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2019-01-02 Home Front: Politix

Victor Davis Hanson: Wealth, Poverty, and Flight: The Same Old State of California

[National Review] Insulated coastal elites, impoverished immigrants, and a fleeing middle class

California ranks first among the states in the percentage of residents over 25 who have never finished the ninth grade‐ 9.7 percent of California residents, or about 4 million Californians. It also rates 49th in the number of state residents who never graduated from high school ‐ or about 18 percent of the current population.

In other words, about 7 million Californians do not possess a high-school diploma, about equal to the size of the nine counties of California’s Bay Area, roughly from Napa to Silicon Valley. In some sense, inside California, there is a shadow state consisting of high-school dropouts that’s larger than 38 other U.S. states.

Yet California also is home to some of the most highly educated municipalities in the United States. In fact, Palo Alto claims that 40 percent of its city population has an M.A, degree or higher, making it No. 1 among American cities with a population above 50,000.

In the same ranking of wealthiest communities, two other California municipalities, nearby Cupertino and Mountain View, were also in the top ten. How can a single state be calibrated as both so educated and so uneducated?

In many global ratings of world research universities, California has four universities (Cal Tech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UCLA) in the top 20 ‐ more than any other single nation except the United States itself. Yet the 23-campus California State University system ‐ the largest university in the world ‐ has a student body in which about 20 percent are not proficient in English. The remediation rate (unable to meet minimum college admittance standards in math and English) of incoming freshmen was about 35 percent ‐ at least until such gradations, along with required remedial education, were recently considered archaic, offensive, or worse, and thus scrapped.
This is one of Hanson's longer rants. Read the whole thing at the link. One of my favorite parts that debunks the liberal plague theory...

Posted by Abu Uluque 2019-01-02 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11138 views ] Top

#1 This reinforces my intention to never set foot in CA again.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2019-01-02 10:43|| 2019-01-02 10:43|| Front Page Top

#2 SO now we know what the end game of the open border crowd is:

Cheap serf labor to take care of all of their creature comforts and vast income from rent-seeking to enjoy their nobility

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2019-01-02 11:24|| 2019-01-02 11:24|| Front Page Top

#3 Since posting this piece by Hanson I've been thinking about some of my own observations of California farms vs Midwestern farms. I've spent some time in the Midwest. When you drive through the Midwestern countryside you see a lot of farms and most of them have a nice, big farmhouse where the farmer and his family live. These are family farms. I've even visited some of these farms, I have relatives who are farmers. I didn't see many immigrants there.

In California's Central Valley and also around Salinas I see vast fields where they grow fruits and vegetables. But it isn't pretty like in the Midwest and I see no farmhouses, not like the ones in the Midwest. The houses I see are...well, not shacks but not pretty. They're small stucco affairs and kinda dirty looking. Actually, some of them are shacks. I can't imagine a prosperous farmer and his family living in such a dump and yet these are vast, highly productive farms. I suspect the people who live in these places are not the owners of the farm but hired hands. I think the owners are all big agribusiness corporations whose shareholders live in cities. Without cheap, imported labor the California farms would simply not work. It's a whole different kind of operation from the Midwestern farms. I have no idea which method produces the most food but it's easy to see which ones look nicer from the road.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2019-01-02 12:21|| 2019-01-02 12:21|| Front Page Top

#4 Further, in California's coastal cities, there is still a thriving middle class. The worker bees must work hard and they must work smart to sustain themselves but when they do it's a pretty nice place to live. We don't live in mansions but a lot of the suburbs are very nice. The weather is unbeatable and the ocean is just down the street.

Please forgive me for being a Californian. I am politically conservative and I know other people who are too. Please don't shoot me when your army gets here. I'm on your side. Really.

Also, there is a price to pay. The taxes are high. The housing costs are astronomical. The commutes are horrendous. The other day we had to kick a homeless bum off of our front lawn. I'm sorry but the homeowners's association employs immigrants to mow the front lawn. I'm told they're here legally and I take care of my own back yard.

I know a lot of people who have either left or are planning to leave. Mrs. Uluque and I have talked about moving but all of our friends and relatives are here. I could never get her to leave.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2019-01-02 12:43|| 2019-01-02 12:43|| Front Page Top

#5 The democrat party was founded as the party of slavery. Serfdom is slavery by other means.

Posted by Angaiper Slinerong2336 2019-01-02 16:12|| 2019-01-02 16:12|| Front Page Top

#6 I know a lot of people who have either left or are planning to leave. Mrs. Uluque and I have talked about moving but all of our friends and relatives are here. I could never get her to leave.

A lot of people of a minority faith had the same position in pre-War Germany. Unfortunately for them, the way out wasn't quite as easy as it is here to cross borders (so far).

Posted by Procopius2k 2019-01-02 19:36|| 2019-01-02 19:36|| Front Page Top

#7 Abu Uluque -- I have seen a fair number of dwellings alongside the Ohio Turnpike surrounded by what appear to be gigantic fields. They don't look like typical farmhouses, not as elegant, but basically decent housing. In the summer I have seen families coming & going in the yards, they look like they could be Hispanic. Lots of clothes of various sizes hanging on the clotheslines nearby. I suspect these are for migrant laborer families. I was moving too fast to see the license plates on the vehicles.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2019-01-02 20:07|| 2019-01-02 20:07|| Front Page Top

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