The Goat Pen

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The birds are going batshit crazy here in Hamilton County.

I can't believe the internet is still working. Must be a fluke. Soon we will have to go back to the old days, when the internet was a giant chalkboard set up in a field in Kansas...

California:
10% unemployment. Now.
$16 billion budget deficit. Now. (This doesn't include the new obligation to pay $8 billion for a high speed rail which, when complete, will be slower and more expensive than air travel.)
7.25% sales tax, the highest in the nation. Now.
13.3% personal income tax. The highest in the nation. Now.
Diversion of water from farms to save a 3 inch fish significantly damages the state's agriculture industry. Now.

But despite these facts, all is well. CA is a model for the rest of the country. Don't worry, be happy, dude.

Professor Tiger wrote:California:
10% unemployment. Now.
$16 billion budget deficit. Now. (This doesn't include the new obligation to pay $8 billion for a high speed rail which, when complete, will be slower and more expensive than air travel.)
7.25% sales tax, the highest in the nation. Now.
13.3% personal income tax. The highest in the nation. Now.
Diversion of water from farms to save a 3 inch fish significantly damages the state's agriculture industry. Now.

But despite these facts, all is well. CA is a model for the rest of the country. Don't worry, be happy, dude.

All true. Now stay the fuck away.

"Don't worry, be happy, dude."

Oh, I am. And so are many people living in California. I am mocking your gloom and doom, miserable ass. Feel free to mock my non-worried, happy ass. Just don't ask me to trade places with your miserable gloom and doom chicken little ass. Because I don't like to wallow in verbal shit, quoting a bunch of numbers as if I'm some respected economist to "prove" how shitty things are when l personally know tons of people who would literally fight you if you tried to tell them they had to leave California. They are that happy there. I used to live there, too, and it was the greatest place I've ever lived. And, obviously, all the happy, prosperous people I know who live there are a infinitesimal fraction of the people who live there who feel that way as well, who are doing great and living great, happy lives with plenty of everything. But keep telling me how horrible things are there. It's so much more a reflection of your own fevered imagination than it is of reality, but it's mildly entertaining to watch. Carryy on...

North Korea drops propaganda leaflets over border

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... order.html

Here is the text printed on those leaflets:

Capitalist puppets of the American pig dogs!

So many happy people are living in North Korea! We are mocking your gloom and doom, miserable asses! Feel free to mock our non-worried, happy asses! Just don't ask us to trade places with your miserable gloom and doom chicken little asses! Because we don't like to wallow in verbal shit, quoting a bunch of numbers as we're some respected economists to "prove" how shitty things are when we personally know tons of people who would literally fight you if you tried to tell them they had to leave North Korea! We are that happy here. Some of you South Koreans used to live here, too, and it was the greatest place you've ever lived. And, obviously, all the happy, prosperous people we know who live here are a infinitesimal fraction of the people who live there who feel that way as well, who are doing great and living great, happy lives with plenty of everything. But keep telling us how horrible things are here. It's so much more a reflection of your own fevered capitalist imaginations than it is of reality, but it's mildly entertaining to watch. Carry on South Korean vassals!

hedge wrote:"Don't worry, be happy, dude."

Oh, I am. And so are many people living in California. I am mocking your gloom and doom, miserable ass. Feel free to mock my non-worried, happy ass. Just don't ask me to trade places with your miserable gloom and doom chicken little ass. Because I don't like to wallow in verbal shit, quoting a bunch of numbers as if I'm some respected economist to "prove" how shitty things are when l personally know tons of people who would literally fight you if you tried to tell them they had to leave California. They are that happy there.

Of course you know these people who would literally fight if anyone told them they had to leave California. I know them as well. These are the entitlement consumers. They are the ones who have so much to lose when California discovers austerity.

They don't ever want to leave California because they know that they wont get all the gimmies they are getting elsewhere. That is worth fighting for, it is. And of course these people don't give a shit where the money comes from to pay for their healthcare, their college education, their public housing assistance, their food stamps, their heating and eletricity subsidy, none of it. They know that they aren't paying it but that they are getting it. That is literally worth fighting for....

...and of course they are happy. These are your uneducated, unsophisticated, illiterate, common folk, who consume FAR MORE in government resources than they would EVER produce in tax dollars. They are happy, (very happy) in California (like you said) because they take more than they give....

....and they know it. And they don't care because they have no pride.

That doesn't mean that things are great in California. All it means is that you have this to look forward to when math takes over and reasserts itself.



That is Compton, Bakersfield, Stockton, Fresno, and Modesto in about ten years, and NO, I don't mean when another Rodney King gets a beating from police officers.

"We're just doing what Oprama is doing"

http://www.cnbc.com/id/50022833

CA 's problems - whatever they may be - are strictly CA's problems. God bless them for paying more into the federal coffers than they receive. Too bad a shit-ton of red states can't say the same (including my own).

I mean - c'mon all you fairness seekers - that's what it's all about, right?


Where Federal Taxes are Raised and Spent

tick, does that include military base expenditures?

Good to hear a non-racist, non-teabagger say this.


http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/11/29/ ... to-obamas/

bluetick wrote:CA 's problems - whatever they may be - are strictly CA's problems. God bless them for paying more into the federal coffers than they receive. Too bad a shit-ton of red states can't say the same (including my own).

I mean - c'mon all you fairness seekers - that's what it's all about, right?


Where Federal Taxes are Raised and Spent

What this has to do w/the debate, only tick can figure(I'm guessing it has to do w/constitutionally mandated fairness)...at least he states CA has a problem...which is becoming our problem when Obozo and other fearless leaders are using it as a model for the rest of the country.

"Here is the text printed on those leaflets"

You've made your point, Prof. America is basically in the same state of affairs as North Korea. I realize that's what you've been saying all along. Your message and attitude hasn't been lost on me...

"
Of course you know these people who would literally fight if anyone told them they had to leave California. I know them as well. These are the entitlement consumers. They are the ones who have so much to lose when California discovers austerity."

Um, no, they are people living in nice houses with nice cars and nice families, making way more money than you will ever hope to make and paying more in taxes than you will ever hope to earn. I know lots of them...

California has a larger economy than most nations on this planet. Don't cry for them, Argentina...

I say again (for the reasoning impaired) - what difference does it make to you sitting in your bumfuck red state what CA pays it's lifeguards? The bottom line, CA pays more in federal taxes than they receive in revenues. They are a net positive wrt the overall national balance sheet that effects all of us God-fearin' Americans. How does your state fare in comparison?

sardis wrote:tick, does that include military base expenditures?

FYI

The United States has 246 bases within its states and 83 bases overseas as of 2010. California has the most military bases of any U.S. state, with a total of 29, including: 13 Navy, two Army, seven Air Force, five Marine and two Coast Guard bases. Virginia is next with 20 bases, and Texas is third with 15 military installations.
References:

http://www.nasaa-home.org/baselocs.htm

bluetick wrote:CA 's problems - whatever they may be - are strictly CA's problems. God bless them for paying more into the federal coffers than they receive. Too bad a shit-ton of red states can't say the same (including my own).

I mean - c'mon all you fairness seekers - that's what it's all about, right?


Where Federal Taxes are Raised and Spent

Congratulations. You have given us a perfect example of cause-and-effect.

This map of the United States (and the colors that are represented) are a byproduct of FDR's government program Social Security and LBJs government program Medicare. The states where they are green are (typically) the states with the higher incomes for people with professional degrees. These are the more expensive states that educated people tend to live in to make their money (the maximum amount of money they can make) during their working years. These are the states where people live when they are working.

Thanks to Federal wealth transfer payment programs like Social Security and Medicare, you no longer have to retire where you grew up, worked, and lived most of your life. You can retire to a cheaper part of the country (where your dollars go farther.) That is what is happening in this chart. The orange and red states are typically much cheaper to live in, mostly because they have fewer professional jobs for educated working people. These are the states where people live when they are retired.

There are a couple notable excpetions to the above two paragraphs, but my position IS the rule. You do NOT retire to New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, CT, or Massachusetts. You retire to Arizona, South Carolina, New Mexico, Maine, Montana, Hawaii (if you are rich), or Florida. My grandparents retired to Mississippi because their dollars went a long way on the gulf coast. They retired poor.

Tick, I'm guessing that if you had this map for 1930 (before the massive wealth transfers of Social Security and Medicare) all the states would be pretty neutral in color (taking in pretty close to waht they pay out.) All you have done with your map is show where the most educated and professional people need to live when they are working and where they want to live when they are done working and are sitting in God's waiting room. That is all that map is, a perfect visual illustration of how our elderly game the Federal entitlement system.

What you map does NOT do is explain why (as Hedge so put it) people would fight to stay in California. Rest assured Tick, those who would fightto stay in California, the majority of them will STILL BE THERE (on state benefits, still going to the emergency rooms for free, still sending their kids and grandkids to school for free) long after they stopped mowing my lawn and washing my car. The only difference is, their kids and grandkids will be living on THEIR Social Security checks they get mailed to them in Selma.

You do NOT retire to New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, or Massachusetts.

That's weather. And your parents aren't the norm. People retire to the South but not where there is an excess of poverty. They don't retire generally to Miss, Louisiana, Alabama or even Northern Florida (where the taxes are the same as Southern Florida).