patrick.net
An Antidote to Corporate Media
1,270,469 comments by 15,192 users - Blue, GNL, goofus, GreaterNYCDude, HANrongli, Tenpoundbass online now
invite response« First « Previous Comments 170 - 170 of 170 Search these comments
You know, I really have to be careful how I put this, but I think what are seeing in micro here (young families leaving, more and more priced out) is a direct result of population pressure. Which in California, is caused by immigration.
I have lived here, on and off, my whole life and I can tell you that the quality of life statewide has steadily gone down. More crowding, longer commutes, less natural beauty, more expensive home prices, yadda, yadda, yadda. All obviously caused by a combination of increased population and poor planning. Sure, some of my vision of the past is tainted by the inevitable nostalgia and it is certainly true that the air in Riverside is better than it was when I was a child, but I remember when there were orange groves and swimming pools and kids used to walk around alone or with other kids and everyone was okay with that. Okay, maybe a lot of nostalgia, looking back at that phrase, but I still maintain that population pressure is making our lives more difficult here.
And I am of two minds about this: one mind says that is great that people want to move here and great that we are attracting the best and most ambitious from around the world and great that we can share our bounty with others but the other mind is pissed that Native Californians are being priced out of our own damn state and pissed that even with relatively high taxes we cannot seem to maintain our infrastructure and schools adequately and pissed that the crowding and congestion is making what used to be a laid back California into a permanently grumpy one. And it is not even our own fault: native birth rates here are barely adequate to even replace the population, much less cause this massive population boom that is now into its sixth decade. Why should we have to pay for other nations unwillingness to deal with their population problem?
I am sure there must have been an entry dedicated to immigration but I could not find one. Perhaps that is an idea worth of discussion.
I can certainly understand the Marin NIMBY model of saying "the castle is full" and pulling up the drawbridge to further development, but that inevitably leads to extremely expensive housing as supply and demand have to meet up somehow. And the Southern California model of paving everything in sight leads to traffic jam hell. So what is the solution? Closing the borders? Probably not, not at least without some sort of modification to the existing immigration laws, so that we can attract the labor we need. Actually, that is what I would prefer to see: greater enforcement of the existing immigration laws plus an expanded way to both make legal the people already here and legalize the ones that we allow to come in the future. This current exploitation of the millions of illegal workers here is just not right, as well as screwy economically.
Would this help solve Californias overpopulation problem? Absolutely. Which would lead to cheaper housing as well as innumerable other benefits.
« First « Previous Comments 170 - 170 of 170 Search these comments
Ok, I know I said I was going into temporary retirement for a few months --and I will... soon... I promise ;-).
But every time I think I'm done with new threads, I read statements like the ones below from industry leaders --on whose words many people base their buying decisions and the MSM dutifully reports, often without question. And I get little hot under the collar. Every time I think these lying SOBs can't sink any lower and become even more craven and irresponsible, they go and prove me wrong again.
So while it's not all that surprising to me that David Lereah (rhymes with "diarrhea") and other industry scumbags have the gall and utter irresponsibility to make public statements like this --not to mention his latest magnum opus, "Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?" (check out the cover art for it btw, a real eye-popper), I'd like to know what your impressions are. Should he go to Hell or will Purgatory suffice? A related question might be, why hasn't his own tongue dislodged itself from his mouth and strangled him by now?
Source: L.A. Times
"Equity Is Altering Spending Habits and View of Debt"
(August 28, 2005)
"If you paid your mortgage off, it means you probably did not manage your funds efficiently over the years," said David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors and author of "Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?" "It's as if you had 500,000 dollar bills stuffed in your mattress."
He called it "very unsophisticated."
Anthony Hsieh, chief executive of LendingTree Loans, an Internet-based mortgage company, used a more disparaging term. "If you own your own home free and clear, people will often refer to you as a fool. All that money sitting there, doing nothing."
HARM
#housing