Patterico's Pontifications

6/3/2014

The Disconnect

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:49 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Via the Gay Patriot, comes a fun little example of how a hip lefty progressive Texan (Austin, of course) fails to grasp basic economics…and reality.

I’m at the breaking point,” said Gretchin Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8500 this year.

“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings [of “irate homeowners”]. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore.”

–Dana

37 Responses to “The Disconnect”

  1. You need maths to understand that.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  2. Austin is an isolated island of liberal stupidity where the catch phrase is “Keep Austin Weird.” The rest of Texas says “OK.”

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  3. A liberal Facebook friend of mine posted on her page an endorsement for her town’s school bond issue, which of course the taxpayers have to pay for. One of her apparently uber-liberal friends commented underneath the post that she always votes for school bonds and school-related parcel taxes, and she just can’t understand how anyone could vote against them. It’s just amazing how many people are desperate to believe that (1) all problems can be solved with more money and (2) the bureaucracy can be trust to spend tax dollars wisely.

    JVW (feb406)

  4. It’s kind of a bummer to find out that Texas isn’t perfect.

    elissa (76d201)

  5. Ah, Austin – Texas’ intellectual Needle Park.

    Matador (80ac97)

  6. Frankly, I’m relieved, elissa. As a lifelong Californian, it gets annoying to keep hearing Texas this, Texas that, because hey, a good set of blinders and it’s magic: Hollywood! Beaches! Sunshine! Cali Cuisine! They don’t call us the Golden State for nothing!

    Dana (9f8700)

  7. Speaking of clueless voting, Leland Yee is currently 3rd in voting for CA Secretary of State.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  8. It’s still early (11% in) but there’s a close 4 or 5 way race for CA Controller, and two Republicans are currently leading the jungle primary.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  9. in the time of chimpanzees i was a monkey

    but you knew that

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  10. this is what it sounds like

    when doves cry

    when a white hoochie gets gentrified

    but you can still touch my stomach

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  11. Kevin M, I have a post coming on the CA election results. I just want to wait a few more moments to get the 10:00 pm updated numbers.

    JVW (feb406)

  12. in the time of chimpanzees i was a monkey

    i KNEW there was a reason i liked you feets, besides your taste for tacos.

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  13. @6- Dana, you forgot the Big One: Prop 13. We don’t have to pay taxes based on what the house down the street sold for last month.

    Oh! And high, snow-capped peaks and really tall trees… yeah.

    Gramps, the original (4615a6)

  14. they deserve to get what they voted for, and they deserve to get it good and hard.

    hence my motto, stolen elsewhere: “Let It Burn”.

    F them, good and hard: give them what the said they wanted, and keep giving it to them, even if they whine.

    painful lessons are lessons learned.

    bastards.

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  15. PS: i am SO not touching your stomach…

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  16. That’s the funniest thing I’ve read today.

    Glenn (647d76)

  17. It really looks like McDaniels beat Cochran — he’s just added 2000 votes to his lead with 98% in.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  18. Austin? Travis County? The lady needs to get herself an ad valorem real estate tax attorney who contributes large sums of the green to the right peoples, this being Austin that would be Democrats, and next thing she knows the tax records will show she lives in a tarpaper shack barely worth the match to set it on fire. And she has to be doing it every time she gets a reassessment notice.

    nk (dbc370)

  19. Or am I thinking of Cook County?

    nk (dbc370)

  20. or Los Angeles County?

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  21. Property taxes are the fly in the ointment when it comes to Texas. I’ve been loving low-tax Nevada since moving here five years ago. For starters, there is no income tax. As for property tax, I pay about $1100 per year on a house that’s worth 250K. When the next reassessment comes around, I might pay as much as $1400. Oh the pain! Can you say “lean government”? I knew you could.

    I can still visit California, and often do, but I don’t miss living with the traffic, taxes, and perpetually chilly San Francisco weather.

    norcal (757708)

  22. here is a singing for you Mr. norcal

    as melancholy as it is heartfelt

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  23. This story really nails the crux of Amerikkka’s psychosis.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  24. US Economists are the poster boys of cognitive disconnect:

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-04/what-q2-gdp-rebound-trade-deficit-soars-2-year-high-crush-q2-gdp

    US hours worked per employee up, productivity way down.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  25. Correction coming in 4, 3, 2,..

    http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2014/06/smoke-and-mirrors-hide-collapse-in.html

    Since December Retail has been buying on BS and corporate buy backs with Mutual Funds, Pensions and Insurers all selling.

    A fool and his money are soon parted.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  26. One of the failures of the Texas tax structure is that property values are increasing faster than inflation and wages. I moved here from Michigan and my overall tax burden went up. It’s great that I don’t have to pay state income tax. But the property taxes where high enough to eat up that savings.

    time123 (066362)

  27. Recovery Summer, what is it now, 5 or 6?

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DF86JvhwGQs/U4yyyCWQLNI/AAAAAAAAZ6o/38MHr4R8x8c/s1600/new+home+sales.png

    Tent cities coming next.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  28. Yeah, Dhims, you really ‘effed up.

    http://www.jammiewf.com/2014/democrats-not-exactly-thrilled-with-obama-implosion-its-putting-these-candidates-in-a-really-bad-spot/

    Tell us again how your heart was in a ‘right place’.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  29. It’s kind of a bummer to find out that Texas isn’t perfect.

    Wherever there are people, there will be a variety of clueless, phony-baloney liberals among the bunch.

    It’s a human thing.

    Meanwhile, I found the following article, linked under one of the reports posted by Gary, quite interesting and both a good thing but also a sad one too. Nonetheless, just as the US has become surprisingly more energy independent in ways that analysts didn’t think possible not too many years ago, an unexpected (and that word being truly legitimate in this instance) re-routing of another previous trend that has been adversely affecting our economy for several decades is always possible in the future.

    Reuters.com, June 4: When Walmart pledged last year to buy an extra $250 billion in U.S.-made goods over the next decade, it appeared to be just what was needed to help move America’s putative manufacturing renaissance from rhetoric to reality. But suppliers trying to reshore production as part of the initiative by the world’s largest retailer are running into practical problems as they try to restart long-idled corners of U.S. manufacturing.

    Companies that make the leap have to grapple with a host of challenges, including a shallow pool of component suppliers, an inexperienced workforce, and other shortcomings that developed during the country’s long industrial decline.

    “A lot of the tribal knowledge and skill sets are gone because the humans who used to do that work have either retired or died,” says H. Kim Kelley, the CEO of Hampton Products International, a privately held maker of locks, lighting and other household hardware.

    Walmart’s critics say the company bears some responsibility for the diminished capability of U.S. manufacturers. For years, its relentless insistence that suppliers cut costs prompted companies to shut domestic plants and shift production to low-wage countries.

    Now, the retailer is asking companies to come back home – though they need little prompting. The forces pulling production back to the United States are powerful and real and include lower domestic energy prices, increasingly competitive wage rates, the benefits of greater automation, and a renewed appreciation for the value of being able to respond quickly to shifting U.S. customer demands.

    Walmart declines to say how many products it has introduced as a result of the 18-month-old Made in USA initiative. But the company says consumers can now buy everything from U.S.-made flat-screen TVs, light bulbs and towels and curtains in its stores and on its website.

    Mark (99b8fd)

  30. That quote is pure gold.

    DejectedHead (a094a6)

  31. 4/5/6…
    “Austin” should be appended with a “(TINO)” label.

    Texas In Name Only!

    askeptic (8ecc78)

  32. 29- It is very difficult to harvest those Golden Eggs after you’ve eaten the Goose.

    askeptic (8ecc78)

  33. I don’t think anyone claimed Texas was perfect. This is the state that gave the country Shiela Jackson Lee and Eddie Bernice Johnson.

    Still, it’s better than Kali (Gramps @13, don’t forget Mello-Roos). Or no doubt Illinois. I’ve never lived in Chicago, but I know people who gave up trying to run a business there because apparently they constantly rewrite the business regulations to put the squeeze on business owners. One guy paid $600 bucks for a permit to have outdoor dining when the weather was nice. The next day the city tore up the sidewalk where his outdoor dining area was permitted. So he moved it a few feet. And then the city hit him up with a fine for a couple of thou.

    Ms. Gretchin whatshername sounds like a Californian. A certain kind of Californian loves Austin. No doubt she bought her place in Austin in 1991 after she had already voted for everything that made Kali unaffordable for her. She reminds me of some ditz I saw on the news when gas went over $5/gallon in the Golden State. She looked at the pump and said, “OMG, what are they doing to us?”

    What are they doing to you, lady? What are you doing to you. Again, I’d bet $100 bucks that she had voted for every economy killing clean air regulation or every pol who promised to clean the air, even though past a certain point when the air is already clean there is no benefit to cleaning it further. But to prove she’s a good person she’ll vote for cleaner air because, how can you be against clean air? Only planet raping corporatists and Republicans are against clean air, so most kalifornians will vote for cleaner than clean air just to prove they’re not planet raping corporatists or Republicans. Now kali can’t use the gas the rest of the country can use. They need their own special blend. When there’s a fire at one of the two refineries that brew that stuff, your gas prices necessarily skyrocket. Suck it up lady.

    Which is why I suspect Gretchin whosits of being a kalifornian. I mean, who can be against parks and libraries and schools? Only planet raping corporatists and Republicans. And Ms. Gretchin has to vote for every bond issue that someone pulls out of their colon to prove she’s not one of those.

    http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/Allen-to-close-60-million-stadium-for-2014-season-for-repairs-259955381.html

    Texas loves its football, but do you really need a $60 million dollar high school stadium complete with jumbotrons?

    I vote against all of it. And I wish Kali types like Gretchin whatsherface would stay the h3ll away. She’s giving us a bad name. Hello, Texas! Some of us have learned not to s*** where we eat. Mind if I stay for a while?

    Steve57 (61329d)

  34. Liberals are idiots. They truly do not understand basic economics. I don’t know how they even balance their check books.

    Funeral Guy (afbf7b)

  35. happyfeet at 22:

    Very appropriate song. It brought a smile to my face.

    norcal (c66e41)

  36. 🙂

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  37. I was dumber than this lady. I didn’t leave New Jersey until my taxes escalated to $10,000 a year. She will have to suck it up, get a second job, eat less often, or sell her car and walk everywhere.

    miriam (30e9a5)


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