I work for a home building company based outside of Buffalo. We travel all over the United States (Florida, Alaska, Montana, etc). putting up homes. We can be competitive because our local salaries & expenses are usually significantly lower than the prevailing norm in the places we build.
California is *the only* state where we can't go, because there is so much red tape. We build very energy efficient, beautiful homes for higher end clients (does that sound like a good fit for the California market or what...) and we can get these homes designed and built relatively quickly. But those damn regulations in California won't let us in. It's a frustrating situation for us, and I would imagine for the people living in California too.
Exactly. I know this all too well being a developer for many years in CA.
Remember when the mockingbirds and FEMA said it would be impossible for Florida to recover from the Ian hurricane (class 5) for at least 3-5 years
Well, DeSantis said "impossible is nothing" and had vital bridges (that were completly destroyed) functional in 3-5 days! It took less than 30 days for him to essentially put Florida back together. Most of the neighborhoods that were destroyed have already been rebuilt and are now virtually hurricane proof.
How'd he do this? Well he didn't listen and let the free market do what it does. Leadership matters and that's why he won by 20% margin landslide.
But hey, if these socialist understood economics or how to run institutions, they wouldn't be socialist.
I probably shouldn’t go here but I am nonetheless. Your vote does/can matter. So many of you who let perfect be the enemy of the good should probably be horse whipped. You let your extreme emotions and paranoia get in the way of a relatively wise decision. The decision to fight for reasonable people to make decisions.
People like a Trump or R DeSantis are NOT perfect but they don’t exactly want to sodomize you like the left does. The Bad Cat describes what that looks like all too well in this post.
Well I'm in Florida, Luke. Moved there at the beginning of the plandemic because I didn't want my kids to be surrounded in a spirit of fear.
I've never not voted. I also consider myself to be a fighter beings as I was maybe 1 in 1000 who actually resisted in any meaningful way. So did my wife. She has more balls than 99.99% of men.
Plus we're actively engaged in our school district, community/county where we push back and hold bureaucrats accountable.
In fact my wife is on the school board and I started a group called Dissident Dad's to fight the insane progressive ideology.
So I'm not sure I need a horse whipping....just saying.
I use voting as an example because it’s easy enough to see. What I am really talking about are the people who let perfect be the enemy of good.
There are some very bad people out there who are antithetical to the survival of civilization. In America they are known as the modern day left. Whatever one can do he must in order to keep those people from making decisions over the lives of many.
I understand it from the left. I don’t understand it from people with common sense who cannot see the danger. This danger must be eradicated by any and all means necessary. All it knows how to do is destroy.
It is up to us to destroy it, by pen or by sword.
Glad to have you in the State sir. All people with common sense and understanding are welcome. Don’t forget in 2018 RDS almost lost to a meth smoking sodomite lol. Sounds trite as I refer to him in that manner. It was a very close call and things would look much different here had that POS won back then.
Again, RDS is not perfect (shouldn’t have to say that), but he generally looks out for the welfare of the people in Florida. It’s an apt comparison to Trump as well.
The fact that he won by 20% two years later is a testament to his leadership.
Might as well be on the order of Reagans landslide in 84'.
I've actually had a couple of 5 minute conversations with him at his events. One was about masking children and another just about politics in Tampa/Sarasota area
Down to earth guy who is easy to talk with. Smooth operator...but you can tell he cares about the people he represents.
I would love to see him run with Vance in 28'. Then who knows maybe he'll get his shot in 36'.
That would be a dream...and probably how long it's going to take to fully turn this country around like gato talks about in this essay.
@Ryan….Very cool, I have not met RDS but he strikes me as you describe. He’s an all around good dude. I like Vance too. We are lucky to have them both.
Honestly, I think the people who frustrate me are those from the right who take the “burn it all down” mindset not unlike the left. Both sides have litmus tests and complain a hell of a lot.
Never gotten too much into politics. A wee bit this past year at the local level. I have always been sharply engaged but never out of the desire to spark positive change. My motivation is driven by fear:
Fear—-the leftists may take control of lands that I reside in.
Fear—-It will lead to some sort of a societal upheaval and collapse.
I don’t have kids but these thoughts push me pretty hard. I don’t want to see this place go up in smoke. CA are still somewhat fortunate in that the rest of the country and world will lend them a hand. Should the devastation get too much we will have no one to lean on. It must be avoided at all costs sir. I am feeling better about that. At least I have hope whereas I had none.
Was going to comment on the excellent “Bad Cat” post, but I want to comment re the comments instead. So many ideas, so much frustration, and an underlying sense of impotence and disbelief.
Is democracy working for us? Can it be said that it is working when there is so much incompetence, wealth disparity, and political impunity, in what was, not so long ago our golden state, which was full of energy and good ideas.
How did this happen? How can it be fixed? Is it politically inevitable that a well developed political machine, fueled by corruption cronyism, ideology, and special interest money will almost always win out, and turn democracy into a charade.
So that all we can do is to expend our precious time and energy in ephemeral venting. Where is our agency? Where is our power?
1. You can only beat people over the head with your (not you) collection of pathologies for so long as a way to weaponize empathy before people realize the very people their supposedly trying to help, are getting harmed. They'll be exposed for exactly what they are: fragile Cluster B emotionally handicapped cry babies that derive their ego from the tribe of collectivism.
2. Economic and societal collapse as they try to simultaneously build a utopia for some distant future that will never exist...while taking a hammer to destroy every single previous misguided initiative they put in place (because they are intended to burn it all down) , while at the same time bringing down all the guardrails of a healthy society as they are in perpetual destruction chasing some delusional utopia.
3. History shows us this is the way it ends for the Left every single time. Always.
They're just a bunch of midwit misfit useful idiots. Midwits always surrounds themselves with dimwits. Eventually the RSVP for useful idiots is fully subscribed and they're left sending invitations to USELESS idiots.
Incompetency always collapses on itself. At a certain point the ineptitude is so severe none of the idiots know it's all a scam to grift.
I think its starting to happen. Just look at the wildfires. But make no mistake it's always trickles at first...and then all at once.
Long ago my late husband was trucking and the only state that forbids trucks to stay overnight is CA. They want all their stuff delivered and then you go, no matter how tired or how late it is. So we got in at 4 in the mourning, delivered, and then thankfully against the stream of cars, got out. We avoided the place as much as we could.
My brother moved there a few years ago and he and his wife and two sons are more brainwashed than ever. They have just enough money to feel relatively unaffected and they live for the beach lifestyle in N San Diego. (one just told me the fire is bc it keeps getting hotter and drier - you know, climate change). Others I know who aren't brainwashed just choose to suffer for the climate, they feel it's still worth it and aren't willing to abandon ship.
Sometimes I Think the homeless are the only free people in California. They don't pay taxes. The can pick up and move where they want. If their "home" wears out they can just buy another one (tent) at Walmart. If the weather gets cold they can just make cozy campfires in the brush on the hillsides. <sarc>
Lol. Adam Corolla joked that one nice thing about the fire was it burned out all the crappy RVs parked along the highways, but the downside is that they'll be right back while everyone else is just starting the five year process of getting a building permit.
I live in Oklahoma and have lived all over the country . My husband did 22yrs active duty and I was along for the ride.
While I was watching an amazing video by an independent journalist during the fires. I thought to myself, upper middle class homes, that’s really sad. Then you hear the price of these places and the LOT SIZE? They’ve got to be joking.. I care nothing about hearing my neighbors garage doors go up and down nor care to know when they flush the toilets. It’s people brainwashed into believing they’re living in paradise, not actual paradise.
The system is so corrupted in California. I have family stuck in NoCal. Literally. Because the insurance companies pulled out a few years ago up where my brother is. He has a gorgeous estate above Redding. Anywhere else it could have sold for 15 mil, easy. Now he can't give it away (not that he wants to) so he has made it into someplace to protect. I am 5th gen native and got out when I got married in late 80's. And..it is creepy dry there. We have friends who are wintering in Paso and he even mentioned it. Crispy dry. There are good people in CA who have no vote and no voice because of the corruption that has tunneled it's way into the halls of the governed.
Not sure about that...The vote fraud in California is epic, and for example, Kamala's "election" for AG came after a month of finding non-existent votes...
My husband was hired as CEO of a company in West LA a little over 20 yrs ago. It was an exercise in frustration.He called it "upside down world". He succeeded in spite of all obstacles but we finally went back home to AZ and he said I'll never do business in CA again. Now we own a residential and commercial RE company and have countless stories of helping individuals and businesses who are desperately trying to relocate.
we surely need to put an end to the CAWIZ invasion by the left and the cars traveling east that stop in my most wonderful state and try and change the state to blue after leaving CA for the same exact reasons, clown world is America right now and we need to stand strong against the monster.
Oh awesome! Come train jiu jitsu at Buffalo United one day for fun and we can talk about what we write about at the Society of Problem Solvers - fixing corrupted government with new systems!
Aloha neighbor! Down here at Pearl Street and Riverworks and Buffalo United Martial Arts. Come train jiu jitsu at Buffalo United one day for fun and we can talk about what we write about at the Society of Problem Solvers - fixing corrupted government with new systems!
Also we have a band from Lewiston that plays at Pearl Street all the time. Roy G Biv. They are the best band in WNY. This was them a few weeks ago: https://youtu.be/ej3EQHSxzzo
In Harrisburg PA the mostly Amish famers market burned back in 23 or early 24 (building from the late 1880s) And…… it’s still boarded up. The city commission to fix it had the CEO resign after cash went “missing”. The sad thing is the Amish could have had it repaired in WEEKS. Tragic
Our company is the main subcontractor for Helene cleanup in 2 NC counties (we live in another county where we get hurricanes all the time). Part of the task in one of the counties is cleaning up a waterway, which looks like the photos you've seen - FULL of trees, houses, boats, cars, bodies... They are still wrangling over it because every single town/city/county/state/fed has their own say over some part. For instance (and this is the God's honest truth), by code there has to be a separate permit for every 100' - FEET - of waterway. It will be over 36k separate permits if they don't waive it. This is ONE county. They are also worried about harming the trout and what we are going to do to mitigate that. What the trout want is for the CARS to be taken out of the waterway! There are no flipping trout swimming around all that debris, oil, gas, decomposing organic matter, etc.
Also, after those Amish built the first 100 house in Nov, more went to Boone around Christmas and built about 3 dozen, all paid for. To give credit where it's due, Watauga County did approve them for people to live in and approve the Amish coming back to do more. (Which they are paying for themselves and donating.) My daughter and son-in-law went to App State in Boone, and it is a VERY liberal town/county (like Asheville where those first 100 were built). But they apparently got the memo after the outcry from the first incident.
FEMA, however, did kick people out of hotels last week when we had a statewide winter storm and frigid temps. While they did give them an extra 24 hours, that didn't extend to the life of the storm and we are still having unusual cold. Our crews almost never see any FEMA people (nor do the Savage Freedom guys up in Swannanoa which is one of the hardest hit areas) and when we do they're in a truck "watching". State agencies and contractors have been AWOL, too, as they waited for the new money the legislature approved to get in the pipeline and for our new Dem gov to bring his cronies in.
Oh, and the contractor that is in charge of measuring the debris the clean up crews bring to the dump sites does this by eyeballing the loads. Yep. The official way of doing it is to look in the truck and assign a percentage. Not weight or anything. They routinely underestimate the yardage, so of course contractors have figured out how to put the stuff in the trucks to look good. (And we know they underestimate by about 30% because when we take it to burn or gring instead, we know exactly how much that is.) And the people measuring can't be the people monitoring, don't you know...
It is the biggest mess you can imagine thanks to the government. And we're a red state! So I can't even imagine what will happen (or not) in California.
I grew up in Banner Elk and am an App State grad as well. My mother still lives up there and went through Helene. Most people never saw anyone from FEMA except for home inspections, which is not a real inspection but a guess after a 5-10 minute walkthough. Samaritan's Purse did all the heavy lifting in the area. FEMA only showed up at the Elk River Airport to direct (more like redistribute) the supplies which were donated by others. Most of the FEMA personnel just got in the way, and after a few weeks, just wanted to declare the emergency over so that they could leave. Unlike Lahina, there were no 5 star resorts down the road where the government employees to could stay.
He's pretty much the same as our old Dem governor, sadly. He's terrible. NC is known for splitting the ticket for some reason. It's infuriating. Stein is awful, and Cooper was awful. But they've got powerful cronies in the state.
When you look at a list of the states with the highest number of SNAP recipients, you see primarily Dem politicians in leadership. As you go down the list of least number of SNAP recipient per state, you realize that they are more conservative states. Of course there are some outliers like Vermont, but they are easily explained by other demographics. The problem is that once you’re in “the system” you tend to vote for a bigger system as prescribed by the MSM propaganda machine. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/welfare-recipients-by-state
I suspect the vast majority of people directly affected by this voted for it, endorse it, and won’t ever understand why “Moar Gummint” doesn’t fix it.
Right now they are going after the electric company, which certainly bears some responsibility because it is basically a government agency with privatized profits, but they aren’t allowed to properly clear brush or maintain easements-they will be scapegoated for all the wrong reasons.
We cannot win this in a head on fight. Just when you think people are suffering enough to wake up, the Marxists swoop in and seduce them. I believe we can only really win it when the American Imperium ends; only then will the money printer fail. It’s going to be a wild ride.
Time to get stoic, get clear on your principles, and have the courage to be disliked (and uncomfortable.)
I think this is part of it. Libs seem to value being right more than being prosperous or safe. This is subconscious but affects the way they vote and conduct their private lives. They would rather be right about anthropogenic climate change and have their house burn down than actually work and vote to protect their house. They would rather be right that Orange Man Bad and have a shitty economy than bust ass for their families and have a good economy. And California can bear this rn because of the titanic accomplishments of prior generations that are currently being looted for pennies on the dollar. They can live this way because they are completely removed from the realities of the physical world. They live in a literal la-la-land of luxury beliefs supported by the momentum of their predecessors. This dynamic will not persist forever and they will have to kill their golden geese / eat their seed corn just to keep the graft going. Eventually even Apple will leave CA, and they will do it after voting dem all the way, because they would rather be right than successful.
A "bad" outcome for a working class, Trump voting, wage slave could be losing his family home to a fire, or flood. But that same fire or flood could provide low responsibility, zero accountability, well compensated employment for thousands of bureaucrats. Definitely a "good" outcome. For them.
Another infinity trillion dollars and the “good people” will solve everything. What’s amazing is that I believe that most of these people are so dense that they actually believe they are good people. And yes, for a fact, people are trying to survive in tents in NC. And it is freezing here right now. Really brutal. I can’t imagine.
This is 4 months ago and lots of help was provided by good people. Unlike the govt (who tried to keep them out) they started working and got things done. Of course in the rich parts of CA help will be available from the govt I suppose.
This reminds me of 2005. In August, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Everybody remembers that because the repairs went on for at least 10 years with the city asking for more and more money. Then in September, Hurricane Rita hit southeast Texas with hurricane strength winds travelling inland north for about 100 miles. The devastation was extensive. So many trees were uprooted that it looked like God had set up a game of pick-up-sticks for the giants. At least 50 homes in my neighborhood had to have the roof replaced. Most of the repairs were completed in less than a year. What was the difference between Louisiana and Texas? In Louisiana, it was rumored that officials held a meeting to figure out how to maximize the funds from the federal government. In Texas, Governor Perry suspended all permitting and told the residents to just fix it. One repair did take three years to complete. No surprise that it was the airport belonging to the Federal government.
People should start calling Mayor Bass's hot line to report the price gouging already in place in her city, like the high cost of gasoline, water, power, permit fees, etc.
I know your joking, but to be fair "price gouging" is working there. That's precisely why CA has the highest percentage "emigration" in the country.
"Price gouging" can be very useful. For example the price of fuel went up during Hurricane Helene, however, it allowed people who REALLY needed the fuel to be able to find it at the precise time they needed it...for the most part. People who didn't want to pay those prices didn't; precisely because they just "wanted" it...for the most part.
It's not perfect...but it's far better than the alternative.
I was taking to someone who works for an organization in the public-ish realm. There is a senior employee who is a disaster-the guy needs to go. But they have to coddle him through months of reviews and “second-chances,” just so they can have the breadcrumbs correct in the event of a lawsuit. So the boss has to pretend the guy has a chance and redemption all while cataloguing his failures, the employee has to pretend to care knowing he’s just riding out a few more paychecks,
*and the entire rest of the team has to carry around radioactive dead weight and pretend to like it.*
Sarah, what ultimately happens is that dead-weight guy will end up being moved laterally to another department (or agency) whilst maintaining his (or her) pay grade and benefits. Most of these "dead weight" employees are worse than just dead weight, they are so bad that they are bringing negative public attention to their agency. This reason brings about their removal to another government area. Taxpayers still foot the bill for these guys' keep.
For some reason, this reminded me of a different kind of government evasion. My daughter was a 6th grade teacher and she had a student who clearly had emotional problems. He would sometimes get angry, pick up a chair or desk and throw it at a wall. One day on the playground he threw a rock at my daughter's head, although fortunately it didn't hurt her. He never got adequate psychological help. He was so much trouble he was finally transferred to a different school. And then another one and so on. Eventually he had been at every single school in the area and then he ended up back at my daughter's school again. No one had the guts to deal with him, and the mother would get hysterical and claim everyone was saying she was a bad mother so she was not cooperative. It was a ridiculous situation, but typical government/public education. Just move the problem somewhere but never solve the problem. That kid is probably a criminal today. Or in jail.
Talk about the yin and yang of life in America. Private groups acting out of the goodness of their hearts to help the downtrodden; public bureaucrats exercising government power showing how hardness of hearts can obliterate the most charitable of acts and extinguish the hope of the most desperate. Maddening and depressing.
Adam Corolla, a former contractor in LA had a podcast a few days ago that describes the situation perfectly. He very nearly lost his condo in the fire. He predicts that the very rich will demand to rebuild, no matter the cost, but will run smack into the government that they voted for. As others have noted, the permitting process is going to be at least five years. Many will not be allowed to rebuild on the coast at all, because the Coastal Authority, (that they used to love), won't allow it. He thinks that it may be enough to red-pill many of them. (I'm not optimistic; these people are not normal!)
But I can't visualize ANY definition of sane that could be applied to most of the people currently running our governments. In a rational world, most souls so disconnected from reality would be locked up - for their own safety.
I'm sorry for the regular people who lost their homes, but I will confess to immensely enjoying the Uber-rich who lost their homes and who are being hoisted on their own petard right now and getting a major taste of what they voted for.
Your point about "failing into higher budgets" is the key to everything. Every public institution, starting with schools, has a perverse incentive to underperform, because then it can justify demanding more power and money.
Read somewhere these fires were purposely lit to get rid of “urban sprawl” so Pacific Palisades could be made into a “smart city” for the Olympics. Yesterday Newsom said he had a team that had already prepared a plan (in a week?) to make it happen—I’m sure counting on federal funding, which I hope doesn’t come.
I also heard someone say that "people" didn't want the single family homes replaced with the same....they want multi-family housing put in...apartments and condos I would guess. There's a real push against single family home ownership in CA, probably elsewhere too.
That mindset is in every city. Even in my home state of WV. No new development can have just single family homes, it also has to have townhomes, double homes etc… That horse sh*t came straight from the Obama regime, and it’s still applied today.
The unwavering request for "an expanded budget for the next biennium" generally is needed for new hires, expanding the population of the agency beyond the number of retirees. What this does is explained by a thing called seniority. If you are a public employee, your real goal is to retire at the highest possible pay grade. How do we reach that goal by our retirement? By the expansion of the number of new hires...
And the money for those pensions has to come from somewhere. At the state level, sometimes there are investment funds that bear the brunt of it, but at the federal level, it's almost a pure Ponzi scheme, with each generation of taxpayers paying for the previous generation of federal employee pensions.
And Groovy Gavin is instituting a "Marshall Plan" at the cost of $2.5B (likely three times larger if government spending history tells us anything, the Law of 3x). All that surely won't go towards building anything. I predict this will happen...
Anybody below a certain income bracket will end up moving out of the area because the b-cats will prevent them from rebuilding due to price capping (rent control and price capping is how you get slums). Those above a certain income bracket will have the resources to find their own supply and their own builders to be back in a shiny new custom homes within 2-3 years. Because those below that income bracket can't rebuild, the wealthy will snap up that land in a heartbeat (likely at a discount because those without will be desperate for liquidity), further increasing their net worth and transferring more wealth to them. This of course is by design, because of lot of those folks vote for the current idiots in charge. However, this will be used by the politicos as class warfare fodder...
"The rich people are able to build and you can't! That's not fair! We should take more of their resources so you can have them!"
But, with a wink and nod, the government won't actually do anything drastic to those folks...they need their wealth at campaign time to stay in charge. The move will be symbolic. "Yeah! We are really sticking it to the man!" So the Cheeto stained hands of the wannabe progressive keyboard jockeys will be placated for another election cycle.
All while this is happening, Groovy Gavin and The Gang will be contriving new and interesting ways to "Fight climate change, because that is the only reason these fires happened. We must protect you from more!" Of course these ways will involve steadily more taxation of those who can't afford it and mandating of product choice through fossil-fueled product bans. Forcing California to be more electrified with an infrastructure that can't handle it now.
California was a dumpster fire before this...now it is about to graduate to landfill fire...
the only thing that needs to be done, is Stop The Government. dissolve all these useless agencies, and let the locals fix things. Most mayors of small places have a way better idea and the local people help each other. That is how things should be. Indeed all the government bruha does nothing to make things better, they make things way worse and spend all the money.
California is the champion of absurd rules. Years ago I went to visit a friend of mine at his work there. He worked for Universal Records in the licensing dept. He had a great office overlooking the campus . Vinyl records and CDs lined the walls. Outside his window loomed the World on Atlas' shoulders. I told him it looked like he finally made it! It was a long way from our one horse mid west town. He told me he loved his office, but really wanted to rearrange it so that his desk could be next to the window. I took a quick glance around and said cool...you grab that end and I'll get this end. We could have rearranged the place in thirty minutes or less. He sheepishly laughed and said 'I wish it was that easy'. He had actually put in a request with the management six months prior...and was still awaiting a response. He was hopeful it could still get done within that year. Honestly...I have never been able to respect him the same way since.
The ugly bull dyke Assistant Fire Chief says it's most important that hideously fat black lesbians are the ones to respond to emergencies and if you actually need help it's your fault.
Thank god for Diversity, Exclusion and Incompetence!
Better extend the wall to keep those Californians from escaping from LA.
Almost anywhere else that Asst. LA Fire Chief would be fired immediately for making the kind of obviously racist, sexist remarks she was allowed to make in an official LAFD promo video. That fact alone shows that they have no fear of accountability for anything. But even if we were to take her statement that the public wants first responders that “look like them” as true, more than 99% of the public don’t look like her. So given that fact how does she explain her initial hiring and subsequent numerous promotions to Asst. Chief?
Yeah. wE'Re alL iN iT tOGeTHeR is tantamount to saying we must destroy many real lives in order to save one on paper.
I wonder if people would've done the Nestea plunge in an empty deep end if they were told tens of millions of people across the world would die from abandoning the scientific method and replacing it with a belief system?
As a General Contractor and developer in California, my focus is on constructing high-end custom homes in prestigious locations such as Martis Camp in Truckee, CA. Our projects cater to a luxury market, with homes typically selling for over $1,400 per square foot, and total costs, including land, exceeding $1,000 per square foot to complete. Building anything other than these luxury homes in desirable areas would not support our business model. It’s for this reason there is a giant housing shortage in this state. Nothing else really pencils at the end of the day.
In 2020 I worked doing the census up in Truckee/North Tahoe area and I was floored by how many multi-million dollar homes were apparently vacation or second homes.
That’s correct; they aren't truly homes but rather luxury properties for the wealthy to showcase. Normally, one could argue the law of supply and demand. However, the debate from some government officials and progressive advocates centers around building affordable housing. In an effort to address this, the government often ends up spending north of $400-$500 per square foot on subpar constructions. The industry maintains that increasing the number of homes built will lead to a larger supply and lower prices, which is generally true. Unfortunately, in California, rising construction costs mean that only high-end properties—the “toys” of the affluent—are being developed, primarily for them to flaunt to their friends. Most people want affordable housing for their kids. It’s just that lefty clowns have no clue how to do it. And some working poor end up being NIMBY’s because they end up believing their equity in their home is their retirement. Sadly for many in California that is exactly what ends up happening.
Many people believe that real estate is a better investment than the stock market. As a builder and developer, I recognize the value of real estate, particularly actively managed properties. However, let's consider a hypothetical scenario: what if you had purchased five homes in Los Gatos, California, in 1970, each priced at $100,000? Assuming you made a $20,000 down payment on each, that's a total investment of $100,000.
Now, let's compare this to investing the same $100,000 in the stock market, specifically in the S&P 500, since it’s easy to track since 1970. Fast-forward to today: Los Gatos real estate prices are incredibly high—an average 1,400-square-foot home is now worth around $2.5 million. Multiplying this by five homes gives us a total of about $12.5 million.
On the other hand, investing in the S&P 500, which has averaged around 11% annual returns over this timeframe, call it 10% after fees, would have grown your $100,000 investment to approximately $23 million by 2025. In 2035, that investment could be worth around $60 million.
While the homes would still be worth a substantial amount—around $12.5 million—this requires decades of maintenance and management. In contrast, the stock market works for you passively, generating significant returns over time with almost no hands-on effort. And keep in mind the Bay Area is unique. The exact bureaucracy and government intervention we discussed is why those shit boxes are worth $2.5 mm in the first place. No one would have had any idea this would be such a good place to invest in Real Estate. We’ll, almost no one.
So Mayor Basshole proudly trumpets that she will not tolerate any "price gouging" but she didn't have any trouble tolerating empty reservoirs or an unconscionable shortage of firefighters.
I work for a home building company based outside of Buffalo. We travel all over the United States (Florida, Alaska, Montana, etc). putting up homes. We can be competitive because our local salaries & expenses are usually significantly lower than the prevailing norm in the places we build.
California is *the only* state where we can't go, because there is so much red tape. We build very energy efficient, beautiful homes for higher end clients (does that sound like a good fit for the California market or what...) and we can get these homes designed and built relatively quickly. But those damn regulations in California won't let us in. It's a frustrating situation for us, and I would imagine for the people living in California too.
Exactly. I know this all too well being a developer for many years in CA.
Remember when the mockingbirds and FEMA said it would be impossible for Florida to recover from the Ian hurricane (class 5) for at least 3-5 years
Well, DeSantis said "impossible is nothing" and had vital bridges (that were completly destroyed) functional in 3-5 days! It took less than 30 days for him to essentially put Florida back together. Most of the neighborhoods that were destroyed have already been rebuilt and are now virtually hurricane proof.
How'd he do this? Well he didn't listen and let the free market do what it does. Leadership matters and that's why he won by 20% margin landslide.
But hey, if these socialist understood economics or how to run institutions, they wouldn't be socialist.
@Ryan…..Yup I sure AF do!
I probably shouldn’t go here but I am nonetheless. Your vote does/can matter. So many of you who let perfect be the enemy of the good should probably be horse whipped. You let your extreme emotions and paranoia get in the way of a relatively wise decision. The decision to fight for reasonable people to make decisions.
People like a Trump or R DeSantis are NOT perfect but they don’t exactly want to sodomize you like the left does. The Bad Cat describes what that looks like all too well in this post.
Your vote does matter and don’t you forget it.
Well I'm in Florida, Luke. Moved there at the beginning of the plandemic because I didn't want my kids to be surrounded in a spirit of fear.
I've never not voted. I also consider myself to be a fighter beings as I was maybe 1 in 1000 who actually resisted in any meaningful way. So did my wife. She has more balls than 99.99% of men.
Plus we're actively engaged in our school district, community/county where we push back and hold bureaucrats accountable.
In fact my wife is on the school board and I started a group called Dissident Dad's to fight the insane progressive ideology.
So I'm not sure I need a horse whipping....just saying.
I use voting as an example because it’s easy enough to see. What I am really talking about are the people who let perfect be the enemy of good.
There are some very bad people out there who are antithetical to the survival of civilization. In America they are known as the modern day left. Whatever one can do he must in order to keep those people from making decisions over the lives of many.
I understand it from the left. I don’t understand it from people with common sense who cannot see the danger. This danger must be eradicated by any and all means necessary. All it knows how to do is destroy.
It is up to us to destroy it, by pen or by sword.
Glad to have you in the State sir. All people with common sense and understanding are welcome. Don’t forget in 2018 RDS almost lost to a meth smoking sodomite lol. Sounds trite as I refer to him in that manner. It was a very close call and things would look much different here had that POS won back then.
Again, RDS is not perfect (shouldn’t have to say that), but he generally looks out for the welfare of the people in Florida. It’s an apt comparison to Trump as well.
Yeah he won by 2/10th of a percent.
The fact that he won by 20% two years later is a testament to his leadership.
Might as well be on the order of Reagans landslide in 84'.
I've actually had a couple of 5 minute conversations with him at his events. One was about masking children and another just about politics in Tampa/Sarasota area
Down to earth guy who is easy to talk with. Smooth operator...but you can tell he cares about the people he represents.
I would love to see him run with Vance in 28'. Then who knows maybe he'll get his shot in 36'.
That would be a dream...and probably how long it's going to take to fully turn this country around like gato talks about in this essay.
@Ryan….Very cool, I have not met RDS but he strikes me as you describe. He’s an all around good dude. I like Vance too. We are lucky to have them both.
Honestly, I think the people who frustrate me are those from the right who take the “burn it all down” mindset not unlike the left. Both sides have litmus tests and complain a hell of a lot.
Never gotten too much into politics. A wee bit this past year at the local level. I have always been sharply engaged but never out of the desire to spark positive change. My motivation is driven by fear:
Fear—-the leftists may take control of lands that I reside in.
Fear—-It will lead to some sort of a societal upheaval and collapse.
I don’t have kids but these thoughts push me pretty hard. I don’t want to see this place go up in smoke. CA are still somewhat fortunate in that the rest of the country and world will lend them a hand. Should the devastation get too much we will have no one to lean on. It must be avoided at all costs sir. I am feeling better about that. At least I have hope whereas I had none.
Likin where this convo is going.
We agree.
Indeed. So far this discussion is about why Trump won twice (arguably three) presidential elections.
I know you mean well tho
Was going to comment on the excellent “Bad Cat” post, but I want to comment re the comments instead. So many ideas, so much frustration, and an underlying sense of impotence and disbelief.
Is democracy working for us? Can it be said that it is working when there is so much incompetence, wealth disparity, and political impunity, in what was, not so long ago our golden state, which was full of energy and good ideas.
How did this happen? How can it be fixed? Is it politically inevitable that a well developed political machine, fueled by corruption cronyism, ideology, and special interest money will almost always win out, and turn democracy into a charade.
So that all we can do is to expend our precious time and energy in ephemeral venting. Where is our agency? Where is our power?
Yes. It will eventually change for three reasons:
1. You can only beat people over the head with your (not you) collection of pathologies for so long as a way to weaponize empathy before people realize the very people their supposedly trying to help, are getting harmed. They'll be exposed for exactly what they are: fragile Cluster B emotionally handicapped cry babies that derive their ego from the tribe of collectivism.
2. Economic and societal collapse as they try to simultaneously build a utopia for some distant future that will never exist...while taking a hammer to destroy every single previous misguided initiative they put in place (because they are intended to burn it all down) , while at the same time bringing down all the guardrails of a healthy society as they are in perpetual destruction chasing some delusional utopia.
3. History shows us this is the way it ends for the Left every single time. Always.
They're just a bunch of midwit misfit useful idiots. Midwits always surrounds themselves with dimwits. Eventually the RSVP for useful idiots is fully subscribed and they're left sending invitations to USELESS idiots.
Incompetency always collapses on itself. At a certain point the ineptitude is so severe none of the idiots know it's all a scam to grift.
I think its starting to happen. Just look at the wildfires. But make no mistake it's always trickles at first...and then all at once.
Damn right, congressman!😉
Long ago my late husband was trucking and the only state that forbids trucks to stay overnight is CA. They want all their stuff delivered and then you go, no matter how tired or how late it is. So we got in at 4 in the mourning, delivered, and then thankfully against the stream of cars, got out. We avoided the place as much as we could.
That's bizarre... I thought truckers were strictly limited on their hours of road-time?
They voted themselves into this bullshit… Do you think they are smart enough to vote themselves out of it?
If they were, would they still be living in California?
My brother moved there a few years ago and he and his wife and two sons are more brainwashed than ever. They have just enough money to feel relatively unaffected and they live for the beach lifestyle in N San Diego. (one just told me the fire is bc it keeps getting hotter and drier - you know, climate change). Others I know who aren't brainwashed just choose to suffer for the climate, they feel it's still worth it and aren't willing to abandon ship.
Sometimes I Think the homeless are the only free people in California. They don't pay taxes. The can pick up and move where they want. If their "home" wears out they can just buy another one (tent) at Walmart. If the weather gets cold they can just make cozy campfires in the brush on the hillsides. <sarc>
Lol. Adam Corolla joked that one nice thing about the fire was it burned out all the crappy RVs parked along the highways, but the downside is that they'll be right back while everyone else is just starting the five year process of getting a building permit.
lolol.
speaking of Corolla, check this out...mic drop:
https://x.com/DisrespectedThe/status/1877376211581604162?s=19
The dispossessed cannot all move to the Slabs (or Bombay Beach).
"free people"
🎶 Freedom's just another word for nuthin' left to lose🎵
- you might think it's Janice but it's really Kris
RIP to them both.
If that "home" costs less than $1,000 they can probably get it for free.
I live in Oklahoma and have lived all over the country . My husband did 22yrs active duty and I was along for the ride.
While I was watching an amazing video by an independent journalist during the fires. I thought to myself, upper middle class homes, that’s really sad. Then you hear the price of these places and the LOT SIZE? They’ve got to be joking.. I care nothing about hearing my neighbors garage doors go up and down nor care to know when they flush the toilets. It’s people brainwashed into believing they’re living in paradise, not actual paradise.
I would be lying if the thought of quarantining off the state hadn’t come to mind 😂
The system is so corrupted in California. I have family stuck in NoCal. Literally. Because the insurance companies pulled out a few years ago up where my brother is. He has a gorgeous estate above Redding. Anywhere else it could have sold for 15 mil, easy. Now he can't give it away (not that he wants to) so he has made it into someplace to protect. I am 5th gen native and got out when I got married in late 80's. And..it is creepy dry there. We have friends who are wintering in Paso and he even mentioned it. Crispy dry. There are good people in CA who have no vote and no voice because of the corruption that has tunneled it's way into the halls of the governed.
Well...their supporters are going to find out that, he who sups with the devil should carry a long spoon.
And they should for substituting feelings for sound policy.
Hey but at least the reservoirs are full in CA. I mean air is something...so they are indeed "full".
Its just a crazy ultra maga conspiracy theory to say water can put out fires.
Not sure about that...The vote fraud in California is epic, and for example, Kamala's "election" for AG came after a month of finding non-existent votes...
Experiencing déja vu here....
Who knows. If not, then just grab the popcorn.
No
No..
No.
My husband was hired as CEO of a company in West LA a little over 20 yrs ago. It was an exercise in frustration.He called it "upside down world". He succeeded in spite of all obstacles but we finally went back home to AZ and he said I'll never do business in CA again. Now we own a residential and commercial RE company and have countless stories of helping individuals and businesses who are desperately trying to relocate.
Unfortunately, my Arizona (3rd generation, currently raising a 4th) is turning more and more like California surely due to those CA relocations. 👎😔
we surely need to put an end to the CAWIZ invasion by the left and the cars traveling east that stop in my most wonderful state and try and change the state to blue after leaving CA for the same exact reasons, clown world is America right now and we need to stand strong against the monster.
From Buffalo here too. NY? What company? I am with Riverworks, Pearl Street, Buffalo United Martial Arts.
- Josh K
Heyo, how many times have I seen those silos on the way to Buffalo :D I'm from Timberbuilt in North Collins
Oh awesome! Come train jiu jitsu at Buffalo United one day for fun and we can talk about what we write about at the Society of Problem Solvers - fixing corrupted government with new systems!
@Cap- howdy, neighbor! I'm in Lewiston!
Aloha neighbor! Down here at Pearl Street and Riverworks and Buffalo United Martial Arts. Come train jiu jitsu at Buffalo United one day for fun and we can talk about what we write about at the Society of Problem Solvers - fixing corrupted government with new systems!
Also we have a band from Lewiston that plays at Pearl Street all the time. Roy G Biv. They are the best band in WNY. This was them a few weeks ago: https://youtu.be/ej3EQHSxzzo
@Society- what a small world!!
Hey o! I don't head up that way much but we did build a house in Gasport a few years ago. I live in the south towns myself.
@Cap- ah. Ski Country. You can have the snow.
We got a foot of it today :x
Cap- only flurrying up here. One reason I like it. (I'm originally from Wellsville which gets hammered every year).
What if Bass gets booted and Caruso takes charge with a mandate to rebuild as fast as possible?
The easiest first step: cut the stupid regulations. 49 states have no problem with anyone coming to build in them. Only CA is "special"
In Harrisburg PA the mostly Amish famers market burned back in 23 or early 24 (building from the late 1880s) And…… it’s still boarded up. The city commission to fix it had the CEO resign after cash went “missing”. The sad thing is the Amish could have had it repaired in WEEKS. Tragic
@Canuck (had to)- how maddening
Our company is the main subcontractor for Helene cleanup in 2 NC counties (we live in another county where we get hurricanes all the time). Part of the task in one of the counties is cleaning up a waterway, which looks like the photos you've seen - FULL of trees, houses, boats, cars, bodies... They are still wrangling over it because every single town/city/county/state/fed has their own say over some part. For instance (and this is the God's honest truth), by code there has to be a separate permit for every 100' - FEET - of waterway. It will be over 36k separate permits if they don't waive it. This is ONE county. They are also worried about harming the trout and what we are going to do to mitigate that. What the trout want is for the CARS to be taken out of the waterway! There are no flipping trout swimming around all that debris, oil, gas, decomposing organic matter, etc.
Also, after those Amish built the first 100 house in Nov, more went to Boone around Christmas and built about 3 dozen, all paid for. To give credit where it's due, Watauga County did approve them for people to live in and approve the Amish coming back to do more. (Which they are paying for themselves and donating.) My daughter and son-in-law went to App State in Boone, and it is a VERY liberal town/county (like Asheville where those first 100 were built). But they apparently got the memo after the outcry from the first incident.
FEMA, however, did kick people out of hotels last week when we had a statewide winter storm and frigid temps. While they did give them an extra 24 hours, that didn't extend to the life of the storm and we are still having unusual cold. Our crews almost never see any FEMA people (nor do the Savage Freedom guys up in Swannanoa which is one of the hardest hit areas) and when we do they're in a truck "watching". State agencies and contractors have been AWOL, too, as they waited for the new money the legislature approved to get in the pipeline and for our new Dem gov to bring his cronies in.
Oh, and the contractor that is in charge of measuring the debris the clean up crews bring to the dump sites does this by eyeballing the loads. Yep. The official way of doing it is to look in the truck and assign a percentage. Not weight or anything. They routinely underestimate the yardage, so of course contractors have figured out how to put the stuff in the trucks to look good. (And we know they underestimate by about 30% because when we take it to burn or gring instead, we know exactly how much that is.) And the people measuring can't be the people monitoring, don't you know...
It is the biggest mess you can imagine thanks to the government. And we're a red state! So I can't even imagine what will happen (or not) in California.
It's almost as if they're making money off of making life miserable....
I'm sure they are. Cronyism is strong here... None worse than the ABC Boards, but still, pretty bad.
I grew up in Banner Elk and am an App State grad as well. My mother still lives up there and went through Helene. Most people never saw anyone from FEMA except for home inspections, which is not a real inspection but a guess after a 5-10 minute walkthough. Samaritan's Purse did all the heavy lifting in the area. FEMA only showed up at the Elk River Airport to direct (more like redistribute) the supplies which were donated by others. Most of the FEMA personnel just got in the way, and after a few weeks, just wanted to declare the emergency over so that they could leave. Unlike Lahina, there were no 5 star resorts down the road where the government employees to could stay.
Good luck with that New democrat governor!
He's pretty much the same as our old Dem governor, sadly. He's terrible. NC is known for splitting the ticket for some reason. It's infuriating. Stein is awful, and Cooper was awful. But they've got powerful cronies in the state.
When you look at a list of the states with the highest number of SNAP recipients, you see primarily Dem politicians in leadership. As you go down the list of least number of SNAP recipient per state, you realize that they are more conservative states. Of course there are some outliers like Vermont, but they are easily explained by other demographics. The problem is that once you’re in “the system” you tend to vote for a bigger system as prescribed by the MSM propaganda machine. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/welfare-recipients-by-state
How govern-mint works in a nutshell.
same in Virginia.
Just wondering....do they kick the illegals out of hotels after a similar period of time?
I suspect the vast majority of people directly affected by this voted for it, endorse it, and won’t ever understand why “Moar Gummint” doesn’t fix it.
Right now they are going after the electric company, which certainly bears some responsibility because it is basically a government agency with privatized profits, but they aren’t allowed to properly clear brush or maintain easements-they will be scapegoated for all the wrong reasons.
We cannot win this in a head on fight. Just when you think people are suffering enough to wake up, the Marxists swoop in and seduce them. I believe we can only really win it when the American Imperium ends; only then will the money printer fail. It’s going to be a wild ride.
Time to get stoic, get clear on your principles, and have the courage to be disliked (and uncomfortable.)
I got some practice at that during Covid.
great comment
Perhaps they want bad outcomes?
I mean they do have some mighty fine navels to gaze at...
I think this is part of it. Libs seem to value being right more than being prosperous or safe. This is subconscious but affects the way they vote and conduct their private lives. They would rather be right about anthropogenic climate change and have their house burn down than actually work and vote to protect their house. They would rather be right that Orange Man Bad and have a shitty economy than bust ass for their families and have a good economy. And California can bear this rn because of the titanic accomplishments of prior generations that are currently being looted for pennies on the dollar. They can live this way because they are completely removed from the realities of the physical world. They live in a literal la-la-land of luxury beliefs supported by the momentum of their predecessors. This dynamic will not persist forever and they will have to kill their golden geese / eat their seed corn just to keep the graft going. Eventually even Apple will leave CA, and they will do it after voting dem all the way, because they would rather be right than successful.
"Perhaps they want bad outcomes?"
Outcomes for whom?
A "bad" outcome for a working class, Trump voting, wage slave could be losing his family home to a fire, or flood. But that same fire or flood could provide low responsibility, zero accountability, well compensated employment for thousands of bureaucrats. Definitely a "good" outcome. For them.
Another infinity trillion dollars and the “good people” will solve everything. What’s amazing is that I believe that most of these people are so dense that they actually believe they are good people. And yes, for a fact, people are trying to survive in tents in NC. And it is freezing here right now. Really brutal. I can’t imagine.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair
I’m only liking this because it’s true
This is 4 months ago and lots of help was provided by good people. Unlike the govt (who tried to keep them out) they started working and got things done. Of course in the rich parts of CA help will be available from the govt I suppose.
This reminds me of 2005. In August, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Everybody remembers that because the repairs went on for at least 10 years with the city asking for more and more money. Then in September, Hurricane Rita hit southeast Texas with hurricane strength winds travelling inland north for about 100 miles. The devastation was extensive. So many trees were uprooted that it looked like God had set up a game of pick-up-sticks for the giants. At least 50 homes in my neighborhood had to have the roof replaced. Most of the repairs were completed in less than a year. What was the difference between Louisiana and Texas? In Louisiana, it was rumored that officials held a meeting to figure out how to maximize the funds from the federal government. In Texas, Governor Perry suspended all permitting and told the residents to just fix it. One repair did take three years to complete. No surprise that it was the airport belonging to the Federal government.
Insanity.
Did you know it only took $135k to fix the nearest water reservoir to the Pacific Palisades fire?
Thats as much as Newsome spends on hair gel per month from his government slush fund!
I think the hair gel has entered the blood brain barrier causing irreversible subtardism for Nero Newsome.
DeSantis would've had it operational in less than a week.
People should start calling Mayor Bass's hot line to report the price gouging already in place in her city, like the high cost of gasoline, water, power, permit fees, etc.
I know your joking, but to be fair "price gouging" is working there. That's precisely why CA has the highest percentage "emigration" in the country.
"Price gouging" can be very useful. For example the price of fuel went up during Hurricane Helene, however, it allowed people who REALLY needed the fuel to be able to find it at the precise time they needed it...for the most part. People who didn't want to pay those prices didn't; precisely because they just "wanted" it...for the most part.
It's not perfect...but it's far better than the alternative.
Price gouging for certain events is indeed capitalism at work. But when prices are held high by government for extended periods that’s just robbery.
Agree on government. But not free market. Its always corrects itself by the signals received by the invisible hand.
& TAXES…. Do forget that…
Yep, overwhelm them… relentlessly
I was taking to someone who works for an organization in the public-ish realm. There is a senior employee who is a disaster-the guy needs to go. But they have to coddle him through months of reviews and “second-chances,” just so they can have the breadcrumbs correct in the event of a lawsuit. So the boss has to pretend the guy has a chance and redemption all while cataloguing his failures, the employee has to pretend to care knowing he’s just riding out a few more paychecks,
*and the entire rest of the team has to carry around radioactive dead weight and pretend to like it.*
Apply this to larger and larger scale and you get the full demoralization of society at every level.
My little sis is in administration for her school district and I've heard this story again and again there as well.
Same shit, everywhere.
Sarah, what ultimately happens is that dead-weight guy will end up being moved laterally to another department (or agency) whilst maintaining his (or her) pay grade and benefits. Most of these "dead weight" employees are worse than just dead weight, they are so bad that they are bringing negative public attention to their agency. This reason brings about their removal to another government area. Taxpayers still foot the bill for these guys' keep.
For some reason, this reminded me of a different kind of government evasion. My daughter was a 6th grade teacher and she had a student who clearly had emotional problems. He would sometimes get angry, pick up a chair or desk and throw it at a wall. One day on the playground he threw a rock at my daughter's head, although fortunately it didn't hurt her. He never got adequate psychological help. He was so much trouble he was finally transferred to a different school. And then another one and so on. Eventually he had been at every single school in the area and then he ended up back at my daughter's school again. No one had the guts to deal with him, and the mother would get hysterical and claim everyone was saying she was a bad mother so she was not cooperative. It was a ridiculous situation, but typical government/public education. Just move the problem somewhere but never solve the problem. That kid is probably a criminal today. Or in jail.
Yes - it's not the one you fire that's the problem, it's the one you DON'T fire. Fastest way to lower moral and corporate culture.
Biden?
That they would rather force people to sleep outside than in the houses the Amish built just blows my mind.
That actually says it all. In the tiniest of nutshells the entire truth of government resides. . FEMA would drive folks out of those too.
Talk about the yin and yang of life in America. Private groups acting out of the goodness of their hearts to help the downtrodden; public bureaucrats exercising government power showing how hardness of hearts can obliterate the most charitable of acts and extinguish the hope of the most desperate. Maddening and depressing.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Vote the bums out of office or recall them.
Adam Corolla, a former contractor in LA had a podcast a few days ago that describes the situation perfectly. He very nearly lost his condo in the fire. He predicts that the very rich will demand to rebuild, no matter the cost, but will run smack into the government that they voted for. As others have noted, the permitting process is going to be at least five years. Many will not be allowed to rebuild on the coast at all, because the Coastal Authority, (that they used to love), won't allow it. He thinks that it may be enough to red-pill many of them. (I'm not optimistic; these people are not normal!)
"these people are not normal!"
Perhaps - for any sane definition of "normal".
But I can't visualize ANY definition of sane that could be applied to most of the people currently running our governments. In a rational world, most souls so disconnected from reality would be locked up - for their own safety.
I'm sorry for the regular people who lost their homes, but I will confess to immensely enjoying the Uber-rich who lost their homes and who are being hoisted on their own petard right now and getting a major taste of what they voted for.
Corolla for governor.
Lol
Your point about "failing into higher budgets" is the key to everything. Every public institution, starting with schools, has a perverse incentive to underperform, because then it can justify demanding more power and money.
https://open.substack.com/pub/technoskeptical/p/the-literacy-lawsuit-is-about-more
Read somewhere these fires were purposely lit to get rid of “urban sprawl” so Pacific Palisades could be made into a “smart city” for the Olympics. Yesterday Newsom said he had a team that had already prepared a plan (in a week?) to make it happen—I’m sure counting on federal funding, which I hope doesn’t come.
I also heard someone say that "people" didn't want the single family homes replaced with the same....they want multi-family housing put in...apartments and condos I would guess. There's a real push against single family home ownership in CA, probably elsewhere too.
Whether it's a smart city or conventional urban development, the bankers, developers and politicians will win and the homeowners will lose.
That mindset is in every city. Even in my home state of WV. No new development can have just single family homes, it also has to have townhomes, double homes etc… That horse sh*t came straight from the Obama regime, and it’s still applied today.
The unwavering request for "an expanded budget for the next biennium" generally is needed for new hires, expanding the population of the agency beyond the number of retirees. What this does is explained by a thing called seniority. If you are a public employee, your real goal is to retire at the highest possible pay grade. How do we reach that goal by our retirement? By the expansion of the number of new hires...
And the money for those pensions has to come from somewhere. At the state level, sometimes there are investment funds that bear the brunt of it, but at the federal level, it's almost a pure Ponzi scheme, with each generation of taxpayers paying for the previous generation of federal employee pensions.
CORRECT-O!
And Groovy Gavin is instituting a "Marshall Plan" at the cost of $2.5B (likely three times larger if government spending history tells us anything, the Law of 3x). All that surely won't go towards building anything. I predict this will happen...
Anybody below a certain income bracket will end up moving out of the area because the b-cats will prevent them from rebuilding due to price capping (rent control and price capping is how you get slums). Those above a certain income bracket will have the resources to find their own supply and their own builders to be back in a shiny new custom homes within 2-3 years. Because those below that income bracket can't rebuild, the wealthy will snap up that land in a heartbeat (likely at a discount because those without will be desperate for liquidity), further increasing their net worth and transferring more wealth to them. This of course is by design, because of lot of those folks vote for the current idiots in charge. However, this will be used by the politicos as class warfare fodder...
"The rich people are able to build and you can't! That's not fair! We should take more of their resources so you can have them!"
But, with a wink and nod, the government won't actually do anything drastic to those folks...they need their wealth at campaign time to stay in charge. The move will be symbolic. "Yeah! We are really sticking it to the man!" So the Cheeto stained hands of the wannabe progressive keyboard jockeys will be placated for another election cycle.
All while this is happening, Groovy Gavin and The Gang will be contriving new and interesting ways to "Fight climate change, because that is the only reason these fires happened. We must protect you from more!" Of course these ways will involve steadily more taxation of those who can't afford it and mandating of product choice through fossil-fueled product bans. Forcing California to be more electrified with an infrastructure that can't handle it now.
California was a dumpster fire before this...now it is about to graduate to landfill fire...
Hell, it's been a coal mine fire for decades...
This is tragic, but completely foreseeable.
the only thing that needs to be done, is Stop The Government. dissolve all these useless agencies, and let the locals fix things. Most mayors of small places have a way better idea and the local people help each other. That is how things should be. Indeed all the government bruha does nothing to make things better, they make things way worse and spend all the money.
It is called Subsidiarity, a key social doctrine of the Catholic Church.
Problems should always be solved as locally as possible.
California is the champion of absurd rules. Years ago I went to visit a friend of mine at his work there. He worked for Universal Records in the licensing dept. He had a great office overlooking the campus . Vinyl records and CDs lined the walls. Outside his window loomed the World on Atlas' shoulders. I told him it looked like he finally made it! It was a long way from our one horse mid west town. He told me he loved his office, but really wanted to rearrange it so that his desk could be next to the window. I took a quick glance around and said cool...you grab that end and I'll get this end. We could have rearranged the place in thirty minutes or less. He sheepishly laughed and said 'I wish it was that easy'. He had actually put in a request with the management six months prior...and was still awaiting a response. He was hopeful it could still get done within that year. Honestly...I have never been able to respect him the same way since.
The ugly bull dyke Assistant Fire Chief says it's most important that hideously fat black lesbians are the ones to respond to emergencies and if you actually need help it's your fault.
Thank god for Diversity, Exclusion and Incompetence!
Better extend the wall to keep those Californians from escaping from LA.
Almost anywhere else that Asst. LA Fire Chief would be fired immediately for making the kind of obviously racist, sexist remarks she was allowed to make in an official LAFD promo video. That fact alone shows that they have no fear of accountability for anything. But even if we were to take her statement that the public wants first responders that “look like them” as true, more than 99% of the public don’t look like her. So given that fact how does she explain her initial hiring and subsequent numerous promotions to Asst. Chief?
They only care about the one percent. The degenerates.
No doubt.
The Left needs to learn about a new concept called opportunity cost.
Even if the Fire Chief and Mayor were qualified for the job, they have a directive from the institutions to focus on DEI.
Attention is finite. For every second you spend on one thing, that's one less you have for other things. Same with money.
thinking about trade-offs isn't leftists strong point. 0.3% fatality rate for a respiratory infection---->shut down civilization
Yeah. wE'Re alL iN iT tOGeTHeR is tantamount to saying we must destroy many real lives in order to save one on paper.
I wonder if people would've done the Nestea plunge in an empty deep end if they were told tens of millions of people across the world would die from abandoning the scientific method and replacing it with a belief system?
Because thats exactly what happened.
I do not think that they will pull off another one like that, at least in the next four years. Now we get to hear both sides now.
As a General Contractor and developer in California, my focus is on constructing high-end custom homes in prestigious locations such as Martis Camp in Truckee, CA. Our projects cater to a luxury market, with homes typically selling for over $1,400 per square foot, and total costs, including land, exceeding $1,000 per square foot to complete. Building anything other than these luxury homes in desirable areas would not support our business model. It’s for this reason there is a giant housing shortage in this state. Nothing else really pencils at the end of the day.
https://www.martiscamp.com/luxury-custom-homes/martis-camp-home-107/
In 2020 I worked doing the census up in Truckee/North Tahoe area and I was floored by how many multi-million dollar homes were apparently vacation or second homes.
That’s correct; they aren't truly homes but rather luxury properties for the wealthy to showcase. Normally, one could argue the law of supply and demand. However, the debate from some government officials and progressive advocates centers around building affordable housing. In an effort to address this, the government often ends up spending north of $400-$500 per square foot on subpar constructions. The industry maintains that increasing the number of homes built will lead to a larger supply and lower prices, which is generally true. Unfortunately, in California, rising construction costs mean that only high-end properties—the “toys” of the affluent—are being developed, primarily for them to flaunt to their friends. Most people want affordable housing for their kids. It’s just that lefty clowns have no clue how to do it. And some working poor end up being NIMBY’s because they end up believing their equity in their home is their retirement. Sadly for many in California that is exactly what ends up happening.
Many people believe that real estate is a better investment than the stock market. As a builder and developer, I recognize the value of real estate, particularly actively managed properties. However, let's consider a hypothetical scenario: what if you had purchased five homes in Los Gatos, California, in 1970, each priced at $100,000? Assuming you made a $20,000 down payment on each, that's a total investment of $100,000.
Now, let's compare this to investing the same $100,000 in the stock market, specifically in the S&P 500, since it’s easy to track since 1970. Fast-forward to today: Los Gatos real estate prices are incredibly high—an average 1,400-square-foot home is now worth around $2.5 million. Multiplying this by five homes gives us a total of about $12.5 million.
On the other hand, investing in the S&P 500, which has averaged around 11% annual returns over this timeframe, call it 10% after fees, would have grown your $100,000 investment to approximately $23 million by 2025. In 2035, that investment could be worth around $60 million.
While the homes would still be worth a substantial amount—around $12.5 million—this requires decades of maintenance and management. In contrast, the stock market works for you passively, generating significant returns over time with almost no hands-on effort. And keep in mind the Bay Area is unique. The exact bureaucracy and government intervention we discussed is why those shit boxes are worth $2.5 mm in the first place. No one would have had any idea this would be such a good place to invest in Real Estate. We’ll, almost no one.
Fascinating analysis!
So Mayor Basshole proudly trumpets that she will not tolerate any "price gouging" but she didn't have any trouble tolerating empty reservoirs or an unconscionable shortage of firefighters.