patrick.net

Going up RE might indicate the opposite for now.

It is real. I'm in the industry, those with means are leaving.

I'm going to leave. The only thing holding me here is my job.

It's real.
I know a few.

Of two of my wife's oldest friends from work, one moved to New Mexico and her son moved to Texas. She kept one condo in Discovery Bay as a rental.

Her other friend moved first the Central Valley, but her son also moved to Texas for school, loves it, and plans to stay. She will probably also move to Texas to be with her son when she retires, just to make the money stretch.

i think California is going to be a socialist banana republic in a few years. I have grown up with diverse culture, but it will be 70-80 percent immigrant legal and/or illegal within ten years. Amongst other things, I'm not sure I want to be that much of a minority with the rest of the deteriorating circumstances in the state occurring as well. I can easily imagine literal home invasions by government apparatchiks to scour assets, and the government will become increasingly nothing more than a criminal extortion racket, which it resembles already.

Somebody working for the Guv having a foreign accent, going door to door with a clipboard and deputies deciding that you need to 'share' more with the People in a literal shakedown operation.

As Covid KristallNacht has demonstrated, things that you thought beyond the realm of possibility are not only possible, they are here and look like they are getting worse. It's an incredible tsunami of malignant shit coming from these so called leaders.

Ok, let's assume we are moving. Where can I find a similar climate? I've actually looked as far as Adeliade Australia, but it's too far and I don't think they really like Yank transplants.

I think that being upper middle class, which used to shelter you in California, won't someday. The shit keeps crawling uphill, until ever greater wealth and private security will be required.

The ten years of having a place in Santa Cruz has seen across the board deterioration there. I am nostalgic for the way it was ten years ago, but I know it is never coming back.

Like Ceffer, I'm in Santa Cruz.
I arrived in 1982.
For a few years recently I was in Florida, and I have visited in Austin Texas 6 times over the years, just to say I have been to zero income tax states, and both are okay.
It's not the taxes in California that would be so bad, it's knowing that I am paying for people to who hate me and aren't grateful that I pay for their health care and social services.
I will escape to Florida again before I write $7,000 checks to the Franchise Tax Board.
It's a shame how the politics can ruin a place; California is going the way of Argentina.
I talk to several people who left Santa Cruz, and they say they have fond memories but won't come back.
One said my time is up, but not to worry, just visit in the good weather months.
Strange that many people I talk to have no interest in knowing how much tax they will pay to California over a couple of decades.
They remind me of the movie "They Live".

Many of the "nice" things about California are waning, at least those places accessible from silicon valley.

For example, here in the silicon valley in the early 1990s we'd just drive to Yosemite, camp overnight along Tioga Pass, and climb Half Dome the next day. You just show up and enjoy! Now you have to get your "Half Dome Pass" 6 months in advance (better know exactly which day they go up for grabs because they'll be gone the next day). Planning your trip 6 months in advance can still backfire, since you never know when parts or all of the park will be closed to fire, covid, or bubonic plague (down at the bottom of: https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/plague.htm ).

Muir Woods used to be free and you could actually park in the parking lot. Now there's an entrance fee (which I don't mind if it keeps the people down), but the parking lot is always full and the overflow parking lot is always full and both sides of the road are packed with cars for at least 1/2 a mile. I don't mind the walk, but the park has become a zoo. I certainly wouldn't call it "tranquil." Also, what was once a 90 minute drive is now at least a 2 hour drive, if not considerably longer.

Ah, but the weather is so nice! Well... most of the time. Today 104 degrees! Electricity is inching up to about 25¢ kW/hr, so consider that before retrofitting A/C into your 70 year old shack that has no insulation. Normally on the hot days I'd just go to work, but that's kind of out of the question now too.

Patrick says

I'm going to leave. The only thing holding me here is my job.

Exactly my thoughts, too.

As for retiring, I've been toying with it for 2 years now. But I know that if I leave work even for a few years, trying to go back would be extremely difficult. I'll. be just that much further a dinosaur. The money is so good now that I really want to make enough that there's no chance I'll need to go back to work some day.

Its real, I had to get a 5x12 uhaul trailer and on the day I needed it only one in all of LA county, I had to drive out to Lancaster to get it. Everyone I know that can is Leaving.

SunnyvaleCA says

As for retiring, I've been toying with it for 2 years now. But I know that if I leave work even for a few years, trying to go back would be extremely difficult. I'll. be just that much further a dinosaur. The money is so good now that I really want to make enough that there's no chance I'll need to go back to work some day.

Same situation for me.

Take the money and run:
www.-WCFUGCOLLU

Patrick says

SunnyvaleCA says

As for retiring, I've been toying with it for 2 years now. But I know that if I leave work even for a few years, trying to go back would be extremely difficult. I'll. be just that much further a dinosaur. The money is so good now that I really want to make enough that there's no chance I'll need to go back to work some day.

Same situation for me.

Wife and I were in same place, we both are making the most we have ever made but its not worth it at least not with three small kids. Have my equity in the bank today, state can burn the fuck down.

The feeling I have towards my home city I grew up in is pure disgust. California is like a girlfriend a crazy girlfriend you dumped, ten years later she has blue hair, fifty more pounds, can only burn coal, and now you feel like you dodged a bullet with that head case.