all of you are correct and incorrect about everything on here.
"Taxes and the cost of doing business in California is astronomical. Wages are in the shitter because illegals have driven the wage scale down."
Everyone who doesnt look at the issues tend to find an easy scape goat in illegal aliens in California. its not that simple. Much of what illegals end up doing is simply work that many legal residents would do for that wage. I was born and raised in california all my life. I have lived in the farming areas of the central valley, as well as the urban areas of Los Angeles. Growing up in farm country i watched hundred of farm workers break their back for 10,12 and 14 hour days in the summer heat picking tomatoes and corn for a wage far below the state minimum level. when i would ask them why they do this for such small pay, they said would say its good honest work and they needed to support their families so their children would have a better life. i even know one farmer who said he would hire any legal who wanted to come out and work the fields for $6 and hr no questions asked. (1 guy showed up) most illegals do unskilled labor, which does not drive up the cost of doing business, it actually helps keep the cost down to affordable levels. (even though no one wants to say it out lout)
in comparison to los angeles, where as one person put it, "the street were dirty" well duh! the streets in a lot of major urban areas are dirty, thats just a fact of life. you cant have a major metropolitan area without crime, vagrants and dirt. its just not possible. if it was, id like you to point out an area of 15 million people that is extremely clean. but if you were to go a few miles west say towards santa monica, malibu, westwood, hermosa beach, redondo beach and marina del rey, you would find a stark contrast to inglewood, compton, and watts. (hell even hollywood is pretty dirty) in regards to traffic, this is just something every california hates but tolerates. i would rather deal with the rush hour commute for los angeles than live in new mexico. thats just the way i feel, and im sure there are many others who feel to exact opposite. but its one of the sacrifices i make to live in the only state i know of where in the morning i can to the mountain and ski, and the by 3pm be at the beach surfing. its all perception people. people in southern california know this, and we accept it. but it doesnt stop us from loving our state.
what eventually led to the major collapse of California financially was the housing boom and then bust. during the boom thousands of people bought homes that they couldnt afford, because the lending laws were extremely lax. when you could simply do "stated income" and tell a bank that you made more money than you actually did without anyone check, anyone could get a home loan. a lot of this had to do with the idea of instant gratification, as many people of Gen X and Gen Y couldnt wait to purchase homes. this again drove up the price of thousands of homes across the state. a home that should have sold for $250,000 was now priced at $500,000 and people were willing to selfishly pay this. many others simply used their homes as an ATM when property values skyrocketed, because of the high demand. this all artificially grew the economy. as people took these unrealized gains in their homes and pumped that money back into the economy by purchasing cars, boats, tv's, 2nd homes and a myriad of other frivolous items. this was also the time that people started to flock to california in search of the california dream. the banks ended up loaning money to people with credit scores in the 400's. this was ok though, because the banks were reaping record profits, tax revenues soared due to more home owners and the job market grew at a record pace because of the construction. this was all unsustainable though in the end. the tax revenue that the state started to rely upon was soon only a fraction of what it used to be due to all the foreclosures.
so here we sit now, digging ourselves out of this mess we all created. its nice to blame the government for everything, but those out there who over spent, didnt save a dime, bought toys and toys and toys, have no one to blame but themselves. so just as we have always done, we will dig ourselves out of this hole and make california stand on top again. anyone who thinks otherwise can leave. (IMHO)
