Category: California

Californians vote against government sorting by victimhood status

by philg

In How are Californians doing in restoring their race-based university admissions scheme? I predicted that Proposition 16 would get 45 percent of the vote from people in victimhood categories (Black and Hispanic) and then 15 percent of the remaining vote, thus resulting in a 53-47 overall vote.

The actual vote was 44-56.

Aside from general stupidity, how did I get this wrong? One problem with my simplistic analysis is that a lot of Hispanics are under 18 and therefore ineligible to vote. So I should have looked at the size of these victimhood groups relative to the overall population, but with under-18s excluded. (Median age for Hispanics in California is 29; median age for whites nationwide is 43.6; Black Americans also have a lower-than-white median age, by about 5 years)

Also, not everyone votes his/her/zir/their self-interest. Even a proposition intended to help Blacks and Hispanics might not get 100 percent of the vote from Blacks and Hispanics. Seven percent of Blacks identified as Republicans in 2016 (Pew), for example, despite the party’s Equal Opportunity (as opposed to Affirmative Action) tendencies.

So… chalk this up to another one of my election predictions that failed.

(See also Elite coastal Jews advocate discrimination against white and Asian males on the NYT’s efforts to sway Californians into believing in government-organized sorting by race.)

Let’s also check in with Mark Zuckerberg uses his $110+ billion wealth to lobby for a tax increase on people other than Mark Zuckerberg. The goal of the crazy rich was to soak the not-all-that-rich by increasing commercial property tax rates. This failed 48.3/51.7.

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Mark Zuckerberg uses his $110+ billion wealth to lobby for a tax increase on people other than Mark Zuckerberg

by philg

“California Tax Revolt Faces a Retreat, 40 Years Later” (NYT):

The new initiative, Proposition 15, would amend the state’s Constitution so that properties like offices and industrial parks would no longer be protected by Proposition 13. By creating a “split roll” system, in which residential property would continue to be shielded from tax increases but commercial property would not, backers hope to capitalize on Democratic energy to raise taxes on large corporations without alarming homeowners.

Proposition 15 would raise $6.5 billion to $11.5 billion a year for public schools, community colleges and city and county governments, according to a nonpartisan state agency. The Yes campaign, called Schools and Communities First, is backed by a number of public employees unions and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropic organization founded by Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

So… Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want to see higher taxes on all forms of wealth, but only on wealth held in the form of real estate (0.01% of his personal wealth of at least $100 billion?)!

Separately, it turns out that commercial property owners actually don’t pay that much in tax in California:

It is not uncommon for neighbors to pay double or triple the taxes of a similar home on the same block. A recent analysis of property taxes across the Bay Area is rife with eye-popping comparisons, like a $9 million home in an exclusive neighborhood of San Francisco that has lower property taxes than a $331,000 home near an oil refinery across the bay in Richmond.

When Proposition 13 passed, commercial property taxes were almost an afterthought. But since skyscrapers and shopping malls do not change hands as often as homes do, the law has shifted the property tax burden from corporations to homeowners. In 1975, a little under half the property taxes in Los Angeles County were paid by commercial properties. By 2017, commercial properties accounted for just over one-quarter of the property tax roll.

One part of this may be that each commercial property tends to live in its own LLC (oftentimes this is a condition of getting bank/mortgage financing). (So a guy like Donald Trump with multiple properties will inevitably have a complex tax return.) When investors come in and get bought out, the official ownership of the building hasn’t changed (still the LLC). California seems to have a mechanism for updating tax liability if most of the membership interest is swapped out, but I wonder how they enforce this in practice (since membership interest might not be accessible to the California government).

A friend who is a lawyer in Long Beach told me of doing some work for an apartment building owner. While doing this work he discovered that the massive apartment building paid less in property tax than he owed for his modest 2BR house.

As a percentage of residents’ income, California collects the 6th highest percentage of any state (Tax Foundation). On the other hand, the government is not nearly big/rich enough to give voters everything that they want and certainly not to give retired public employees everything that has been promised to them in terms of pensions and health insurance. So the state government will need massive additional revenue. But why not a straight wealth tax on Silicon Valley billionaires?

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Silicon Valley Shutdown Karens move into bigger houses

by philg

My rich friends in the Bay Area are tireless Facebook advocates for more shutdown. Most of them live in spacious homes worth $2-3 million or more. Consistent with Your lockdown may vary, here’s “Bay Area home prices soar with suburban boom” (Mercury News, October 7):

Coronavirus drives demand for space, single-family homes

With millions out of work, and restaurants, shops and retailers closing, one spot in the economy shines for thriving and affluent professionals — Bay Area real estate.

As if the devastating pandemic had passed over the tech campuses, Spanish-tiled roofs and Tesla-filled garages of Silicon Valley, luxury home sales exploded in August and drove median prices up 16 percent from the previous year to levels approaching the market peak in 2018.

The median sale price for an existing single family home in August in the Bay Area was $975,000, according to DQNews data. The gains were driven by a limited supply of properties for sale and a greater portion of high-end homes selling, agents and economists said.

“We’ve never seen such high price appreciation in a recession,” said Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist with real estate data firm CoreLogic. “The recession hasn’t hit everyone the same way.”

Bay Area agents say demand is driven by techies and professionals looking for more space for family and home office Zoom-rooms.

If these are the folks making decisions on when to end shutdown, I’m not predicting an early exit from cower-in-place!

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Rich Californians complaining that they aren’t getting federal disaster money from Donald the Cruel

by philg

My Facebook feed has been alive for weeks with Californians complaining that the Great Father in Washington does not love them and therefore is not showering them with federal disaster relief cash despite their worse-than-usual fire season.

(As with many complaints about Trump, emotions may be more important than facts. The Great Father actually declared a disaster in California and approved federal aid last month: “California Wildfires Burn Million Acres; Trump OKs Disaster Aid” (VOA, August 22))

Suppose that Trump had not approved federal aid for the richer-than-average state. The fire are upsetting, yes, and sometimes tragic. And of course we can all sympathize with anyone who has lost a loved one or a home. However, in light of their own cherished values, third and thirdmost of which is fighting inequality (avoiding COVID-19 and BLM being #1 and #2, of course), should Californians even ask for aid? California is a rich state with 40 million people. Why does it need to be bailed out by lower-middle-class taxpayers in Arkansas, Indiana, Maine, and Kentucky? Why not use state funds to assist those who have been affected by the fires?

The standard Righteous Californian response to this on Facebook is that he/she/ze/they believes that there is already at least some wealth redistribution from California to lower-income states. Perhaps there is, but California remains much richer than average. So if we hate inequality (and of course I hope that everyone does), this redistribution should be intensified, not reversed via emergency relief funds. Californians should be able to tax themselves, e.g., with an income surtax, a car registration tax, a higher gasoline tax, or a statewide property tax, to buy whatever they want, including disaster relief for those who have us suffered this fire season.

Another issue with taxing low-income folks in the Midwest to buy things for rich people in California is that Californians seem to change their minds regarding infrastructure. Federal taxpayers paid for a jet-capable airport in Santa Monica, for example, and Californians then decided to destroy it. Why should a worker in Iowa pay to protect some rich Californians’ infrastructure if the rich Californians may later decide that they didn’t even want that infrastructure?

Readers: How can it make sense for those who decry inequality to demand federal funds for a state that is much richer than average? (Above, the Golden Gate Bridge, whose most recent federal bailout was $30.2 million in May. Thus, low-income taxpayers in New Mexico and West Virginia get to subsidize the owners of brand-new Teslas and Mercedes SUVs as they glide across to their Marin estates.)

Related:

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California: Masks will stop a viral epidemic, but won’t help with smoke

by philg

“Bay Area smoke: To breathe safely, stay inside and don’t count on masks” (Mercury News):

Don’t count on masks to help with bad air, experts say

But people shouldn’t expect much protection from the bandanas or surgical masks they have become accustomed to wearing in public to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. Experts also caution against relying on the more sought-after N95 respirator masks because they are in short supply.

With wildfire smoke, microscopic soot particles, about 2.5 microns in size, can be inhaled and cause inflammation, explained John Balmes, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco, in an article published on the university’s website.

There also is concern that poor air quality from the wildfires could increase the severity of COVID-19 symptoms. Dr. Stephanie Christenson, an assistant professor of pulmonology at UC San Francisco, said this concern is based on preliminary research linking air pollution to increased COVID-19 susceptibility, severity and death.

Because of the pandemic, people should continue to wear cloth and surgical masks in public, because they block respiratory droplets and help slow the spread of the coronavirus, Christenson said. Unfortunately, these masks don’t block out the “very, very small” toxic particles from wildfire smoke, she said.

So the coronavirus is smaller than 2.5 microns?

Back in February, in “Can Masks Capture Coronavirus Particles?”, our big enemy was “spheres with diameters of approximately 0.125 microns (125 nm). The smallest particles are 0.06 microns, and the largest are 0.14 microns.”

As of July, the coronavirus was still 0.125 microns in size, according to “Can HEPA Air Purifiers Capture the Coronavirus?” (Wirecutter).

The McKinsey folks responsible for Enron’s success, in “Can HVAC systems help prevent the transmission of COVID-19?”, describe humans being victimized by particles as small as 0.1 microns.

Science tells us that masks are useless against smoke particles that are 2.5 microns in size and also that masks will stop a 0.125-micron coronaplague dead in its tracks. #FollowScience !

(From the New York Times, the progress of coronavirus in a state under a universal mask order and blessed with science-informed leadership:

)

See also the higher rates of coronavirus infections in masked U.S. and France compared to never-masked Sweden and barely-masked Netherlands:

From Bar Harbor, Maine:

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Middle class Californians pay for all Tesla owners’ electricity

by philg

“Top Seventeen Surprises From The First Year Of Driving A Tesla EV” (Forbes):

I was amazed when my electricity bill went down after I got the car, rather than up. This is because in California, EV owners get access to a special electricity pricing plan that is much cheaper at night and more expensive in the afternoons. Charging the car at night is of course a win, but I also moved things like pumping the pool to the night, and so the overall bill dropped. And of course my gasoline bill went to zero for this car.

In other words, Californians who struggle to pay rising rents and afford a 10-year-old Ford Focus pay the rich guy’s electric bill, at least for his Tesla and also for part of the pool pump. What better way to fight inequality?

(In Massachusetts, no similar deal is available and thus it costs about the same to buy “fuel” for Tesla, per mile, as it does to fuel an efficient gasoline-powered car of the same size.)

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Moving the California homeless (slightly) offshore

by philg

“California official floats a new idea: House homeless on a cruise ship” (USA Today) ties into some of my favorite themes:

If cruise ships could be used as emergency housing in natural disasters, maybe they could be used to help in Oakland’s emergency: homelessness.

The housing crisis in the city that sits across the bay from San Francisco has resulted in a surge of tent encampments across city sidewalks, under freeway overhangs and in public parks. By the latest count, more than 4,000 people are experiencing homelessness in the city of just over 400,000, up 47% in just two years.

After Kaplan floated the cruise ship idea, it didn’t take long for word to spread. She says she’s already been contacted by cruise ship companies and is planning to present a fully fledged proposal that could add up to 1,000 on-board beds to the council early next year.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush came under fire after Hurricane Katrina for fast-tracking a $236 million contract to Carnival Cruise Lines – a big GOP donor – only to house a handful of victims. After evacuees opted for on-land options over the cruise ship cabins, rooms sat empty for weeks.

Former California Rep. Henry Waxman called the incident a “boondoggle” in a letter to Bush sent in 2006, highlighting that for the $240,000 it cost taxpayers to shelter each family the federal government could have built them permanent homes.

I’m waiting for the California social justice advocate who says “As long as they’re on a ship, maybe we could pay some other country to take them in…”

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Californians paralyzed by Trump hatred

by philg

“Can You Still #Resist When Your State’s on Fire?” (nytimes) is an interesting window into the thinking of the West Coast Righteous:

There’s something about the situation here this season that seems like a stage set for the current political moment: fires raging, a giant company, PG&E, responsible for so much of the death and destruction; the incredible salaries and compensation of that company’s executives, the huge shareholder dividends; the company’s decision to create giant blackouts for millions of people, presumably while it fixes the negligence that caused the problem in the first place. And all this, with 59,000 people living homeless in Los Angeles. This is the apocalyptic backdrop against which, it seems to many of us here, President Trump is trying to destroy the planet in so many ways. Of course, the builders of this set predate the Trump administration, but the script playing out on the set — the underlying themes and angles and shots — fits well with his direction.

One way to make sure the homeless don’t end up starting fires might be to house them, which Los Angeles has not figured out how to do.

Meanwhile, all my neighbors are in the “resistance” against Mr. Trump and his policies.

Or putting together events in their backyards to fund-raise for various Democratic candidates and for important causes like reproductive rights, climate change initiatives, homeless housing and criminal justice reforms.

All of the problems mentioned by the author are ones that can be addressed without interacting with the federal government and the hated Trumpenfuhrer. California can build apartments for those currently homeless, run new power lines, pay people $10,000 for each abortion that they want to have (“reproductive rights”; note that selling an abortion privately in California can be substantially more lucrative), and open its prisons (“criminal justice reforms”).

[Note that California state prisons hold roughly half as many prisons as the federal government holds nationwide. These 115,000 victims of an unreformed criminal justice system are guarded by folks who earn more than Harvard graduates at a cost that exceeds tuition, room, and board at Harvard.]

Yet instead of getting together to create state programs to solve all of the problems that they say they’re concerned about (voting to tax themselves as necessary to pay for the new programs), Californians invest their time and energy complaining about a guy who is 3,000 miles away.

Tom Steyer, the billionaire running for the Democratic presidential nomination currently, is a good example of this way of thinking. He’s pledged to give half of his money to charity (i.e., he’s pledged not to pay state or federal tax on half of the money he has earned). Why wouldn’t he instead build some apartment buildings in California and give away half the units to those currently homeless?

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