Posted on 12/01/2003 8:01:35 AM PST by presidio9
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:50:31 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
I'm just one old retired guy who loves the valley I live in...trying to make the best of a situation I found when I retired here, trying to help in any way I can.
Even if what you say were true - that guys like me (whatever that means) destroyed the livelihood and morality of these people through misguided concern for the environment and unrestrained hedonism, they're still real people - most of whom are good God-fearing, Republicans (the kind of people you claim to like) trying to save their community who need no more than small regulatory changes to pull it off.
But what you say is untrue in every way and you are truly an utterly disgusting person, consumed by viscious hatred and jealosy.
By the way, Mammoth, the community you hate and envy, which is filled with people you've described, is doing just fine.
That's why he was able to become one of the top movie stars in the world despite a name like Schwarzenegger and a horrible accent - and why he was able to become governer with no prior political experience while McClintock is still just talking.
I'll trust his judgement...thank you very much.
If it is a burden on state government - and I doubt that it is - the burden is insignificant compared to what happens in most other parts of the state.
You're another complete ignoramous in need of therapy.
Why, then, do you believe that the state should subsidize health care there in light of its "insignificant" burden? Your statement suggests that your area will benefit when subsidies are reduced. With less state tax burden, your area should have more resources, not less. There will be a net increase in funds available for your local health care system. Is that not so?
Something like 98% of it's land and water are owned by the Federal government and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
A burden on state government? Because a few people need help with their medical bills and a few others are on welfare?
How dumb can you be?
It's "insignificant" because the numbers are so small, dummy.
The state is not singling us out for special subsidies. We get what's available to all citizens of California.
Your statement suggests that your area will benefit when subsidies are reduced
I never made such a statement and nothing I've said could be construed to suggest such a thing.
With less state tax burden, your area should have more resources, not less
Complete sophistry. Ideological clap-trap. LADWP and the federal government own virtually all the land and water in the county. Mining is not economically feasable and is in conflict with other uses. Logging has been severely restricted. Farming, even if water were available, faces an unfavorable climate. These are the central economic facts of life. Tax savings don't mean shit.
There will be a net increase in funds available for your local health care system. Is that not so?
No, that's not so. Demographics and technology demand a structural change in the way health care is delivered out here. 50 years ago the area was economically viable, and health care was much less sophisticated, much cheaper. Now there's no way for us to run a profitable ER. No way. Because a major highway runs through here the state has an interest in maintaining health services in the area...but it cannot, and should not, be delivered in the traditional way. That way is far too expensive. Something new must evolve...and that requires creative changes in the regulatory environment.
California Battles Alert for Conservative Stalwarts
What happens in California today looms fair warning for the rest of the nation.
Those who want on or off this low-volume list, please Freepmail me
Um, Medicare is a Federal program. Arnold can't touch that. So far, his "cuts" have been a pittance.
Economic and technological changes have largely been unfavorable to the rural environment.
Because liberals like you love to demand freebies from rural industry so that you'll let them use their own property. You want parks, you want open space, you want watershed management, and no matter how stupid or counterproductive the provisions are, you sponsor the use of police power to force compliance. When they go broke, you arrogantly wave your hand and call it "economics."
How's it working? I suppose you liked those fires in LA? Now that the Forest Service is trying to prevent people from rebuilding their cabins I'll bet you're celebrating! More forest for Larry! You like those higher prices for lumber? Sierra Pacific does, now that their competition is dead. Higher housing prices for Larry!
In some cases yes. In others they've been driven under by new competition with cheaper labor or cheaper extraction costs or an environment better suited to farming or ranching.
It's cheaper elsewhere because of the restrictions your ideological ilk have put on them. Ranchers and farmers have been stomped with bogus claims pursuant to the ESA just as much as miners and forest landowners. Now they're being set up with the Clean Water Act. Then there are matters of "social justice" in the cost of their labor. You make them pay more so that you can feel good about the working conditions the workers voluntarily accepted. I'll bet you buy Mexican produce too.
In some cases, developers want that land, and have to put the farmers in positon to make a distressed sale to turn a profit into a windfall. They love contributing to liberal causes. In other cases, competing industries don't want that land in production because they love artificially high prices and so do you. Your ideological friends in the State bureaucracy and racketeering NGOs are gleefully willing to comply. So is Arnold, who took a cool $2.5 million in campaign contributions from the likes of Kaufman and Broad. More crappy slums of the future with a fat price tag.
The problem is that, were all that land available for development, housing prices would fall and neither you nor the developers want that. It cuts your profits on screwing those rural landowners and allows the prices of existing homes to fall! You can't have that and neither can the banks. So, how to maintian the shortages? Greenbelts? Conservation easments? Guess what? On the latter, the big foundations holding the development right can still build, later, when prices rise enough. You won't be able to do a thing about it either.
Oh those loggers and ranchers were polluting the watersheds! As much as the mud sliding off the San Gabriel Mountains? They were harming endangered species! As much as a 1700° fire with no refugia? So, who will weed it now if they can't make a buck on the land? Are you going to do it?
Oh, but you advocated those policies for ALTRUISTIC reasons? Bullshit. You want your playground at somebody else's expense and you want your the value of your house to rise. You blew off the warnings from conservative landowners and use altruism as a cover.
And finally, don't make it personal. My property values are not in danger. :)
QED, and you did make it personal.
Look who's a pig! What have YOU DONE to take care of nature? How many hundreds of thousands of dollars have you spent for the privilege?
Worse, you don't want to know better because it would blow your cover, an artifice of self-deception that allows your pompous crap. Avoiding_Sulla charitably called you ignorant of the consequences of your liberalism. I disagree with his assessment and he knows better. He even offered you a free book with which to cure your ignorance. You made agreements you didn't keep to back out of it. You need to maintain that selective vision and careful avoidance of the truth, which is why my posts really get under your skin.
Don't bother Freepmailing me. I won't read it.
I don't disbelieve you, but I was wondering if you had any handy references for any kind of smoking gun to that effect. Something to shove in the faces of my liberal acquaintances. Thanks.
I meant Medical - an obvious mistake not any different than a typo. Arnold has been in office all of two weeks? I read his proposals to cut Medical and wage assistance to nurses. Grow up.
Because liberals like you love to...blah, blah, blah
Because technological advances have made modern health care a specialist's domain requiring large investments in machines and a large overhead in salaries.
Because globalization has it's losers in areas with high cost labor and unfavoreable climates.
Because increasing mechanization has reduced the need for farm labor.
Because cities have tremendous advantages over rural areas in their ability to provide amenities, education, and opportunity. Things most people want.
I suppose you liked those fires in LA?
Fires have been a feature of L.A. life for as long as I can remember - 60 years - and as long as history remembers. What's new is their increasing effect on people - an inevitable result of explosive development.
You like those higher prices for lumber?
Demand goes way up. Supply decreases. Prices go way,way up. Magic. I'm sure you have ways of radically increasing the supply? Not just in the short term - anyone can do that by cutting down every tree - but in the long-term? You'll replace trees which take centuries to grow with what? Don't bother to answer. I'm sure you have much more important things to do. You always do - and besides all the answers are in your book - isn't that right?
It's cheaper elsewhere because of the restrictions your ideological ilk have put on them
People were abandoning orcharding in the Owens Valley in 1900 - before L.A. took the water, and before the imposition of onerous regulation. They did so because of the early freezes. I'm sure this is not an isolated example.
And so on with the rest of your rant
Don't bother Freepmailing me. I won't read it.
You are one rude, sick, angry mother. I said so privately and I now say it publicly. I won't have to repeat it.
I said I'd buy your book rather than have someone else give it to me.
I bought it.
What else could you be referring to - you lying scum?
About five years ago, I wrote a book, doing considerable research on land prices in Santa Cruz County. After going through over ten thousand transactions and crunching numbers on a spreadsheet for months, after learning everything I could about the history of zoning law in the county, after interviewing a number of the players in County planning, the University (where the scheme was cooked up), and among the few former resource landowners who had become developers, the mechanics became clear to me. I was even threatened during the interview process.
Since that time the pattern has become more obvious. If you want to look for really big players, consider the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group and their interest in "Smart Growth" or "Sustainable Development." Wherever you see those terms, you will find developers who invest in Democratic candidates, but now Republican "moderates" are getting in on it too (because that's where the big money is).
Infill development is a slightly different game, but the principles of "harass, devalue, take, and turn over" are very similar. They just get a redevelopment agency or county regulator to take the land from its owners, cheap. Such inholders often retained the land for speculative purposes, paid taxes on it all that time, only to get bagged just before the payoff. I have seen cases in which it was set up with zoning law and septic regulations 20 years in advance!
Unfortunately, all you'll find is associations. You won't EVER find a paper trail for obvious reasons. The best way to confirm how it works is to make predictions and watch them happen, much like a scientist observing a machine that chews up little people to make money for the big boys. Sometimes I have found an obvious target property, written down the prediction, followed the regulations through the pipeline, and watched it happen. The scale just keeps getting bigger.
I'm sorry that I can't give you a better picture than that right now. There are a couple of specific examples in the book, but I had to omit a few details (names, addresses, and dates) to protect my family.
Your choice of epithets speaks volumes about you and your integrity.
You said you would get a library to buy it and I took you at your word. I never got an order from a library. Were you in a condition of true hardship and a decent person, I would have given you a book (I have done so in not a few cases). Since you are not a decent person, I honestly wanted to force you to acknowledge with either your own money or your own time the importance of the private property and why it puts economic value into the intangible. Perhaps I'm stupid in that regard, but I couldn't care less about the money.
If I am otherwise mistaken in my recollection, I apologize. As far as lies are concerned, prove it, or I will file a complaint.
I built an earth-berm house out of native stone and salvaged timbers, marble, and glass. A house that requires minimal heating and cooling in an area notorious for climatic extremes. I surrounded it with drought and freeze tolerant plants that have made my land a garden in the desert...with only minimal water use. I love it. Visitors love it. Animals love it. I did it myself with my brain and my hands. It didn't cost a fortune.
Lots of people have done similar things - so stop putting yourself on a pedestal - you pompous, pathetic, self-important jerk.
Pot, meet Kettle.
That's a handwave. Globalization exists because the American taxpayer buys peace for overseas investors with a huge military and subsidizes those investments further by accepting crappy border inspection, caring, feeding, and educating those displaced abroad...
Because increasing mechanization has reduced the need for farm labor.
Stupid analogy. Mechanization applies equally here and abroad, in fact, more so here. So, why are we importing from countries with POORER productive conditions, such as logs from the Siberian Taiga The reason isn't labor.
Because cities have tremendous advantages over rural areas in their ability to provide amenities, education, and opportunity. Things most people want.
Is THAT why people leave cities at the first opportunity? Is THAT why environmentalists have to construct artificial constratints that preclude them from leaving? Who woulda thought! You are so full of crap.
At the expense of what? Who supports the conditions that make cities livable at all?
Fires have been a feature of L.A. life for as long as I can remember - 60 years - and as long as history remembers. What's new is their increasing effect on people - an inevitable result of explosive development.
It's a result of explosive development in areas that no longer had economic value for any other use. Had they such a use, the pattern of development would have been very different. Were those who lived there responsible for the fuel (see Part IV, Chapter 1, Section Timber and Fuel Management the Residential Buffer), those houses would not have burned.
To wave your hand about those fires as if they were a natural or usual phenomenon is incredibly dihonest, even for you.
Demand goes way up. Supply decreases. Prices go way,way up. Magic. I'm sure you have ways of radically increasing the supply? Not just in the short term - anyone can do that by cutting down every tree - but in the long-term?
Have you ever flown over California in a plane? You think there is a land shortage? There may be a distribution problem, but there isn't a shortage, which is a political not an economic problem.
You'll replace trees which take centuries to grow with what?
Trees that take centuries to grow. I've already picked my trees that I plan to get there. Some are about 125 years on their way if liberals like you who believe in globalization don't kill them with another imported pest like phytophthora, or if liberals like you beg the the State to protect them with a Heritage Tree designation. I'll cut down every one of them if you do that. So will a lot of people I know. It'll be on you and your ilk, again. You do know that Simpson Timber supported the Heritage Tree designation, don't you?
Small forest landowners are the primary holders of such trees. That's why Simpson and SPI want Heritage Tree designation. They've already cut virtually all their old trees and want to keep us out of the timber market entirely by hacking up the property with buffer zones for such trees, often so that they can buy the land. Wetzel Oviatt just fell to exactly such "market forces," and what do you know but SPI is going to develop much of that property!
I don't suppose you know that a two hundred year old tree can be eight inches in diameter, or that a sixty year old tree can be six feet across with both in the same forest? Just surveying and core drilling all those trees is a virtual impossibility, but you don't care, as long as you get to FEEL better about protecting something you don't care what the real consequences are. You'll just call it "economics."
Don't bother to answer. I'm sure you have much more important things to do. You always do - and besides all the answers are in your book - isn't that right?
Yup.
And that wasn't at my request.
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