California reports first ever yearly population decline

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by TWAK

I find it kind of dumb that somebody would leave based on how bloated a state bureaucracy is

Clearly you’ve never tried to open or maintain a business in California. I’ll even go so far to say you don’t have any kind of professional license issued by the State of California. But you don’t need either to experience bureaucracy out of control. The DMV and EDD are two perfect examples of bureaucratic idiocy.

Originally Posted by TWAK

The Feds manage a lot of our forests, so whoever runs the feds...is currently mismanaging that forest land.

Nobody said the Feds aren’t responsible for lands they manage. But there’s more to land management than pruning a few pine trees. The State PUC allowed PG&E to place profits of before people for decades instead of ensuring that PG&E cleared old undergrowth; trim trees back away from power lines and replace infrastructure to help prevent fires. Again, a lot of it comes down to bureaucratic mismanagement.

Originally Posted by TWAK

The question is, did he take your freedom away when you went ahead and posted anyway?

Nobody, suggested anything of the sort. I alluded to the fact that he (or anyone) are delusional to deny or dismiss the obvious physical mess on the streets and sidewalks of our cities in California but also Portland and Seattle. The other alternative is that they’re worse liars than Baghdad Bob was.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by urban_encounter

Clearly you’ve never tried to open or maintain a business in California. I’ll even go so far to say you don’t have any kind of professional license issued by the State of California. But you don’t need either to experience bureaucracy out of control. The DMV and EDD are two perfect examples of bureaucratic idiocy.

Fine then, I'll leave since the DMV is slow. I don't have to own a business to comment on the state's problems and I have worked with the state before. Are you gonna leave because it's gonna get worse...and worse!

Nobody said the Feds aren’t responsible for lands they manage. But there’s more to land management than pruning a few pine trees. The State PUC allowed PG&E to place profits of before people for decades instead of ensuring that PG&E cleared old undergrowth; trim trees back away from power lines and replace infrastructure to help prevent fires. Again, a lot of it comes down to bureaucratic mismanagement.

It needs to be mentioned when fires in federal lands spread to state areas then the state gets blamed. Which I see is the main idea here...gonna blame the state for everything. Ok, air your grievances but do you plan to leave or stay? The state failed at this yes, and so did PG&E. If you lay blame solely on the state, well that's a bat-signal.

Nobody, suggested anything of the sort. I alluded to the fact that he (or anyone) are delusional to deny or dismiss the obvious physical mess on the streets and sidewalks of our cities in California but also Portland and Seattle. The other alternative is that they’re worse liars than Baghdad Bob was.

Y'all got super upset though for him making a political zinger, really upset, and there sure as heck are counter zingers. This whole last quote is basically a zinger to all the things people assume are to that one direction that rhymes with heft. Go to the CE and do it. For some reason though, people are scared to talk where it's actually supposed to go.
I know who's gonna vote to recall....

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by TWAK

Fine then, I'll leave since the DMV is slow. I don't have to own a business to comment on the state's problems and I have worked with the state before. Are you gonna leave because it's gonna get worse...and worse!

Californians frequently quit their jobs, abandon their friends/family and take their kids out of school, and then move to a red state, because the CA DMV is slow. And those red state DMVs, well-known for their generous internal investments, are lightning fast. The extra 90 seconds online renewing your license made all the difference. Heard it on Newsmax, dude.

CA makes it impossible to build a new business, which is obviously the reason it's the undisputed startup capital of the planet.

[DCReid]

My gut feeling is that many middle class and lower families cannot simply afford California or are barely making making it. So then there are other reasons to not like it when you are not happy that you are not getting ahead. Suddenly, AZ and NV, or somewhere else looks enticing - because it is cheaper, appears less crowded, and appears less dated, seems like an easier life... until they get there and most realize that they will be paid less or there is just as much traffic or run down areas with problems...

All the right-wing news complain about homeless people in SF and downtown LA ant the poop in the streets, but there are plenty of homeless people in reddish state Florida, running out with signs at traffic intersections, sleeping behind buildings, etc. Unlike the mostly sidewalks in SF, there is plenty of grass and empty lots in FL and (perhaps) iguanas, rodents, gators, insects... to hide or dispose of their poop!

[twinpeaks]

Originally Posted by Crawford

No, this is alt-right fakenews. You're taking a nugget of truth (people leave states at all times, for all sorts of reasons, and certainly there are people who have left CA for any number of random reasons, including "taxes, bureaucracy and roads"), but it's absolutely fakenews to claim that people are specifically abandoning CA due to such things.

This is also obviously alt-right fakenews. Antifa barely exists, BLM has nothing to do with violence (in fact their entire message is anti-violence, making the claim that those who oppose police killings are themselves violent, nothing but shameless Orwellian projection meant to protect killer cops) and CA hasn't had much urban violence of the revolutionary sort since the 1960's. CA cities have basically never been safer.


If you truly believe these to be facts, there is no further discussion to be had, because you're trapped in an alternative reality. And this is why it's a Cult, destined for centuries of analysis, the same way academics today study Honnecker, Stalin and Tito.

#truth

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Californians frequently quit their jobs, abandon their friends/family and take their kids out of school, and then move to a red state, because the CA DMV is slow. And those red state DMVs, well-known for their generous internal investments, are lightning fast. The extra 90 seconds online renewing your license made all the difference. Heard it on Newsmax, dude.

CA makes it impossible to build a new business, which is obviously the reason it's the undisputed startup capital of the planet.

Seriously. Is this the proxy for grievance?

The most efficient DMV I've ever experienced in my life is the PA DMV and you don't here anyone saying they've moving the Pennsylvania because of their experience getting or renewing their license.

Just weird.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by urban_encounter

The State PUC allowed PG&E to place profits of before people for decades instead of ensuring that PG&E cleared old undergrowth; trim trees back away from power lines and replace infrastructure to help prevent fires. Again, a lot of it comes down to bureaucratic mismanagement.

You blame the state PUC for "allowing" the profit-driven decisions made by the private corporation PG&E--but it seems you would rail against the state even more harshly if it had more heavily regulated the utility, let alone seized it and run it, amirite?

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by DCReid

My gut feeling is that many middle class and lower families cannot simply afford California or are barely making making it. So then there are other reasons to not like it when you are not happy that you are not getting ahead. Suddenly, AZ and NV, or somewhere else looks enticing - because it is cheaper, appears less crowded, and appears less dated, seems like an easier life... until they get there and most realize that they will be paid less or there is just as much traffic or run down areas with problems...

All the right-wing news complain about homeless people in SF and downtown LA ant the poop in the streets, but there are plenty of homeless people in reddish state Florida, running out with signs at traffic intersections, sleeping behind buildings, etc. Unlike the mostly sidewalks in SF, there is plenty of grass and empty lots in FL and (perhaps) iguanas, rodents, gators, insects... to hide or dispose of their poop!

Right wing news outlets are a disgrace. They're the most "fake news" thing that exists.

[JManc]

Actually, I was at the DMV today to renew my license and was in and out in about 30 minutes.

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by craigs

You blame the state PUC for "allowing" the profit-driven decisions made by the private corporation PG&E--but it seems you would rail against the state even more harshly if it had more heavily regulated the utility, let alone seized it and run it, amirite?

The PUC has had close ties with PG&E similar to FAAs cozy relationship with Boeing, which were exposed in detail after the San Bruno gas explosion.

To your second question; utilities shouldn’t be “for profit” to begin with and should be owned by the communities in which they serve (imo). My electric utility (SMUD) is one of the largest public utilities in the State and has consistently provided reliable electricity(usually much cheaper than PG&E; green energy innovation and manage its Sierra hydroelectric and power resources without burning tens of thousands of pristine forest lands.

However, since the State PUC and PG&E are forced to work together, maybe the PUC could conduct itself as the oversight entity with which they’re entrusted by the people.

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by JManc

Actually, I was at the DMV today to renew my license and was in and out in about 30 minutes.

It took me 10 minutes to breeze through the DMV in downtown Seattle without an appointment. Of course that was a couple of years ago.

When I scheduled my in person appointment for my California ‘Real ID’ it still took two hours and then I still had to return another day because of some issue (I can’t recall) and I literally spent seven hours at the DMV. They weren’t willing to schedule the second appointment. California’s DMV is like a black hole.

[Eightball]

Nobody cares about the DMV bruh

Having the worst homelessness crisis in the country, despite voters taxing themselves to address it and subsequently having the number of homeless INCREASE by double digit percentages yearly are the issues ppl care about. The cities and state are all run by Dems you can't blame it on Repubs or whatever

Dems mismanaged oversight of PG&E; Dems mismanaged city budgets where huge percentages now go to retirees, not to providing services to residents etc etc

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by Eightball

Nobody cares about the DMV bruh

Having the worst homelessness crisis in the country, despite voters taxing themselves to address it and subsequently having the number of homeless INCREASE by double digit percentages yearly are the issues ppl care about. The cities and state are all run by Dems you can't blame it on Repubs or whatever

Dems mismanaged oversight of PG&E; Dems mismanaged city budgets where huge percentages now go to retirees, not to providing services to residents etc etc

💯 nailed it.

[craigs]

So it really does boil down to the right-wing narrative that "Dems are bad!" Just like others already correctly noted it did.

Whatever. Mods should just move this thread into the Current Events section with the rest of the culture war threads.

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by craigs

So it really does boil down to the right-wing narrative that "Dems are bad!" Just like others already correctly noted it did.

Whatever. Mods should just move this thread into the Current Events section with the rest of the culture war threads.

You see what you want to see.

As it happens I’m a gay liberal. But if anyone living in California is trying to pretend that we don’t have enormous challenges, they're either dumb as a rock, deliberately lying or they don’t live here. The Democratic Party in this state is grossly incompetent and because they have absolute power they own it.

The only silver lining for the democrats in California is the fact the republicans lack the ability to articulate a coherent message together that would resonate with voters.