CALIFORNIA’S CONTINUING COLLAPSE!

Powerline Blog ^ | 01/15/2021 | Steven Hayward

[SeekAndFind]

California’s Continuing Collapse

California’s rapid descent is starting to remind me of the old Hemingway line about how someone went bankrupt: “Gradually and then suddenly.”

The New York Times noticed yesterday:

They Can’t Leave the Bay Area Fast Enough

The migration from the Bay Area appears real. Residential rents in San Francisco are down 27 percent from a year ago, and the office vacancy rate has spiked to 16.7 percent, a number not seen in a decade.

Though prices had dropped only slightly, Zillow reported more homes for sale in San Francisco than a year ago. For more than a month last year, 90 percent of the searches involving San Francisco on moveBuddha were for people moving out.

Twitter, Yelp, Airbnb and Dropbox have tried to sublease some of their San Francisco office space. Pinterest, which has one of the most iconic offices in town, paid $90 million to break a lease for a site where it planned to expand. . .

There are 33,000 members in the Facebook group Leaving California and 51,000 in its sister group, Life After California. People post pictures of moving trucks and links to Zillow listings in new cities. . .

“I miss San Francisco. I miss the life I had there,” said John Gardner, 35, the founder and chief executive of Kickoff, a remote personal training start-up, who packed his things into storage and left in a camper van to wander America. “But right now it’s just like: What else can God and the world and government come up with to make the place less livable?”

I’ve had occasion to drive up to the Bay Area a couple of times in recent weeks (including earlier this week) and I’ve noticed that the traffic is way down, even at evening and morning rush hours. I’m sure that is mostly COVID-related, but I wonder whether it will return to its old level after COVID finally recedes.

Meanwhile:

‘It’s all fallen apart’: Newsom scrambles to save California — and his career

Californians are frustrated, tired and sick. And in the midst of the unfolding catastrophe, Gov. Gavin Newsom — confronting a burgeoning recall effort, on top of a year of wildfires and civil unrest — is under siege. . . And the frame of reference through which Californians view Newsom is about to change dramatically when Joe Biden replaces Donald Trump in the White House. No longer benefiting from a reliable foil in Washington, the bar of public approval for Newsom — and for Democratic governors across the country — is likely to be raised. . .

Against that backdrop, the push to recall Newsom has been gaining steam. Though recall efforts are mounted routinely against governors and rarely qualify for the ballot, proponents of the anti-Newsom effort said Tuesday that they had surpassed 1 million signatures — about two-thirds of the number they need to force an election later this year.

I’ve sent in my recall petition.

Finally, here’s the latest on California’s high speed rail to nowhere:

Contradicting State, Bullet Train Contractor Reveals Delays

One of the state’s top bullet train contractors has sent a scorching 36-page letter to California high-speed rail officials, contradicting state claims that the line’s construction pace is on target and warning the project could miss a key 2022 federal deadline.

The letter, obtained by The Times, alleges that a multitude of problems have remained unresolved for years, including rapid turnover of state officials, continuing delays in obtaining land for the rail and the state’s failure to secure agreements with outside parties, including utilities and freight railroads. The delays will result in idled work sites and layoffs of field workers, says the letter, by construction giant Tutor Perini.

As of mid-November, construction teams can not build on more than 500 parcels in the Fresno area because the California High Speed Rail Authority still lacks possession or proper documentation, according to the Jan. 4 letter. The company has completed all the work that could be done efficiently and as a result is now operating at other sites at a slower pace.

“It is beyond comprehension that as of this day, more than two thousand and six hundred calendar days after [official approval to start construction] that the authority has not obtained all of the right of way…” wrote Tutor Perini Vice President of Operations Ghassan Ariqat to Garth Fernandez, the contracting chief at the state rail authority. Ariqat said his company “anticipates that it will have to lay off a significant number of its field workers in the very near future” and that it has already let 73 field workers go in recent weeks.

Reminder: California is likely to lose a House seat in the next reapportionment for the first time since it became a state in 1850.

[Jonty30]

Heeheeeeeeeee

Hopefully the Republicans can gain enough control to fix things. I’m not hopeful.

[olivia3boys]

I live in the Bay Area—today, despite the “lockdown” and people supposedly fleeing CA in droves, traffic was as bad as ever.

It’s a mystery.

[jcon40]

Who doesn’t think the Chinese will move into SF to fill the void as the local liberals move to the conservative red counties of Kalifornia to ruin them.

[Kevmo]

I am here in the south bay. What keeps people here are the economy and the weather. The economy is going south.

Lots of bloat in guvmint. People put up with it, until they don’t.

This is the first time we’ve ever experienced negative growth. Everyone got too big for their britches.

The only way we’re gonna know the backlash is real isn’t if Newsome gets recalled — we already did that to a guvner once, almost to no avail. The way we’ll know is if San Fran Nan gets primaried and the state guvmint starts seeing massive democrat losses.

I doubt it.

[SpaceBar]

Trump should just declare a national emergency and keep this train from going over the gorge just ahead.

[olivia3boys]

Yes—weather—and family, sometimes, nearby.

Scott Adams (Dilbert) says something interesting about restaurants (he used to own 2). He says they add almost nothing to the economy (although we love them)—pay to servers is low, the owners don’t pay taxes often; they are kind of shady and barely make money anyway.

All I know is the traffic is as heavy as always and I own two properties in Northern CA and their value apparently is at a record high. Guess I should sell the rental.

[CatOwner]

I am here in the south bay. What keeps people here are the economy and the weather. The economy is going south.

I lived in the South Bay from the late 1970s through most of 2018 (college, work, marriage, kid, retirement). The weather may be nice there, but air quality has suffered for years.

I used to drive to and from the Santa Cruz area over a decade ago, and you could see the haze over the valley as you drove down HW 17. The numerous wildfires, especially the Camp Fire in November 2018 (we left CA for good two weeks prior), hasn't help.

The drinking water wasn't much better. Heavily chlorinated, to the point where it would dry out your skin. You could smell the chemicals in the shower. Pour water into a pot to boil for pasta, and the water would be cloudy.

Most years, there wasn't enough water in storage, and with Anderson Dam (over 50% of Santa Clara County's above-ground water storage capability) down to 3% so that they can finally retrofit the dam the next 10 years (any bets on it being longer and more expensive?), I don't expect the water situation there to get any better any time soon.

[Kevmo]

As it turns out, I’m the main moderator at www.scottadamsfans.com

If you have property to sell, consider selling a slice to me.

There is a real estate concept called Tenancy In Common. You can sell me enough land to live on, keep the bulk of it for yourself, and figure out how to deal with the rest of the issues later while selling off a piece at a time. You actually make MORE money while retaining as much of the controlling interest (the common areas)as you see fit.

https://andysirkin.com/tenancy-in-common-tic/

[Kevmo]

I was born & raised in the bay area, a rare local. When my dad moved into Belmont, just across the freeway from where Downtown Oracle is now.... the main drag Ralston Avenue was a dirt road out to Highway 101.

What has happened to this area is an economic and social tragedy not yet realized.

[noiseman]

The problem with the locusts from California spreading to other states isn’t only the political idiocy they bring with them, but also the giant bags of cash from their over-inflated incomes and home prices. Innocent, sensible people just trying to live their lives in peace are suddenly inundated with these fools, only to find themselves before long force-fed alien public policies, and priced out of their local real estate markets.

The irony is that the innocent victims then are themselves forced to move somewhere the Californians haven’t yet ruined, and hope that they can live whatever is left of their lives in peace before the clueless invaders find them yet again.

The only winner in the end is U-Haul.

[olivia3boys]

I found Scott Adams at the beginning of the pandemic when I started walking my neighborhood with my dog and wanted a podcast. He’s absolutely amazing. I’ve listened to him every day for a year. So, so logical and funny and takes his time laying everything out. I’ve started reading his books. He’s been kind of lifechanging for me—I really think differently now.

The only other podcast I like is War Room/Steve Bannon. Can’t keep up with it 4 hours a day but I try.

I’d like to get on Adams’ Periscope live and make comments that he can read but I don’t wake up until 8, when he’s done :)

He lives now in my hometown. I hope he knows that he has some female listeners/fans too (tell him, if you know him—I think he assumes pretty much his followers are male but then with 3 brothers and 3 sons I kind of “trend male”).

I guess I should check out his website you moderate.

[Drago]

Not a problem, the Biden Admin. will funnel several hundred billion dollars in “stimulus” money to CA. (Along with Illinois, MI, NY).

[CatOwner]

Not a problem, the Biden Admin. will funnel several hundred billion dollars in “stimulus” money to CA. (Along with Illinois, MI, NY).

Never thought I would see the day when having the button to the printing press would be more damaging than having the button to the nuclear warheads.

[noiseman]

Californians moving to more conservative states is like if someone in your house crapped their bed, but rather than clean it up they come into your bedroom and climb into bed with you, soiled PJs and all. That forces you to find refuge in a different bedroom, at least until they inevitably foul themselves again. Eventually, you simply run out of bedrooms and can no longer escape.

[dfwgator]

Finding new nests to foul, and don’t tell me they are conservatives, the evidence clearly shows that’s not the case.

[Drago]

Yep, the USD will take a lot of abuse as the “world reserve currency” but when the fuse does get lit it will go down hard w/o anyone out there big enough to bail us out.

[Kevmo]

If you’re interested, I could add you as moderator.

The site became a ghost town when I cracked down on libtardism. What we need is a 1:1 ratio of libtard vs. conservatard moderators to keep things fair.

There are very few places left on the web where liberals and conservatives can debate things openly. I used to think DISQUS was like that but they deplatformed us when we had 275k followers.

I then moved over to PredictIt.org where it was a freeforall until they hired some libtard moderator who summarily banned me without any notice whatsoever.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

It won’t be a major collapse until the San Andreas Fault and others nearby swallows San Francisco, LA and Oakland. A fart does not a hurricane maketh.

[Husker24]

Uncle sugar will baile them out.