ArenaNet Fired Jessica Price

[kosmos1214]

LOL. That old crock of shit chestnut.

Reality check time! California isn't the Magical Land of Opportunity. It's a nice lie we sell, and a sick lie we tell each other over and over. Silicon Valley is a high tech sweatshop and LA is where dreams go to die (sometimes drugged and diddled first). Yes, we are happy to turn your best & brightest into perpetual wage slaves. We'll pay you 1.5x wages, but charge you 3x housing and living costs and grind you down in long commutes so your 50 hour work week gets 10 extra hours of unpaid drive time! Oooo, pinball arcades and free pizza at work! Yes...to keep you at your desk, churning like a hamster until you go home to you $1.1M dollar home (that's identical to a $250k home in most states).  Don't get me started on how stock options actually work and who really gets what when "startups" get snacked up.

But our weather is beautiful, our nature is highly varied and always picturesque and all the forest fires make pretty sunsets.

So keep sending us your hot drama hopefuls, your "ambitious" (yet pliantly obedient) college grads and the rest of your upper middle class suckers!

Just please take back your legions of homeless. They're terrible for the scenery and give "sad feels" to our liberals.

Fun fact to add in  cali is the poorest state when you adjust for cost of living.

[jhkim]

Fun fact to add in  cali is the poorest state when you adjust for cost of living.

Source? From the link below, California and Texas are both in the midrange of average income when including both pay and cost of living - based on the 2015 median household incomes in the Census Bureau's American Community Survey and the 2015 regional price parity from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

http://time.com/money/5177566/average-income-every-state-real-value/

[Spinachcat]

I doubt even SF and LA are poorest after cost of living. The high(er) salaries vs. very high housing costs is nasty math (esp if you're not getting those chunky salaries), but then we don't have the extreme utility bills of other areas. SoCal can have severe heat in certain areas, but its for short time frames, and only the Inland areas (deserts, mountains, post apoc wastelands) have multi-month extreme hots & colds.

Also, we don't buy winter clothes. We buy ski outfits!

[kosmos1214]

To be honest I can't sight it its was mentioned in passing on something I was watching on pbs in the last week or so but I can remember the name of the study or what I was watching at the time.

[jeff37923]

Source? From the link below, California and Texas are both in the midrange of average income when including both pay and cost of living - based on the 2015 median household incomes in the Census Bureau's American Community Survey and the 2015 regional price parity from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

http://time.com/money/5177566/average-income-every-state-real-value/

After reading that article I was reminded of a foreward from Wikipedia:

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point.

The term was popularised in United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."


The original argument you are involved in compared two distinct areas, not entire states or all of the states in the nation.

[Opaopajr]

If anyone here wants to be safely escorted through Oakland, I'll be your sherpa! :cool:

(It's not all that dangerous. It's just when shit explodes, it usually involves weaponry. Y'know, it's American! )

[jhkim]

The original argument you are involved in compared two distinct areas, not entire states or all of the states in the nation.

In Post #215, Brad started in general on California after Spinachcat's citing a proposed law here. A bunch of various California bashing followed - speaking about all of California.

Texas was first brought up in Post #241, with Brad saying: "The best part is telling us how much Texas sucks, and simultaneously explaining they moved to Texas because they couldn't get a job in CA nor afford a house..." tenbones specific comment about Inglewood, CA versus Allen, TX was in Post #242 immediately following this.

From the original topic of "California sucks", this was followed by comparison to Texas. So I think the overall comparison of California versus Texas is relevant.

[Spinachcat]

HOLY FUCK...Kosmos wasn't kidding.

When the cost of living is factored in, the Golden State has the highest poverty rate in the country.
https://calmatters.org/articles/sky-high-housing-costs-make-california-poorest-state/

TRUE: California has the nation's highest poverty rate, when factoring in cost-of-living
https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/jan/20/chad-mayes/true-california-has-nations-highest-poverty-rate-w/

Why is liberal California the poverty capital of America?
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jackson-california-poverty-20180114-story.html

[jeff37923]

In Post #215, Brad started in general on California after Spinachcat's citing a proposed law here. A bunch of various California bashing followed - speaking about all of California.

Texas was first brought up in Post #241, with Brad saying: "The best part is telling us how much Texas sucks, and simultaneously explaining they moved to Texas because they couldn't get a job in CA nor afford a house..." tenbones specific comment about Inglewood, CA versus Allen, TX was in Post #242 immediately following this.

From the original topic of "California sucks", this was followed by comparison to Texas. So I think the overall comparison of California versus Texas is relevant.

"No matter how you thin slice it, it's still baloney."

[jhkim]

HOLY FUCK...Kosmos wasn't kidding.

When the cost of living is factored in, the Golden State has the highest poverty rate in the country.
https://calmatters.org/articles/sky-high-housing-costs-make-california-poorest-state/

TRUE: California has the nation's highest poverty rate, when factoring in cost-of-living
https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/jan/20/chad-mayes/true-california-has-nations-highest-poverty-rate-w/

Why is liberal California the poverty capital of America?
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jackson-california-poverty-20180114-story.html

Ah, I see. I was looking at median cost-adjusted income (i.e. the middle of the income curve), but this is looking at housing-adjusted poverty rate (i.e. the bottom of the curve). Here are the top ten states for Supplemental Poverty Measure, for what it's worth:

1 California   23.8%
2 Nevada   19.8%
3 Florida   19.5%
4 Arizona   18.8%
5 Louisiana   18.5%[14]
6 Georgia   18.2%
7 New York   18.1%[11]
8 Hawaii   17.3%
9 Arkansas   16.5%
10 Texas   16.4%

Source: Wikipedia table using Census numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_poverty_rate

So yeah, I'll cop to this. California is significantly worse than Texas on this measure, though both are in the top ten. California has very high property costs - which is a big problem for us. It's what I always emphasize in local/state politics, to encourage development of low-income housing.

[tenbones]

Well I hope that since TX is in the same category as CA (top 10 coolest places that Tenbones has lived in) that soothes your bias.

Nevermind the pesky numbers or the opinions of people that have lived in both places for decades. WTF do we know? I consider myself, and likely always will - a SoCal guy. But TX has been *far* better for my self-interests economically than CA ever has

(and because due to a pact I made with the Dark Lord Jobuu, and my annual sacrifice of KFC buckets and urine, I made on the 50-yard line of their former practice-field in Irvin TX, I can't rightly call myself a Texan until the Dallas Cowboys win the Superbowl. My curse has held true since the day I made it. I'm considering expanding my curse to include the whole NFL so no one wins... but I think that DC check might be too high)

[jhkim]

Nevermind the pesky numbers or the opinions of people that have lived in both places for decades. WTF do we know? I consider myself, and likely always will - a SoCal guy. But TX has been *far* better for my self-interests economically than CA ever has

As I said, I don't disagree with the core point that property costs especially are much higher in California - which makes Texas economically more viable. My best friend is struggling with this currently as he is looking about how to care for his aging parents when he lives in L.A., but they can't afford to live near him. California property costs are a real and major problem. He works in the film industry, though, so leaving L.A. would be very hard on his career.

As for other factors and how one weighs the various pros and cons - that's more of a personal choice. I know lots of people here in California who are from Texas, plus Texans who still live there. My ex-wife is from Texas as well as the co-owner of my house, plus a lot of our other friends.

There are plenty of good people in Texas. There are also plenty of good people who have lived in Texas and now hate it - and good people who have lived in California and now hate it.

My beef wasn't to say that your personal opinion is wrong. My beef was when things started edging into depictions of objective reality / statistics that I thought were misleading.

[Lurtch]

Since when do statistics have to do with real life?