Elon Musk warns that under Kamala Harris, "All of America will be Californicated. And not in a good way."
I don't know about that. California looks pretty good to me:
What exactly is the problem here? Warts and all, it seems like the whole world, let alone the whole country, would be lucky to be Californicated.
Trump, if he gets the power, will go after California even before any other blue state.
Police officers
Firefighters
Active military personnel
Veterans
Groups to be exempt from taxes, in concept of a plan being considered by Donald Trump, according to Bloomberg. Sounds reasonable. Maybe he can streamline that and just have the government pay directly to anyone who votes for him.
Taxes for Californians, however, will need to double.
Please don't give them ideas!
It is not just voting for him. These are people that he hopes to use to suppress the population, or at least not stand in the way if he use his own militia for that.
I thought the Chilli Peppers already did that.
Something something Nixon and Reagan.
Anyway, better to be Californicated that Mississipissed-on.
And better to be Massachusetts than either.
High growth, great food, people of different backgrounds trying to figure out how to be together and have a good time. Yeah, we can't let that happen! It's AWFUL!
👍👍👍👍👍
RWers (and RW-adjacents) love to bag on California, and have done so for decades.
It's pure envy. With the possible exception of Utah, every Red state, if deprived of Federal dollars, would be a Third World Nation within months... heck, many of them are Third World right now.
"I welcome their hatred": FDR.
What FDR said.
(FTR: I don't live in California, but in Washington - which has the same assets, same issues, and attracts much the same hatred for the same reasons.)
Right on!!
Look, I am a big fan of California, but surely we all know that Musk was talking about something other than GDP per capita growth...
Have a friend who retired a few years ago. He analyzed all the states and made the surprising decision to move from the west coast to Tennessee, based largely on their low taxes. Recently had dinner with him and all he could do was complain about the low level of services and how most of his neighbors were Trump supporters.
And the worst thing is that the food will kill you pretty quickly. The hogs and chickens being fattened for slaughter eat better than the people growing them.
As always you get what you pay for.
I reserve much of my contempt for asshats like Parnell’s friend. Like, if you don’t want to pay taxes, fine. Move to a low-tax “paradise.” There are plenty domestically and abroad to choose from. But then afterwards, don’t bitch about the low services. You opted to forgo services when you chose to lower your tax bill. Your friend sounds like a moron.
And if enough of his peers were to do the same thing, Tennessee would likely evolve.
Leon Musk? Isn’t he the one who thinks software can be trusted to drive your car but not to count your vote?
🎯🎯🎯
Oh, "Leon" will be glad to take over counting your vote, too. The polling stations will be self-corrupting, but man, will they be whiffy-looking!
Jes' sayin'
Would beat the hell out of being Texified or Floridated, which seems to be the MAGA ideal
If you're a Fox News viewer, statements that we're going to be like California scare you. If you're in the reality-based world, it's an enticement.
They think California is a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. It has nothing to do with the economy, they can just lie about that.
I suppose it would be unnecessary to point out this is about state income taxes and wages he has or had to pay there. The first Tesla factory was the former GM then NUMMI GM/Toyota one in Fremont, I think. It's still a Tesla factory employing over 20K workers. Non-union of course.
Also sign regulations enforcement in San Francisco.
California's GDP growth proclaims "prosperity" but its level of homelessness shouts "Inequality."
It seems to me that if would be better if the "USA" line were "USA minus California." That is, it would be better to compare California to the other 49 states, rather than to compare California to all 50 states, including California. The disparity would be even more stark because California is pulling up the "USA" line.
Pied Piper makes an excellent point. It also indicts the fallacious (or fellacious, since the statement sucks) cliche that California is "the world's fifth largest economy." First of all, California isn't a country so it can't be on any such list. Second, even in its initial incarnation, "If California were a separate country it would be the fifth (or sixth, or whatever it was at the time) largest economy in the world," that left open the question of whether the US economy was being rated with or without California's being included. Anyway, I am sick and tired of seeing that stupid phrase repeated by everyone from Governor Newsom to the media.
The problem with California is that Musk can't spend much time there anymore if he doesn't want the California Tax Commission to come after him for state income tax. It's why he made a big whiny show about how he was supposedly relocating SpaceX HQ to Texas a while back.
The state/condition of California can be described comprehensively by per-capita GDP growth?
Related to that, seems there is https://www.dir.ca.gov/oprl/cpi/entireccpi.pdf which has an index for California CPI over a number of years. For 2011 that index was 232.930. For 2023 that was 331.804 or an increase of 44.2%.
All that "CPI" foolishness means is that more people want to live in California -- and do -- than did in 2012.
Not at all. But do you expect a serious, detailed answer to such junk?
I mean, Republicans have been telling me, all my life, "we can't do that, it would hurt gdp growth".
Up yours, guys. We show you how to do growth and y'all are all "that sucks! We can't do that!"
None of this is to say CA doesn't have issues. Or that it's superior to other places. People can love where they live, I'm fine with that. It's the reflexive ignorance and jealousy that gets really old.
Back in the 1960's FMC was hiring folks from the midwest. Locations where farm equipment was being designed and built. FMC was designing and building Military farm equipment so Cat and Deere were good places to recruit from. I was a wet behind the ears engineer and saw these new hires come through for a year then go back home. Unfortunately they became "Californicated" and returned after spending another winter back home.
Tell that to the guy who wrote the blog post just prior to this one.
California == Gays -> Drag Queens -> Collapse of Western Civilization. QED.
By Californicated, Musk means those meanies tried to make him care about the health of his workers during COVID. Don't they know there are more where those came from.
If you moved any given house from Houston to Los Angeles its price would triple. Does this mean:
(a) Yeah, those crazy prices are why nobody wants to live in CA anymore!
(b) Yeah, those crazy prices show that people REALLY want to live in CA!