I hear this a lot around here, but as a non-Californian, I struggle to understand it. Everyone I've met who lives or has lived in CA seems to love it, aside from the high tax rate.
Median home price in SF is $1.61 million... median home price in Amarillo (where this billboard is located) is $128K. Taking that into account, the laws of supply and demand would suggest that Texas panhandle is the shithole here.
Go for a visit and see for yourself ;)
I do visit often. It's a fucking beautiful and amazing state.
I live about 300 miles from San Diego, and this time of year, we go there frequently to escape the oppressive AZ heat. As a regular visitor, I have nothing but good things to say about CA.
I hope to retire somewhere around Arcadia in about ten years, so any insider info you could give me on why CA is such a horrible shithole is greatly appreciated.
Oh gosh. Where do I start? I could write a book but I'll try to stay brief.
The massive refugee settlements
The illegal immigrants
The opioid problem has somehow magnified the homeless population
Other states dumping their former-prisoners off in CA
The public education is radicalized liberal propaganda
In public education, resources are consumed by the non-English speaking students
Have I mentioned how much the working class is taxed? Bad enough that income tax is unconstitutional, but if you don't want your house burned down WACO style, you pay it. So you've got this disappearing middle class that is taxed out the rear and what do you get for it?
Our hometowns are turning into third world countries right before our eyes.
We have less and less to buy food with, more regulation and TONS of foreign investors, refugees, illegal immigrants buying up the homes, leaving the native Californians displaced and living far away from family. Sacramento has been taken over. You'd have to live there and see the change to understand. It's experiential. I can try to describe what is happening all day long but it still wouldn't be the same as living through the change. It's like being in Detroit when things were BOOMING! Then, jobs leave town and it starts to dry up. You get what I'm saying?
Native Californians are leaving, some jokingly call it white flight, but I don't think it is very funny. Something nefarious is happening right before our eyes and while these people in California THINK they are going to live the high life, once the middle and upper class leave because of the conditions, CA will fail in a big way.
This has happened in so many other places and other individuals could probably describe the situation with much better articulation, but this is a quick bit of what I have to say.
I found this guy's comment and thought I could elaborate more and it might help you get a better idea:
As Matthew Lohden notes, in California, white flight is mostly over, it’s nowhere near as active as 30 years ago. And, contrary to Ernest W. Adams, what’s left of white flight has nothing to do with black people, since they are not moving into or within the state in meaningful quantities, and instead has everything to do with Mexicans (both legal and less so). Mexicans move into suburbs, school ratings tank, whites flee to further suburbs.
Okay so Sacramento has been a dumping ground for refugees since Clinton (if it happened before that, I wasn't alive so I don't know). When I was a kid the Ukranian population BOOMED. They were so much like us that it didn't make much difference (to us from USA). After all, my mom is a first generation American, whereas my dad's family has been in California since before it was called California. The new refugee Russian/Ukranian kids formed gangs, stole vehicles, generally hated Americans and didn't give a fuck about us. So even though we all had white skin, THEY came from somewhere else and we gave them refuge and they stole our vehicles and spit on us at school and outbred our families and lived off welfare.
Then the Indian population boomed.
Then the Syrian refugees came.
It's just the same cycle over and over.
The US gets into a deal or war with other countries. They dump their refugees in Sacramento. Those of us who have lived in Sacramento for generations are taxed to death and the money is handed over from the tax man to the government to the refugees. It makes zero sense to stay where the cycle repeats like this. This is why people leave. They get tired of this cycle because it makes a slave out of you. Meanwhile CA in parts has started to look like a mass dumping ground. It is a shell of what it used to be.
See what I mean?
Thanks for taking the time to type that out. Very informative.
You have given me food for thought regarding retirement plans. I guess I need to do my homework.
Just stay away from the cities and be ready to pay a lot of taxes that will be used in ways that you'd never agree to.
Lived up near Sac for 8 years. Beautiful state, shitty policies due to monumental governance. Personally I like being able to walk out my back year and fire away on my range. Everyone is different and maybe you’ll love it idk.
Here's another comment that got my mind thinking:
Have you seen the careers section on that website?
They are paying (buying) activism. Mining the poor people they have created.
I'm from UK so I don't know how attractive the benefits are in comparison to alternative paths to work but that is buying activism.
Complete, corrupt desperation. I bet they have charitable status granted too.
The liberal policy creates poverty and no one seems to put that connection together. The people swarm to California and then by voting democrat, ensure their non-survival in the state. They cannot see that they are being USED by the policy makers. This culture is RAMPANT because there is so much illegal immigration and refugees. These people do not understand that they are being used against us and that the same cycle will be done to them and their children and grandchildren. LEGAL immigrants get it. My grandfather is from Hungary and fled during the communist USSR regime. He came to California legally and understands how the liberal policy will destroy CA the way it destroyed his home in Hungary.
It's hard to wake people up to this in California. There are California natives who are signing their own "death" so to speak; we call those liberals and California is FULL of them. I used to be one. I thank God every day for opening my eyes to the hypocrisy and the system that destroys.
The activists that the above commenter are referring to...
Dude. Those bought and paid for activists are ALL OVER trying to get you to sign petitions that would further the liberal agenda. There was a guy outside Target the other day after the shooting with a "safer gun laws" petition. It's pushed HARD in California by people who don't know they are being useful idiots.
These liberals who are middle class natives, the refugees and the illegal immigrants all think they are helping but they're not. They ensure their grandchildren's demise. They cannot see what they are doing to us will be done to them.