Texas > California

[Sava]

You have 3-4 hours to come up with something a bit closer to hurtful, by the way. Good luck!

As much as I may wish to inflict pain on you (and pretty much everyone else at some point in time), I doubt that anything I say can come close to what you are feeling inside. Based upon the behavior you've exhibited in the time I've read your posts, I recognize inferiority and borderline traits. Nothing I say is going to hurt you more than the pain you must inflict on yourself.

You project it outwards at others in response to your low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy. Perhaps, as a child, you weren't properly rewarded. The open signs of weakness and dependency are profound. Please, seek treatment. There is hope for you.

[Dinner]

You are right that some nations are blessed with an abundance of natural resources. CA for example. The question as to why Texas is more prosperous currently than California, the major difference is the lower taxation rate in TX.

Not really. It's that CA's economy is more dependent on international trade and was concentrated in industries more effected by the banking crisis and the property market boom. Land prices were a LOT higher and so more people had to take out risky loans if they wanted to buy a house plus there was more then a little property speculation going on. A place which gets more wrapped up in the bubble gets hit harder with the bust.

CA spent decades out economically out performing most of the rest of the country despite marginally slightly higher taxes (and they are only slightly higher on the whole). Levels of education, level of development, the availability of capital, and how efficiently capital gets allocated to profitable business ventures are all major factors. Much more important, in my mind any way, then a 2%-5% difference in marginal over all tax rates.

[Ben Kenobi]

Not really. It's that CA's economy is more dependent on international trade and was concentrated in industries more effected by the banking crisis and the property market boom.

I presume you mean that the industries were affected by the crisis rather then effecting it.

Land prices were a LOT higher and so more people had to take out risky loans if they wanted to buy a house plus there was more then a little property speculation going on. A place which gets more wrapped up in the bubble gets hit harder with the bust.

That is true, but the question becomes, how much of CA's economic boom was tied into the property bubble? You can't really consider the growth due to the bubble as being substantive economic growth. It is true, that California for the most part has lead the US, but those days are gone now.

CA spent decades out economically out performing most of the rest of the country despite marginally slightly higher taxes (and they are only slightly higher on the whole). Levels of education, level of development, the availability of capital, and how efficiently capital gets allocated to profitable business ventures are all major factors. Much more important, in my mind any way, then a 2%-5% difference in marginal over all tax rates.

CA regulatory environment, consistantly ranks it among the top 'anti-business' states in the union. What advantages you folks had have been pissed away for the most part.

[Ben Kenobi]

http://www.statemaster.com/graph/eco_gdp_percap-product-current-dollars-per-capita

42,727.46 per capita California

38,536.19 per capita Texas

COL adjustment between California and Texas is 40 percent.

So what that means is while Californians make more, they pay far more to live.

If we adjust for COL, the average Texan makes about 54,000 dollars if they were to live in California.

[Kuciwalker]

By refusing to ever admit error you end up looking far stupider than if you just conceded a point and moved on, Sava

edit: nor does ceding one point require you to give up your entire argument.

[Darius871]

By refusing to ever admit error you end up looking far stupider than if you just conceded a point and moved on, Sava

edit: nor does ceding one point require you to give up your entire argument.

Well, he was right about "pedestrian" at least.

[Ben Kenobi]

DC	$136,714.13	138.4	$98,781.89
DE	$64,609.90	100.6	$64,224.55
WY	$47,728.82	97	$49,204.97
MA	$49,647.88	112.1	$44,288.92
VA	$43,162.41	98.8	$43,686.65
IL	$41,439.21	96.5	$42,942.19
MN	$43,957.50	103.2	$42,594.48
TX	$38,536.19	90.5	$42,581.43
CT	$53,296.35	125.4	$42,501.08
NE	$38,601.04	91.2	$42,325.70

Top 10 states. Texas comes in at 8, with the lowest COL of the bunch.

	CA	$42,727.46	134	$31,886.16
	AZ	$33,616.80	105.5	$31,864.27
	NM	$31,601.59	99.9	$31,633.22
	OR	$35,189.24	114.2	$30,813.70
	VT	$35,493.14	120	$29,577.62
	WV	$27,395.68	92.7	$29,553.05
	MT	$29,605.52	102.2	$28,968.22
	ME	$32,749.78	114.1	$28,702.70
	MS	$26,087.88	91.2	$28,605.13
	HI	$39,314.80	165.5	$23,755.17

Worst 10 states. Unsurprisingly Hawaii is by far the worst. CA is number 10.

The average person would make over 10k a year more in Texas.

[Kuciwalker]

Eh, that argument is just stupid. The semantics technically work, but seriously, it was a terrible sentence. "make leaps in logic (I use this loosely) that might not be so sadly pedestrian if the effort to attain a semblance of sardonic discourse was tempered by something that resembled thought". Just read that aloud. It's awkward and the reason is because he opened up his thesaurus and threw in the kitchen sink. And a "leap of logic" is not typically described as pedestrian; the words present opposite vibes.

[Kuciwalker]

Sava, here's a better way you could have said it: "You seem to make leaps of logic that, while superficially clever and sardonic, are really just pedestrian because they lack real insight."

[Darius871]

Eh, that argument is just stupid. The semantics technically work, but seriously, it was a terrible sentence. "make leaps in logic (I use this loosely) that might not be so sadly pedestrian if the effort to attain a semblance of sardonic discourse was tempered by something that resembled thought". Just read that aloud. It's awkward and the reason is because he opened up his thesaurus and threw in the kitchen sink. And a "leap of logic" is not typically described as pedestrian; the words present opposite vibes.

Oh I definitely agree that its structure is awkward, and especially that he embarassingly tried way too hard to sound smart. I'm just referring to KH's suggestion that Sava didn't know what pedestrian meant.

[Kuciwalker]

I mean, you don't "temper" a leap of logic with "something that resembles thought". That implies that leaps of logic are opposed by thought, but the relationship is really more complex than that.

xpost

[Kuciwalker]

By the way, Zkribbler, the ultimate point you're trying to make (that the statistical comparisons referenced in the OP are meaningless) is not well served by ridiculous arguments like "the problem is that it assumes a causal relationship between government policy and the economy" (paraphrased). The correct argument is that there are a lot of confounding factors, and it is plausible or even likely that the Democratic majority in those states and the troubled economies stem from a common cause.

[Sava]

Eh, that argument is just stupid. The semantics technically work, but seriously, it was a terrible sentence. "make leaps in logic (I use this loosely) that might not be so sadly pedestrian if the effort to attain a semblance of sardonic discourse was tempered by something that resembled thought". Just read that aloud. It's awkward and the reason is because he opened up his thesaurus and threw in the kitchen sink. And a "leap of logic" is not typically described as pedestrian; the words present opposite vibes.

I don't care enough about any of you to write coherently. When something above a 5th grade level comes into my mind, it usually just gets thrown out there like spaghetti. Whatever sticks, sticks.

And what did I say before about splitting hairs? I'm not sure, but it applies to you as well. I'm just surprised you could stop giving KH a reach-around long enough to post.

Or maybe I'm interrupting you two love birds.

Carry on

[Sava]

and if by coincidence, I ever happen to be wrong... the entire fabric of our universe, space/time, the laws of physics... everything changes so that I am right

[chequita guevara]

They're only joking. Don't all of you Yankees come here. You'll have to try and enter near me, and I'm proud of my record on stopping entry.

I have a standing invitation to move to Austin and a place to stay as long as I need it.

BunnyGrrl and I have given serious thought to messing with Texas.