California Megathread: Best State

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redscare: Aug 14, 2003

LA is also flat broke. Gray Davis and his SB400 pension expansion that then ballooned downstream has led to 18% of the city's budget being spent on pensions. It's also part of the reason why 70% of the budget goes to pay for police and firefighter salaries and benefits (including pensions - the 70% and 18% numbers are separate calculations). There's no money left, so the roads are infamously crap, the water infrastructure is crumbling, debt levels are eye-watering, and the city is looking at a $1b cumulative deficit over the next 4 years. [citation - http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/17/us-usa-election-losangeles-idUSBRE94G0A420130517]

Public employee unions have way too much power in this state and are bleeding the place dry. Things might be ok for now, but it's all going to go Detroit before too long if the imbalance isn't addressed. A big part of the reason why the budget is looking healthy again is the ongoing tech bubble, which has produced a ton of high-income taxpayers (who are paying even more now thanks to prop 30), but when that goes sideways along with the new housing bubble, those pension and benefit liabilities are going to gently caress poo poo up.

Not to mention that the CCPOA (prison guard union) is a huge part of the reason why our prison system is so hellish.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 16:18

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 08:44

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

UberJew posted:

Yep it's them drat public employee unions. Because CTA and SEIU don't have basically zero influence in Sacramento, don't get paid bupkis and hosed on every contract and don't cover an order of magnitude more state employees than CCPOA does or anything.

Unless a Republican wet dream has become reality and the school system got privatized while nobody was looking, the CTA is a public employee union.

Zeitgueist posted:

As usual, the ancient refrain of "we're just too generous to our employees" marches on.

No, we underfunded those pensions to play budget games, and golly, turns out that after those people got out of office they don't give a poo poo about the havok that caused. Surely it must be workers fault.

They got underfunded because the employees were only asked to contribute a token sum and the demographics stopped being favorable because pension plans, like most social welfare programs, are demographic-based ponzi schemes that are only sustainable if there's a ton of employees with a small pool of retirees. This obviously isn't the case and full benefit pensions after 20 years with no minimum age are insane. A cop or firefighter can retire in their 50s and still collect their pensions while going back to work. Then there's all the other various BS calculations in other places like the DWP that only look at the last few years of employment for calculating pension size.

Regardless of your feelings on the generosity of these benefits, the money has to come from somewhere. In the case of LA, there isn't any, so either existing employees have to pay more or benefits have to be reigned in to a more sustainable level. Same goes for the public safety spending level in the city. There's no good possible outcome if things get left as they are, and I'd rather not see LA turn into Detroit.

Zeitgueist posted:

No, you see the richest state in the country simply can't afford to pay out pensions that are similar to the ones paid by many nations that are a fractions of it's size.

This is a stupid comparison. Aside from most of those countries also having looming (or existing) financial problems, those nations don't have most of their taxes going to a higher sovereign (also the pension crisis extends past the state level and into the county and municipal levels as well).

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 18:37

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

Zeitgueist posted:

Between this and "Democrats spending like drunken sailors" it's pretty clear you either don't know what you're talking about, or are being dishonest.

I made no mention of Democrats aside from the specific case of Gray Davis and SB400 and I fail to see how I'm incorrect in my assessment of pensions as the base level. You need X amount of new workers to pay for the $Y benefits of Z retirees. If Z is growing (and it is, because people living a pretty long rear end time now and die way later than they did when many of these were set up), then Y is growing and thus you need X to grow. But X is shrinking due to automation/budget cuts/slower population growth/etc, so the contribution from X has to increase (via higher taxes) or Y needs to decrease. Yes, the pension money doesn't just go into a box and gets invested, but a certain return % is needed as well, which could require a risky strategy, something a pension plan should not engage in.

Rah! posted:

That's never going to happen. Detroit is the way it is because half the population abandoned the city because of the american automotive industry getting poo poo on/lost jobs, and to escape the scary black people. And to escape the crime that arose because of all that abandonment and neglect and the lovely economy combined with the disproportionately large population of poor people that remained.

LA is a completely different situation: it has a much larger and more diverse economy, the second largest GDP and population in the US, non-stop population growth, much lower crime rates, much more money, etc. poo poo would have to go epically and amazingly wrong for LA to turn into another Detroit.

Obviously LA wouldn't have the same problems Detroit has, but there's plenty of potential for things to go sideways, and union-related inanity is one of the things that drove Detroit into the ground. Aside from that, LA's economy is still in rough shape and unemployment is at 10%. The city also has a large population of poor people that are dependent on government benefits, a notoriously bad school system, and as already mentioned, a crumbling infrastructure. Also, aerospace is probably going to shrink again due to the budget cuts. These are all challenges that will have to be dealt with and the city has no money to do so with.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 19:35

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

Ardennes posted:

Thats the thing, buses especially in LA aren't very effective as a mass transit system. Lots of people use them but ultimately thats because are few alternatives beyond paying for a car.

LA has mass transit, it just doesn't have the efficiency and capacity to make it effective. More light rail lines are fine (I guess) but once you start looking at their comfortable capacity, it is pretty clear they won't make much of a dent. Roughly 10 million people live in LA county alone, we are really only talking about a fraction of the population. The problem is more investment in roads won't lead to real improvement (look at the 405).

The Bart is okay, but as others have said it has issues of its own and it really a commuter train. San Francisco does okay since it is such a dense and contained urban area but there are still glaring issues and lets not start on the Santa Clara valley.

Also, yeah the situation with the green line and LAX is a disaster. Even Portland, Oregon has its light rail line to directly into the terminal.

Nevermind the capacity, there's so much stupid built in that it hurts. Think the LAX thing is bad? Try the other end of the Green Line, where the final station is all of 2.4 miles away from the Metrolink (regional commuter rail) station. As a result, there's no easy mass transit link for anyone that lives in Orange County and works in the South Bay. And given how much aerospace and poo poo is around here, that's a considerable amount of people. Same for going the other way - I live in Long Beach within walking distance of the Blue line, but have no connection to the regional rail system unless I want to go all the way up to Grand Central station. Then there's the purple line spur, the lack of a connection to Glendale/Burbank of any kind, and the over-extension of the Gold line, to name a few others.

Oh and the afore-mentioned 10/30 plan failed not only because of the tax hike's failure, but also because it was dependent on federal funding and well, lol.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 19:46

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

FilthyImp posted:

That school system view is a holdover from the 90s, when roughly 5,000 students were being sardined into schools built for a max capacity of 2,200.

Since then, there's been an amazing public works buildout of community schools, bussing has all but been eliminated, schools are more focused towards providing small learning communities, and all but a handful of schools have transitioned to a traditional (10 months + summer break) schedule in place of a year round (track-based) schedule.

But thanks to prop 13, most of the urban schools still face funding problems. And these happen to be the schools that receive heavy ESL/Special Ed. students. If you think that the testing people make any exceptions for the fact that they either have a learning disability, or they've been in the country for 3 months, when they take their standardized tests, you'd be wrong!

Consequently, these are also students that are most likely to depend on the LA Metro for their travel needs!

Well that's good to hear, good news about the LAUSD rarely sees the light of day. Of course the standardized testing fucks everything, that entire approach needs to go the hell away, but that's not an LA- or even CA-specific problem.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 19:58

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

Slobjob Zizek posted:

You can call a bubble whatever you like -- but it's functionally the same as a Ponzi scheme. Future returns are promised to more and more investors until they are no longer sustainable and everything collapses.

Bingo! I don't even dislike the idea of pensions, but there is a point at which a benefit becomes unreasonable and unsustainable, one that I think most CA public employee pensions have crossed by a considerable margin to the detriment of everyone and everything else.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 22:21

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

Zeitgueist posted:

Ironically, I may be using an incorrect term myself.

What I mean is that we have a pension system where both the employees contribute, and the government contributes. The state of California has previously not met it's end of the funding obligations, for various budget magicking, pushing it off until later. Now it needs to make up what it owes out of the current budget, current workers paying in through taxes. That is not a Ponzi scheme.

You realize that this is exactly what governments doing and that it's what is consuming all of these budgets, right? This either means the employees aren't paying enough, there aren't enough employees, or that the benefits are too generous. Expecting taxpayers to endlessly fill the shortfall for a class of government employees that is already considered over-compensated and over-protected is about as sustainable as the entire setup itself. Ponzi may not be the most accurate term, but the eventual crash and underlying causes are the same because budget allocations for pensions and public (especially public safety) employees on LA's scale are unsustainable and unfair.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2013 23:13

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

Dusseldorf posted:

Chicago Red and Blue lines run 24 hours. Even LA metro runs trains until 2 AM on Fridays and Saturdays. Running trains late on weekends really is such a simple step to increase public safety.

From the cool story bro file, back when I lived in K-Town on the Purple Line spur, I wished that they'd run the trains til 3 instead of 2 so that I could take a train home from Hollywood instead of shelling out for a cab. It was still nice to be able to take it at least one way since even with the cost of the cab, it was only $5-10 more than the cost of parking without any worries. I now live on the Blue Line and I could theoretically still take the train to Hollywood, but even if was willing to brave the Blue at night, how the hell would I get back?

# ¿ Jul 2, 2013 06:04

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

Jesus Christ, enough about loving food. Here, have some more details about San Diego's sexual harassment allegations.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-filner-20130716,0,3575515.story

quote:

SAN DIEGO � Turning up the pressure on Mayor Bob Filner to resign, three former supporters Monday released details of his alleged sexual harassment of women, including the forcible kissing of two constituents and grabbing the buttocks and breast of a staff member.

In a City Hall elevator, Filner told a female staffer that women employees would do better "if they worked without their panties on," attorney Marco Gonzalez said at a news conference outside City Hall.

Filner's behavior toward women is so egregious that women who work for him call him a "dirty old man" and coined the phrases "the Filner headlock" and "the Filner dance" to describe how he isolates women and then makes unwanted advances, Gonzalez said.

The accusations came two hours after the 70-year-old Democrat issued a statement saying he would not resign and that a fair investigation would find him innocent of sexual harassment.

"As your elected mayor, I fully expect to be accountable to the citizens of San Diego for all of my actions," Filner said in his statement. "But as a citizen of this country, I also expect � and am entitled to � due process, and the opportunity to respond in a fair and impartial venue to specific allegations."

Later Monday, Filner told San Diego television station KUSI that his behavior has been misinterpreted. "I'm a hugger of both men and women," he said. He said he has apologized to his staff.

Although Filner last week admitted to treating women on his staff poorly, he stopped short of admitting to sexual harassment. He also promised to seek professional help, take a sexual harassment class and apologize to women he may have offended.

Filner said he has hired a retired county official, Walt Ekard, as interim chief operating officer to make sure the workings of government are not hurt by the controversy. Ekard will take over many of the powers that Filner wielded: approving city contracts, giving orders to employees, selecting top management officials.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2013 18:08

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

A good friend of mine is an environmental engineer and has said the same thing about Playa Vista being an environmental disaster.

Actually, most of the South Bay as a whole is toxic thanks to all of the aerospace and manufacturing that used to be in the area during the "gently caress it, just put it into the ground" days.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2013 23:42

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

Willa Rogers posted:

Coming from Chicago I have to say the greatest culinary dearth in L.A. is Greek food. Yah, there's that fancy-pants place on Westwood Blvd, but I've yet to find a basic great gyro sandwich with the right sauce and fresh pita.

George's down here in Long Beach is pretty ace, have you tried it?

What LA is really lacking in is Middle Eastern food. I don't know how, but it is (this is supported by my boss' Lebanese wife). It's also one of the few reasons to go to Detroit.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2013 03:29

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

Keyser S0ze posted:

Yeah, I guess when you think about it the old money Wasps in those $48 million houses for those neighborhoods all got replaced with Google millionaires/lawyers/hedge fund douches from the East Coast that all drive Priuses and fly on private jets to vacation in rain forests.

They've all traded their Priuses for Teslas.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2013 05:25

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

Yeah and I agreed on having a certain amount of money be paid to me, but when the economy took a poo poo, I had to deal with making less money for a while. Why exactly should those of us in the private sector be liable for 100% of some guys's pension that was promised decades before every job that supported it was shipped to China even as our 401ks eat poo poo sandwiches and the city/county/state collapses around us because there's no money left for anything else?

You want to hold on to your pension? Convince the politicians to jack taxes on the rich into the moon. Otherwise, the public sector, ESPECIALLY in this state, deserves nothing more than the same poo poo sandwich all of us have to eat.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 01:55

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

WampaLord posted:

Crab bucket mentality at it's finest, folks. This is why we can't have nice things.

In this case, it's looking out for my own self-interest. The public employees and their unions have had and I would stay still have plenty of time to find solutions other than "lol gently caress you pay up" but I'm not seeing any. And as was just demonstrated, when one side takes a "no gently caress you" position, negotiations break down.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 02:22

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

etalian posted:

The solution for 401k collapsing due to a stock market crash is to make sure even more people are put in the same bad situation.

Well we COULD have state-ran pension plans you could buy into (for example), but much like the old people on Medicare that don't want to expand it to everyone, the public employee unions don't seem to be terribly interested in anything beyond "get your hands off our pensions" because like the private unions that were broken before them, they're choosing to be obstinate.

And then there's the CCPOA. A pension-less pox upon them as a matter of principle.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 02:26

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

comes along bort posted:

CalPERS, like most public pension systems is primarily funded through investment income and interest.

It's also a hell of a lot better at investing than Joe Sixpack and with much better options available and can rely on the state to dump money into it if it comes up short, so it's totally the same thing.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 04:00

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

QUILT_MONSTER_420 posted:

I also agree we should throw the concept of "contracts" on the garbage pile because that'll make it easier to abolish the concept of private property entirely.

Maybe you should play the game of capitalism better and get a union, and bargain collectively for improved retirement options with liability placed on the employer and backed by the state rather than garbage 401k clown plans? Ensuring and defending fair compensation and stable careers for skilled work is what unions and organized labor are for! Unions want to get these options out there for Jane and Joe Sixpack!

I did one better and quit my job.

I also support private sector unions and believe the animosity generated by public sector unions (some just, some not) is only exacerbating their problems. Of course, their blue-collar mindset totally left them unprepared for the death of the blue collar work

idiotsavant posted:

You do realize that pensions don't just materialize out of thin air, don't you? It's not as if the big, bad unions huff and puff and the magical taxpayer fairy farts out pension payments. I'm a union member; among other compensation I get a few dollars an hour paid into my pension. That's money I've already earned that would otherwise be included in my paycheck.

Work somewhere for forty-plus years, putting money aside the whole time, and guess what? You're probably going to have a pretty goddamn good retirement. And if part of the whole contracted agreement during those forty years was that you'd have certain benefits once you retired, it'd be pretty hosed up to just have that taken away, wouldn't it? It'd be even more hosed up if you found out that the few dollars an hour that was supposed to go into the pension fund never even got there like it was supposed to, and got used for risky bullshit instead, wouldn't it?

Get your union to allow me and anyone else in the state who wants to buy into CalPERS and basically fund my own pension (and help fund everyone else's) and then I'll change my tune. The way I see it, public employees in CA can either help make things better for everyone else or they'll get jobbed out when the hammer falls because as it stands, public workers get an easy ride on the back of taxpayers who could never even dream of getting those benefits in this day and age.

redscare fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Oct 24, 2013

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 05:12

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

Kenning posted:

List of Wrong Place Names

� Cali
� Frisco
� The OC
� The Sierras
� San Fran?
� I've heard people claim that "SoCal" is wrong

Let's fill this sucker out.

909 and 909er as derogatory slang for the IE.

Will never stop using them because it will always be the 909.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2013 18:14

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

California Megathread: NorCal vs. SoCal discussion.

In actual news, a lawsuit challenging the stupid 10-day waiting period on firearms purchases will be allowed to proceed to trial.

http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/2013/12/federal-judge-says-california-attorney-general-kamala-harris-wrong-gun-control-laws/

Scroll past the calguns commentary to read the actual order. TL;DR it doesn't pass strict scrutiny since as applied, it's prior restraint. I can see an argument for having a waiting period for the first firearm, but if you already own one or have a concealed-carry permit, there's no logical reason to have to wait.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2013 21:51

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 08:44

redscare: Aug 14, 2003

agarjogger posted:

There are enough hobbyists in the decent states to nickel and dime their gun laws to death if they so choose. They'll find many way-too-willing allies from the national culture wars. Better to suffer minor inconvenience and keep the statehouse clear for poo poo that matters.

Nobody is trying to pass pro-gun laws in Sacramento, that would be such a futile undertaking, and there's nothing wrong with court challenges to stupid laws that accomplish literally nothing except inconvenience people.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 23:32

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