<p>“Ben S. Bernanke does not think the national housing boom is a bubble that is about to burst, he indicated to Congress last week, just a few days before President Bush nominated him to become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.”</p>
<p>Washington Post, October 27, 2005, article “Bernanke: There’s No Housing Bubble to Go Bust”.</p>
<p>BTW, I did read a research piece by the Boston Fed on the “NH Advantage” a while back. Thanks for assuming that I hadn’t. You can keep your $1,000. You could also go look through my posts where I mentioned the Fed piece. You should know that I would have posted about something like that here.</p>
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<p>Please be serious and don’t try to zing me on things that irrelevant then. You seem to do this when refuted.</p>
<p>Locations that are overwhelmingly anything, even liberal, tend to be very far from open minded. It just works for the members of the overwhelming group because they are quite happy in their bubble.</p>
<p>I agree, ZM. When you got “overwhelming liberal” they regulate your pop size :p. I like diversity. Life is so boring whether it’s all one flavor or another.</p>
<p>Cali is successful because it has the best weather in the US and is scenic. After that everything else is unimportant. It once was conservative–now it is not. I doubt that had much to do with the growth at either time.</p>
<p>By no measure is California successful anymore, and that is because there is no correction to its stagger leftward. The unrestrained impulse in either direction is disastrous.</p>
<p>As a practical matter it probably has to be adjective or noun to be a pejorative. </p>
<p>Then the distinction itself is preposterous. Are we really supposed to believe that Russian immigrants are interchangeable with 10th generation WASPs or Irish or Italians or Frenchie types from Maine? As silly as equating someone from Detroit with a Haitian. </p>
<p>Not only is it insulting to claim you can be “too” one race, is ignorant to claim that all people of one skin color are interchangeable. Is everyone in Massachusetts with a Boston accent interchangeable?</p>
<p>“By no measure is California successful anymore.” [citation needed]</p>
<p>The state just proposed its first balanced budget in a decade, has a solid economic base, is home to the hottest companies in the world and attracts many of the best and brightest to its universities. The state is on course to build the first true high-speed rail network in North America. Is California perfect? Of course not. But “by no measure successful” is utter nonsense.</p>
<p>California is comprised of a couple. Of successful sectors on the coasts and failed municipalities everywhere else. Taxpayers and businesses are fleeing, the educational syste, k to 12 is a mess, and it’s resources and agricultural base are being squandered. California is endowed with more blessings than almost anywhere on earth, but her stewards are irresponsibly running her economy into the ground despite those gifts.</p>
<p>“to claim that all people of one skin color are interchangeable”</p>
<p>No one did that, because no one in the world believes that. If you place no value on racial diversity, fine for you. Other people’s view that it is desirable does not mean that they believe race is the only way that people can differ.</p>
<p>Everyone I know who’s left California has done so because of the high cost of living in its cities…which persists because lots of people with money and choices still want to live there.</p>
<p>I don’t view “broke” and “failed” as synonyms for any entities except (sometimes) for-profit businesses. Even bankruptcy is not a death sentence. It’s bad. Sometimes entities pull through it and come out OK on the other side, sometimes they don’t. I think the jury’s still out on a lot of California municipalities.</p>
<p>“A couple of successful sectors on the coast” - that’s where all the people are. Of California’s 38 million residents, fully 28 million live in the Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego metro areas - along the coast. California’s population is fundamentally urban.</p>
<p>So if you’re saying that the densely-populated, heavily-liberal coastal areas of California are among the healthiest and most successful… OK, sure, I agree with you.</p>
<p>I have followed this thread with interest, since I’ve lived in Massachusetts for 32 years (we did spent 3 years in DC for my H’s job, but we knew we’d be coming back to MA). I was born and reared in the midwest, went to college in the midwest and did live there for a few years afterwards. So I’ve lived in both places.</p>
<p>Overall, I prefer living in MA, but I can understand that people prefer other geographic areas and their decisions might be driven by lower tax rates. I think jobs and schools often determine where people end up as much as avoiding taxes. When people think about relocating for retirement, the state tax burden may be more significant in their decision making. I have not looked at data, so I’m just making a guess.</p>
<p>For me, avoiding taxes isn’t the primary motivator for my decisions. I don’t love paying taxes, but it’s the price we pay for living in a state that provides among other things very good public education (yes, there are exceptions) and services–not just social services, but the others that we all use (roads, police, fire, etc.).</p>
<p>That being said, I don’t think life in MA is all peaches and cream. There are lots of pockets of poverty where the scenery is not beautiful and picturesque. A few examples: Worcester, Fitchburg, Leominster–places with which I’m familiar–are dying manufacturing towns that are hanging on and trying to survive. State government in MA has a cast of crazy characters, but not everyone in state government is corrupt. I know my local legislators personally and they are smart, well-educated, and committed individuals who are trying to do the right thing for their district and the state. </p>
<p>I can’t prove this, but I have a sense that many of the people here in MA who think that taxes are killing them and that their problems would be solved with lower taxes are folks who aren’t happy with anything in their lives and would be unhappy even if they had lower taxes. And if taxes weren’t the problem, they’d find something else that makes their world a mess.</p>
<p>" can’t prove this, but I have a sense that many of the people here in MA who think that taxes are killing them and that their problems would be solved with lower taxes are folks who aren’t happy with anything in their lives and would be unhappy even if they had lower taxes. And if taxes weren’t the problem, they’d find something else that makes their world a mess. "</p>
<p>I hope you mean this only for Mass residents.</p>
<p>geeps, would you say places that are usually considered “conservative” tend to be open minded or diverse? People make a lot of generalizations on this site and I would love to hear your perspective.</p>