I put Adsense on my website in 2004 on a Thursday. Logged in Saturday and discovered that I'd earned $25! I immediately click one of my own ads, then logged back in to check my earnings per click. Later that week I got a warning email from Google. Told my wife.
She made me take all of my Adsense ads down immediately for the rest of the month and the first couple weeks of the next until we received our first Adsense check.
Then, and only then, did she let me put the ads back up. That first check bought us a freezer. The next paid our rent.
Those were fun times: $50 CPM was not usual 2004-2005.
Yes! That is exactly me. Coast to Coast AM at 11:30 in the morning, through headphones, in a cubicle is just wrong.
Also the audio needs to go out when you go through a tunnel or around a bend. And then you have to hunt for it again on the dial through all the static on another station.
Nothing beats late 1990’s Art Bell on the middle of the night, growing more enthralled (and paranoid) by the minute!
I grew up and lived as an adult in central and rural California (and the Bay Area) before moving to Texas.
I thought I was pretty conservative, like many in rural California.
But coming to Texas it was shocking how liberal I was. Not in anything specific, but in the overall. Texans and California’s government and voter just don’t even think about the same kinds of things. What is perfectly reasonable in California is completely foreign in Texas and vice versa.
The big example: the taxpayer. In California I never thought about them. Who’s going to pay for this great new law or public policy? In California we never ask. In Texas, everyone knows: the taxpayer.
No conservative one in Texas is going to support a law, no matter how good, that the taxpayer isn’t going to want to pay for.
If by conservative you mean something akin to capitalistic, and unabashedly out to make money, from the housewife to the CEO, then yes.
If you mean something else, then it really isn't that cut and dry.
Everyone (a very large majority) is from somewhere else, and most came to Houston not because it was some kind of Shangri-La, but because of the opportunities.
Plus, for what it's worth, Houston is one of, if not the, most ethnically diverse city in the US. (Google it so I don't have to provide biased sources.)
It's not the kind of place I want to live (I prefer an order of magnitude of around 100K), but when I actually learned something about Houston, I realized that I had some stereotypes that were not accurate.
> It's worth pointing out that this is in no small part because Houston is affordable.
This is an under appreciated point. Texas in general, has some of the most organically diverse places I’ve been to. Low taxes, low regulation, and low housing costs have done a lot to attract a diverse set of people from the rest of the country, and from other countries. It’s a place where people of color are building families, businesses, and thriving.
This is so true. I grew up in California and was led to believe that it was one of the most diverse places yet it does not hold a candle to where I live now in Houston.
I don't doubt it. And at a statewide level, you'd have to look at news like the small-minded governor excluding legal refugees (something that other very red states like Utah haven't done).
But look up San Francisco's racial makeup vs Houston's and... you can make the case that there's at least a place in the same city for a lot more people in Houston.
> But look up San Francisco's racial makeup vs Houston's and
They're practically the same if you swap the black and asian populations. This makes a lot of sense: Asian immigrant populations came from the west coast, usually SF. Black populations started in the southeast, and its much easier to migrate from Mississippi to Texas than Mississippi to San Francisco.
But we have air conditioning. Every place has air conditioning. And it run's constantly. But still my power bill is just a fraction of what it was in California.
From late fall through early spring the weather is very California-like: cool and crisp in the morning and warm and dry in the afternoon.
Most people in California are this way though. All of my family who still lives out there pay a premium to watch the same TV shows I watch and to watch Netflix while sitting on their behinds indoors. Very few people are out hiking every possible minute or going out to the coast even when living nearby.
I'm inclined to agree with you, and would say that many folks living in the expensive parts of California aren't even leveraging the majority of what makes it so expensive to live where they do.
I lived in the SF bay area for over a decade, and when employed by the tech industry and spending all my free time outdoors it was very worthwhile.
But whenever I stopped working in the lucrative positions there, the math stopped making sense, even spending all my time outside.
I'm still in California, but a much cheaper part: Joshua Tree. Bought a sizable property in cash, my cost of living is very low and I can still access all the excellent California produce and the coast is only a ~2 hour drive away.
People tend to only talk about the most expensive pockets of CA as if it's representative for the entire state. There's a lot of more rural parts of CA that are very affordable, still beautiful, and not even that far from the ocean.
There is a lot of focus on the expensive parts of CA because thats where the jobs are. If you need to be employed you pretty much have to live in or around the expensive parts and thus it makes sense for people in that situation to relocate. If someone does not need to work or works remotely then one of the cheap parts of the state does make sense.
Just don’t try to send your kids to the schools in the affordable parts of the state. Low cost of living = lower property values = low property taxes = poorly funded schools.
For one thing, the post implied that being indoors came with the higher humidity in Texas. But assuming that the poster really did "accept a life spent indoors in air-conditioned spaces" as you reflexively assume, what is this extra high taxation paying for in California that the person wasn't taking advantage of?
I'm not going to write what amounts to a tourism advertisement here.
Do you really need to be explained all the reasons California is a desirable vacation destination for the entire world?
Living there without spending your time outside is missing the entire point.
Many people live there just for the tech industry, and simultaneously complain about the high cost of living. Well, if you spend all your time at the keyboard indoors, you should shift to remote work and leave the state. Because you're paying to live in the funnest place in the nation, don't blame the state for not taking advantage of it.
Not only did I live in California, but I lived in the middle of a national forest there. And yes, I spent a great deal of time enjoying it. The question remains, and I'll clarify: how much of a resident's taxes pay to maintain the great outdoors versus all of the other services?
I don’t mean to imply that you can go outside. You can. And we do. Just that when it’s 85 at night and 85% humidity, you run your A/C all night, every night.
I grew up in Central California and then lived in the Bay Area from 2001 until 2010. Had kids, and a online job, so we next moved to the Sierra Nevada foothills, where we lived for a decade.
We moved to a suburb of Houston, Texas about a year ago. Best decision ever.
In a nutshell:
Overall, quality of life has gone way up.
Taxes have gone down.
Wages have gone up.
Everything is cheaper, which means we all get to do more fun stuff.
On the negative side of the equation: The avocados are smaller here.
The schools are very good compared to what they had in California. We live in one the top 500 school districts in the country (there are about 10,000 of them).
Tongue-in-cheek comment that I've read somewhere is that folks flee Democrat-run cities due to high taxes and mismanagement and move elsewhere, but then continue voting Democrat to bring back the same policies they wanted to escape from.
folks flee Democrat-run cities due to high taxes and mismanagement and move elsewhere, but then continue voting Democrat
This does seem to be the case.
If you look at the voting statistics for cities where Californians are fleeing -- Boise, Las Vegas, Reno, Salt Lake City, etc -- those cities are rapidly turning blue.
But I don't know if they continue voting Democrat "to bring back" their old laws and lifestyle so much as they're just used to voting a particular way and continue to do so.
There don't seem to be a lot of people who put effort into making informed voting choices on a candidate-by-candidate basis and just go for whatever party they voted for last time.
> But I don't know if they continue voting Democrat "to bring back" their old laws and lifestyle so much as they're just used to voting a particular way and continue to do so.
I think the way people vote tends to reflect their beliefs. And generally, beliefs don't change often or drastically.
I think the way people vote tends to reflect their beliefs. And generally, beliefs don't change often or drastically.
I see a lot of people who vote based on how they've always voted, rather than based on their actual beliefs. It's part of the tribalism of it all.
Three data points:
In West Virginia there is an expression called Yellow Dog Democrat, which means that the person would vote for a yellow dog before he voted for a Republican.
In Chicago, for the better part of the last century, the policies and positions a lot of the so-called Democratic Party politicians would be considered to be very Republican in other states.
One set of my in-laws lives what would be considered by many to be a redneck lifestyle, deep in the woods, surrounded by guns and beer and American flags, and cobbled-together vehicles, and talking smack about Bernie Sanders being a Communist and such. But guess what? When they go to vote, they vote Democrat simply because they always have.
It's the reason in some elections in some places you have the option (or sometimes the requirement) of pushing one button and voting for everyone on that party's ticket, rather than being forced to choose each candidate on their own merits.
There’s not really a such thing as a candidate-by-candidate basis, certainly not these days. Candidates are reliant on party infrastructure, endorsements, and fundraising. So when the time comes to line up votes the party speaker or governor or whoever is the acting voice of the party says “jump” and everyone jumps. Voting for a Republican or a Democrat means voting for one more vote for the party line on anything that counts, so you might as well pick which party line you like better and move on with life. It’s sad that this perversely incentivizes things to not change, since it makes party endorsements all the more important.
I think a lot of the problem that "democrat" and "republican" are relative to everyone else in the area whereas the official party platform that candidates have to work toward to get $$$ is more or less nationally homogeneous.
Your neighbors in SF might think you're Newt Gingrich but relative to your new neighbors in Boise you may as well be Bernie Sanders.
I live in Henderson, NV and can at least anecdotally confirm that what you're describing is true. People moving from California, many of whom cite 'safety' reasons, maintain pro-regulation and anti-gun stances, despite Henderson's murder rate being 1/5 that of Oakland, 1/2 of LA, and 1/2 of San Francisco.
100%. The safest cities in America have the least gun control. Maine passed constitutional carry 5 years ago with much resistance and last year was voted the safest place to live in America. Meanwhile cities like Chicago with the strictest laws are murder capitals. Liberals then say but the guns are coming from X, Y, Z! Well why aren't X, Y, Z murder capitals? Let's deal with the root of the problem and clearly it's not guns/the symptom.
Just to get my personal bias out of the way: I'm pro-gun, and strongly pro-individual freedom across the board. That goes up to the extent that I don't even care what types of weapons someone owns, so long as they don't use them to harm others.
That said, the violence problems in Democrat-run cities is not because of the guns, nor is it due to gun regulation. There were a slew of poor governmental decisions that have led to massive inequality, poor social conditions, and fostered an us-vs-them culture through the militarizing of police and criminalizing of the poor.
It turns out that if people feel cornered with no way to improve their lives or escape their poor situation, they resort to organized crime or other desperate measures.
TLDR - Crime is primarily driven by social circumstances. Criminal culture is cultivated generationally by those circumstances.
In the Northern suburbs of DFW there have been some news reports of this but more from a culture clash instead of policy point of view at the moment. Collin Country (North of Dallas) is growing tremendously with people moving in from all over the country.
It's all been positive with anecdotes like inviting "the new neighbors" to real TX bbq's and things like that but it's definitely real.
I don't think housing prices fit easily into generic-Democrats fault somehow. Which seems to be the main reason most people are moving out of the very expensive cities. Based on Bay Area vs Seattle vs Houston it seems to be mostly about do you build new buildings according to demand or not.
Or, you know, they just want to move to a smaller city. Houston's still a third as dense as LA, NY or Chicago so its not like politics are the only differences.
Obviously this depends upon your definition of large but Colorado Springs is the second largest city in Colorado at 713,856 in the county and 464,474 city. Has historically been republican and has recalled elected officials that voted for gun control. Colorado Springs is pretty frequently in the top running as one of the best places to live.
it is not Tongue-in-cheek , democrats fail to make the connection to the policies they support and the effects of those policies.
See the polices are suppose to "fix" those problems and when they inevitably fail because socialism is not workable, they do not blame socialism they blame the execution, it just was not done "correctly", so if the just vote in the correct democrat this time socialism will work
Prop 13, one of the major factors in the CA housing crisis, was a Republican led initiative passed in 1978. This may come as a surprise to you, but CA was Republican leaning until fairly recently (remember Arnold Schwarzenegger?). A lot of the factors that are contributing to the current housing crisis were established long before CA turned solidly blue.
In what possible way does having a Cap on property taxes, and requiring 2/3 majority to increase taxes cause a Housing Crisis?
>>but CA was Republican leaning until fairly recently (remember Arnold Schwarzenegger?).
Arnold Schwarzenegger was a RINO, Around here we would call him a Democrat, California Democrats are the extreme of the extreme Left. So anyone Right of Stalin is a Republican in California.
Further since 1978 (as far back as I could find data) the CA legislature has been Democrat Controlled, so sure they may have had a couple of "republican" Governors, that does not make them a Republican state or mean any free market policies where passed, the Democrats have had a tight grip on the state for as long as most people have been alive
It is a complicated issue and there were number of unintended consequences. But the main one is that long time property owners (NIMBYs) are insulated from (if not down right incentivized to support) anti-development measures. Because their property tax rates were frozen at time of purchase, they do not feel the impact of rising property prices. It also has a chilling effect on housing 'liquidity', because moving out of your existing home to upsize/downsize would mean you loose your preferential tax treatment.
I added a link below that goes into some of the other issues that it created [1]. And in case you think I am trying to blame Republicans for the housing crisis, I am not. Local politics rarely align cleanly with national partisan fault lines. In California, the NIMBYs tend to be more conservative and have aligned themselves with liberal anti-gentrification and anti-development environmentalists. And the liberal leaning millennials (who are heavily impacted by the housing crisis) are aligned with right leaning pro-development groups.
Regarding your RINO comment. I think this link is relevant [2]. The current Republican party would be considered extremely right wing in any other time or in any other first world country. Universal Healthcare receives bipartisan support in every advanced economy in the world other than the US. ObamaCare, the 'radical socialist left wing policy', was originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation[3]. And Universal Basic Income was originally proposed by none other than Milton Friedman, the champion of free market economics[4]. So these 'socialists' that you deride aren't socialist at all, but rather centrist democrats pushing center-right policies.
>>And Universal Basic Income was originally proposed by none other than Milton Friedman
100% false, Friedman's negative income tax WAS NOT a UBI. it was a replacement for all welfare. It was the lesser of 2 evils and if you watch any of the talks he gave on the subject it is presented just as that. Better than massive government welfare programs
Further with UBI there are "good" ways to do it, (i.e I would be in favor of a Geo-Libertarian UBI) and there are Bad ways to do it (i.e UBI paid for with Income based Taxation)
> US. ObamaCare, the 'radical socialist left wing policy', was originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation[3]
That is 100% misleading, Some parts where yes but many parts where not. 2 of the Big Differences is that the 90's plan included Tort Reform which is need to lower costs, and did not expand medicare like Obamacare did
It was also viewed as an unacceptable compromise by many republicans, the purpose of the bill was to compromise with the Democrats that wanted Single Payer, this is the exact compromise that was made for the ACA and as predicted by the Republicans in the 90's it simply gave the democrats grounds to then claim "it was not enough" and that the only option now is single payer government run healthcare.
It has more or less removed Free market alternatives from the debate which is sad
> The current Republican party would be considered extremely right wing in any other time or in any other first world country.
Wrong actually, if you look at any data the democrat party is pulled WIDELY to the left, where the Republican Party has more or less stayed the same or has shifted slightly to the left since 2000
Republicans have not changed their principles or policies in a large number of year, it is the "left" that has changed considerably.
> 100% false, Friedman's negative income tax WAS NOT a UBI
Uhhh, you are flat out wrong. They are basically the same thing[1]. Here is a link from CATO (a conservative outlet) talking about how the benefit of UBI is it would replace existing welfare programs[2]. Maybe try using google before making ridiculous claims.
> the 90's plan included Tort Reform which is need to lower costs
Tort reform was a straw man argument that was used by Republicans in a desperate attempt to explain why the ACA was not a 'conservative' policy. Pointing out small differences in policy details to try and explain away the origins of the policy is straight up dishonest. And just to be clear, tort reform was left out because it does not have a meaningful impact on health care costs[3]. Including it in the ACA would have been pointless and just added more complexity to an already complex piece of legislation. It was 100% the right thing to do.
> it simply gave the democrats grounds to then claim "it was not enough"
Largely because Republicans have continued to knee-cap the ACA at every turn. We tried to fix healthcare with a bipartisan policy, and you all threw a hissy-fit and decided to do everything in your power to make it fail. So I have zero sympathy with your single-payer fear mongering. The democrats shift towards stronger support for single payer was entirely in response to the shortcomings of the ACA, which largely happened due to Republican obstruction. You brought this on yourselves.
> Republican Party has more or less stayed the same or has shifted slightly to the left since 2000
I posted a link that was using data from a non-partisan research institute, and the conclusions of that research was that Republicans have been shifting rightward, even since 2000. Here is the link again[4]. Please show me credible non-partisan research to support your claim that the 'democrat party is pulled WIDELY to the left'. If you think the rise of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren some how proves your point, consider this: Bernie Sanders has been in politics since the 1980s. And as mentioned in my original post, his policy proposals would be considered center-left in any other time or in any other country. The only thing that has changed in the past 25 years in American politics is the complete take over of the Republican party by overzealous ultra right-wing anti-government partisans.
I am somewhat of a Friedman expect so pretty sure I am not
>>> They are basically the same thing
Not in economics they are not. Negative Income Tax is a poverty prevention plan, designed to ensure people are not living in poverty
UBI Provides a basic income FOR ALL PEOPLE, does not matter if you make 1 billion dollars, or $1 of other income everyone gets the same basic income
>>>Maybe try using google before making ridiculous claims.
I have studied economics, and most people in the Chicago and Austrian schools of economics for more than 20 years, I do not really need google to understand the difference between UBI and Negative income taxation
>>> We tried to fix healthcare with a bipartisan policy, and you all threw a hissy-fit and decided to do everything in your power to make it fail.
Well first off lets get one thing perfectly clear, I am not Republican. I am Libertarian. Republicans want far more government than I do, and I believe all income based taxation is theft. I want people to be able to protect their marijuana gardens with fully automatic machine guns. So my positions do not align with either Republicans or Democrats as both parties are generally Authoritarian in nature simply arguing over what area's of my life they want to control never arguing if they have the ethical or moral right to that control
As to "fix healthcare with a bipartisan policy" which of those exactly where suppose to fix Healthcare? Certainly not ACA.
>>> Please show me credible non-partisan research to support your claim that the 'democrat party is pulled WIDELY to the left'.
>>> If you think the rise of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren some how proves your point, consider this: Bernie Sanders has been in politics since the 1980s
yes socialists have always been a part of the Democrat party, a minor one. Even Bernie Sanders from 2016 and Bern Sanders in 2020 is WIDELY different having shifted FAR to the left on many issues including immigration (in 2016 is was very much against open boarders, in 2020 he is now not only for Open Boarders but giving everyone in the world Free Medical Care paid for by stealing money from US Workers if that is not extreme left well...)
In the last 4 years alone we have seen the Democrat party take a Hard Left turn and stomp on the Gas....
>>> The only thing that has changed in the past 25 years in American politics is the complete take over of the Republican party by overzealous ultra right-wing anti-government partisans
Yea,,, no. I do not see any of that, If anything in the last 25 years the Ultra Right (generally viewed as the Extreme Religious Right that wants to do things like ban Video Games and porn) have LOST large amounts of power. Of course as with any debate I guess we need to define our terms because what you "Ultra Right" to you may not be what I view as "ultra Right"
He said "Houston," so chances are the answer is yes.
People outside of Texas like to pretend that it's a solid red state. They conveniently don't bother to look at electoral maps and pretend that Austin doesn't exist so long as they can make jokes about where someone else lives.
That's becoming less true, especially around Houston, where there were several district flips to blue in the last midterms, even with the heavy Republican gerrymandering.
If you think Texans pretend Austin doesn’t exist, I doubt you’ve ever been to Texas. It’s very frequently lovingly referred to as a liberal armpit, shithole, etc.
Austins problems (super high housing costs, homelessness) are often trotted out as an example of Democratic policies being the source of California’s problems.
As far as taxes go, yes voting left tends to result in that, but in my experience high housing costs is not a left vs right issue. Where I live most left-leaning voters would choose legislation that would bring down housing costs.
No, it's not. Ft. Worth is run by Republicans. San Diego, Jacksonville, El Paso, Oklahoma City, Fresno, Mesa, Omaha, Colorado Springs, Miami, Virginia Beach, Tulsa, Arlington...all have Republican mayors.
Well in that case, the issue gets even more complex as you factor in whether or not a city with 4 Democrats and 3 Republicans on the council and 1 Republican mayor is a "Republican" city or a "Democrat" city.
My only gripe with the area is all of the flooding that happens regularly in the area and you never know when the next hurricane that is gonna extensively damage the area is going to happen.
She made me take all of my Adsense ads down immediately for the rest of the month and the first couple weeks of the next until we received our first Adsense check.
Then, and only then, did she let me put the ads back up. That first check bought us a freezer. The next paid our rent.
Those were fun times: $50 CPM was not usual 2004-2005.
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