any other state
First, they have more people than any other state. So you need to use per-capita numbers where the difference isn't nearly as large.
Second, the climate means the homeless won't die if no one does anything about them, so there's little will to actually fix the problem. With homeless people not freezing to death and NIMBYs blocking cheap housing, you end up with more homeless.
According to the article they are great with renewable energy even though they constantly have power issues
CA has power distribution issues. Not power generation issues.
One of the last things Republicans did before they lost political power in CA was to deregulate and privatize the power grid. With fewer regulations, the executives operating the companies operating the grid decided they'd rather pay themselves more money than property maintain their transmission equipment, including clearing brush.
Turns out when you do that, you cause fires. And CA was not willing to shield those companies from the liability caused by their negligence. You know, just like you folks on the right say it's supposed to work.
Since there was a massive backlog of maintenance that the power companies failed to do over many years, and the power companies are not protected from liability for the fires they cause, they will shut down power in areas where they detect problems with their equipment before it starts a fire and wipes out a town. Again. It's getting better as they reduce the backlog.
Everyone I know (tech) is trying to move out
Because people don't self-select their friends, and thus their friend group is a uniform sample of all residents of a state.
California would have had more population if visas were approved.... he thinks (blame trump)???
When 150,000 visa applications are not approved for people trying to move to California, it's really not a stretch to say there would be 150,000 more Californians if those visas were approved. It's not like people apply for those visas for fun.
Re:Newsom (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing about California is that is demonstrates that the right is promoting lies.
The right hates California because it shows that progressive states can be wealthy. It shows that progressive policies can give a high standard of living.
So, what does the right do? Instead of promoting policies that work, they want to tear down California. Bring California down to their low standards. It's all negative from the right.
Re:Newsom (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing about California is that is demonstrates that the right is promoting lies.
The right hates California because it shows that progressive states can be wealthy. It shows that progressive policies can give a high standard of living.
So, what does the right do? Instead of promoting policies that work, they want to tear down California. Bring California down to their low standards. It's all negative from the right.
Look up who gets the most federal funding per capita. While Virginia gets the most, I suspect that is because DC is in the mix.
And that's the weird thing. A lot of the blue states provide the federal aid to the states who hate them because they are "liberal". And States like Kansas underwent an experiment in Far Right economics. Did not work out well. https://www.motherjones.com/po... [motherjones.com] Wikipedia if you far righties are afraid to read Mother Jones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
The far right's ideas of how to run an economy are, as their leader Trump noted: "Sounds Good - Doesn't work". Although he was talking about something else.
But it relies on the assumption that the people with the most wealth are the most moral and generous, and that when you treat them well, they will rain their largess down upon everyone. When in fact, that ain't necessarily so. REgardless, if the California economy was as big a failure as Kansas' ill fated trickle down, guvmint is evul, we'd see it.
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I don't consider Trump to really be a politician on the right, or a conservative. He only fits those terms because he and his followers keep redefining the terms. He's a nativist. a populist, a "say what he thinks they want to hear"-ist.
And the rest of the Republican party follows him like puppies. Almost comically fearful of offending him or "the base", they have re-defined the party in his image. That's the real problem. I'm registered independent, but before Newt Gingrich came along, I was a reliable 70 percent Republican voter. And now it's 20 years since I've voted for one. And it ain't because I'm wild about Democrats. But they at least are trying to govern. Republicans, at least those with two brain cells to rub together, have reali
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California has had a tech economy since the 1930s. Big in defense for a very long time. Avionics, space, electronics, etc. Top tier world class universities. It's been a constant magnet since the gold rush, regardless of what party is in power.
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It's better to be homeless in California than live in a house in other states. You are telling me the homeless can't save up for a few weeks and take a bus out of California if they wanted?
Re: Don't care (Score:2)
Not everyone can make it here.
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I'm sure they're really missing out on your artisanal breadcrumb shop.
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Sorry but California is the one keeping all the red states afloat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:hahaha, California patriotism (Score:5, Informative)
They are using up other states' water
Nope. Southern CA gets most of its water from Northern CA.
There was an aqueduct to the Colorado River, but Arizona built an aqueduct upstream of California's, so that Phoenix could actually grow into the thing you're complaining about. There has not been enough water left in the Colorado River for decades for CA to use a lot of it.
There are no other states downstream, since the river empties into the Gulf of California where it leaves the CA/AZ border.
get tax subsidies from the rest of us for their "greeness" they can't afford
No, that's the red states. CA gets back about 80% of the taxes it sends to the Federal government. If you live in a "red" state and it isn't Texas, CA money is keeping your state afloat.
and most massive welfare recipients in the union
CA has the largest population in the union. So shockingly enough, having the most people means you have the most "welfare recipients"....and it's an utterly useless statistic due to the massive differences in population.
If you use per-capita statistics instead [worldpopul...review.com] (scroll down), then NM, WV, LA, MI, AL, OK, IL, RI, PA, and OR were the top 10 in 2019. CA comes in at #32 in 2019.
How about we pull their plug and see what kind of surplus they have then?
Well, they grow more food than any other state, have a larger economy than any other state (and all but 3 countries), and send more money to the rest of the US than any other state. Along with the largest port in the US, which is how you get all the cheap crap you buy from China, so they'd have a fantastic income source via tariffs on you.
I'm pretty sure CA would be fine without you.
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Nonsense, California can't supply all it's own food
California grows more food than any other US state. They're not heavily focused on cereal crops at the moment because they don't have to be, but there's no particular reason they can't switch from growing Alfalfa for Texas's cows.
nor electricity
Why do you think they have to right now? Competently-run states connect to the national grids. There's plenty of room for CA to install more power generation if they had to, but they might as well use AZ's excess instead of wasting money building their own generation.
Incompetent
Re:hahaha, California patriotism (Score:4, Informative)
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California is 38th. New Mexico is 1st, but the next highest generally Democratic states are Maine (13th), Pennsylvania (15th, if you count it), and Vermont (17th).
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Came here to ask precisely about this. Thank you. You analysis seems reasonable but probably not proveable.
Re:Tax rebate? (Score:5, Informative)
This is another of those issues which is only true because California has a larger population and GDP than other states. California is far from the worst state when you look at debt to GDP ratio.
As you can see from this table, [statista.com] Texas and many other states have worse debt to GDB ratios.
Re:Tax rebate? (Score:5, Insightful)
The state has a debt larger than most medium-sized countries already
Well, it has an economy larger than most large-sized countries. So why would this not be expected?
Also, bonds aren't credit cards. You don't save money by paying them off early.
State employees retire around age 50 with big pensions
Yes, they really should accept retiring into squalor like all those states kept afloat by CA's net contribution in federal taxes vs spending.
California needs all of that money to subsidize illegal aliens
You realize that welfare programs actually check your eligibility, right? Also, the fastest way to get deported is to tell the government "Hey, I'm here!".
and state residents who don't work.
CA is about #32 in per-capita welfare recipients. The top of the list [worldpopul...review.com] is dominated by the states doing exactly what CA must do to be prosperous. Make sure you scroll down to per-capita, since wildly different population sizes make the raw counts meaningless.
It's almost like this very story is directed at the sort of predictions you make here.
Re:Tax rebate? (Score:4, Informative)
Two things
1) California has almost precisely the national average debt per capita https://worldpopulationreview.... [worldpopul...review.com] Of course it's debt is higher than many states, it has more population than them.
2) Whether you like Newsom or not is immaterial, the rebate is triggered by laws already in the books passed some years back, he has no say in the matter.
Re:Boom⦠Bust⦠repeat (Score:4, Informative)
Nah, California's always on the verge of bankruptcy if you listen to Faux News. In reality, California has put away $20 billion into the so-called Rainy Day fund [ca.gov], which a lot of people thought would get used up this year, but turns out it's not even needed.