Summary: In the first debates, the Democratic Party made official its lurch to the left by, among other things, advocating for open borders. This might be a key election for America, after which it changes irrevocably.
Fact-checking Donald Trump
NYT: “Fact Check of the Day: No, Democrats Don’t Want ‘Open Borders’” by Linda Qui. She is from the notorious Politifact; see an example of their partisan fiction.
Chicago Tribune: “It’s time to build a wall around the ‘open borders’ lie” by Eric Zorn.
FactCheck.org: “Democrats are not advocating open borders” by Robert Farley – “Not even the ones who are calling to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
As is often the case, the fact-checkers are wrong. Trump was right. He’s not always wrong.
Flash forward to the Democratic Party presidential debates
These formally opened Campaign 2020. There the Democratic Party made official its lurch to the left by, among other things, advocating for open borders. Abolish or hamper ICE. Once people cross the borders, these candidates will give them a path to citizenship. Probably an easy one, to get their votes ASAP. And they want to spend lots of money on this project. No price is too great.
Harris: “A mother who pays a coyote to transport her child through their country of origin, through the entire country of Mexico .…But what does Donald Trump do? He says go back to where you came from. That is not reflective of our America and our values and it has got to end.”
Gillibrand: “First, I would fight for comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. Second, I would reform how we treat asylum-seekers at the border. I would have a community-based treatment center where you are doing it within the communities where asylum-seekers are given lawyers, where there is real immigration judges, not employees of the Atty. Gen. but appointed for life and have a community-based system.”
Buttigieg: “Of course, the real problem is we shouldn’t have 11 million undocumented people with no pathway to citizenship.”
Castro: “If I were president I would sign an executive order that would get rid of Trump’s …metering policy.” {“Metering” limits the daily number of people applying for asylum.
Keep the borders open until that glorious day when…
The candidates want the borders open until that glorious day when we transform Latin America’s nations so that its people no longer wish to migrate to America. This is delusional. We cannot fix our own inner cities: after spending uncounted sums, Watts and Harlem are worse than they were in 1964. Our efforts at nation-building in Afghanistan (since 1980), Iraq, and Libya create wars and piles of rubble. Why did nobody laugh at these statements? Or cry?
As for “asylum”, those hearings are auditions. People tell stories, often coached to have the right buzzwords. Under a Democratic Party president, they would just be waved through to America.
All of the candidates spoke in glowing terms of their willingness to spend vast sums to facilitate the flow of unskilled poor migrants into America, and give them a lavish welcome.
Brooker: “On day one I will make sure that we end the ICE policies and the customs and border policies are violating their human rights. …I will make sure that we …make sure that people who are here on temporary protected status can remain here. And finally, we need to make sure that we address the issues that made Oscar and Valeria come in the first place by making major investments in the Northern Triangle.”
Castro: “On day one I would sign an executive order that would address metering and the in would follow that up in my first 100 days with immigration reform that would honor asylum claims. That would put undocumented immigrants as long as they haven’t committed a serious crime on a pathway to citizenship and we get to the root cause of the issue which is {that} we need a marshal plan for Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador.”
Biden: “We should be making sure we change the circumstance, as we did, why they would leave in the first place. And those who come seeking asylum, we should immediately have the capacity to absorb them, keep them safe until they can be heard.”
Sanders: “Picking up on the point that Joe made, we got a look at the root causes. And you have a situation where Honduras, among other things, is a failing state, massive corruption. You got gangs who are telling families that if a 10-year-old does not join their gang, their family is going to be killed. What we have got to do on day one and invite the presidents and the leadership of Central America and Mexico together. This is a hemispheric problem that we have got to address.”
O’Rourke: “We would not attain any family fleeing violence. …We would rewrite our immigration laws in our own image. Free dreamers forever from in the fear of deportation by making them U.S. citizens here in this country. Invest in solutions in Central America, work with regional stakeholders so there is no reason to make that two thousand mile journey to this country.”
Delaney: “Can we talk about the conditions to why people are coming here? …What we are going to do to actually make a difference in these countries.”
Open those borders, America!
Some of the Q&A made even clearer their desire to flood America with migrants. No numbers are too many. If they thought there were limits to our ability to assimilate migrants, they did not mention them. If they thought there were ill effects, they did not mention them.
Question: “Should someone who is here without documents, and that is his only offense, should that person be deported?”
Biden: “That person should not be the focus of deportation. We should fundamentally change the way we deal with things. …”
Swalwell: “No, that person can be a part of this great American experience. ”
Harris: “I will say, no, absolutely not. They should not be deported.”
Moderator: “Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants.”
Buttigieg’s reply: “This is not about a handout.”
Fact-check: Estimates vary, but there are roughly 2 million plus illegals in California. They generate very roughly $3 billion in State and local taxes each year. Granting them full Medi-Cal coverage, as recently proposed, would cost $3 billion per year. They generate enough in taxes to pay only for their health care, and no other services! For more about this, see Choose: open borders or the welfare State?
Conclusions
I grow increasingly certain that immigration (not, as the Wise & great believe, climate change) will be the decisive issue in Campaign 2020. Not just in determining the outcome, but in its long-term effects on America.
Both the Left and our corporate owners see open borders as the fast track to reshape America. The Left sees how a massive flow of migrants will collapse our social systems, allowing them to rebuild on the ruins – and get votes votes votes. Our plutocrats see the influx of migrants as they always have, as a way to destabilize any opposition to their rule and depress wages. Both cannot win; they will fight for control on the rubble.
In these debates, we see the Democrat’s vision of a leftist revolution for America. Why do Americans listen to these speeches – much of which are delusional – without laughter or anger? That is what most disturbs me.
Read the NYT’s transcripts of the debates on Day One and Day Two. The Left plans big experiments for America. We will be their lab rats.
Reality check
- See the hidden history of immigration into America (it ruins the narrative).
- Diversity is a grand experiment. We’re the lab rats.
- The Democrats will open the borders & make a New America.
- Prepare for mass migrants, the greatest challenge to America.
- The Left goes full open borders, changing America forever.
- Our rulers make a new people for America.
- See prescient warnings about immigration, which we ignored.
- Immigration is the key political battle of our time.
- See the lies that keep the borders open.
- Choose: open borders or the welfare State?
- The devastating economic effect of mass migration.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See about immigration.
Ideas! For shopping ideas see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
Three books about immigration, all well worth reading
See George Friedman’s (founder of Stratfor) prescient predictions about the American southwest in his 2009 book The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century
Europe is our future. If we act quickly, we can learn and avoid their mistakes. These two books provide clear warnings.
Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West
The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam
Fact-check: Estimates vary, but there are roughly 2 million plus illegals in California. They generate very roughly $3 billion in State and local taxes each year. Granting them full Medi-Cal coverage, as recently proposed, would cost $3 billion per year. They generate enough in taxes to pay only for their health care, and no other services! For more about this, see Choose: open borders or the welfare State?
I truly believe some democrats think they can borrow the money and enough for green energy ect and it will all be OK.
My fear is not the migrants or the debt, it is the rise of the the right, nationalism or whatever that sweeps the nations of the west into civil war or just war.
Just a Guy,
Of course you worry only about right-wing nationalism. That’s all the major media talk about.
I suggest you see the posts cited here about the likely effects of open borders. You’ll learn about things the major news media don’t mention.
https://www.bookdepository.com/Fascism-for-the-Million/9781910881545
I fear someone like this will rise up and say the same things.
https://www.bookdepository.com/Fascism-for-Million-Oswald-Mosley/9781910881545
With these solutions.
https://www.bookdepository.com/Manifesto-for-Breaking-Financial-Slavery-Interest-Gottfried-Feder/9781910881071?ref=pd_detail_1_sims_b_p2p_1
Open borders, falling wages for the lowest paid, rising house prices, medical costs and the recipe is not to unlike the 1930’s.
Just a guy,
“Open borders, falling wages for the lowest paid, rising house prices, medical costs and the recipe is not to unlike the 1930’s.”
You’ve been reading the news again. In the 1930s there was deflation (devastating to people with debts, which rose in value), falling wages, and 25% unemployment. Now we’re in the longest economic expansion in US history. Its benefits are not distributed equally, but it’s not the hellish environment you describe.
My fear is that open borders will push wages down, especially for the lowest paid that compete for those same jobs. This is happening,
More people push up rents, S and D.
Immigrants from a third world country tend to have poorer health – that will soak up a lot of medical dollars.
Trump has done wonders,but he can see gangs, drugs and numbers undoing these achievements?
Just a guy,
Magnitudes matter – the factor that doomster gurus almost always ignore. None of those things are sufficiently large to cause large scale damage to America. Much more serious will be the cultural and social damage from the creation of an unassimilated underclass (in addition to our existing one), plus the loss of the social cohesion that has been America’s greatest strength.
“Trump has done wonders”
Trump has done just what any GOP president would have done: cut regulations, attack unions, and cut taxes for the rich. He has done no “wonders.”
There is also businesses excluding conservatives:
As well as a restaurant worker who spat on Eric Trump:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7185189/Cocktail-lounge-employee-SPAT-Eric-Trump-placed-leave.html
So this divide will help to cause more social upheaval.
info,
“So this divide will help to cause more social upheaval.”
We’ve had intense political polarization before. There were actual battles over unions organizing efforts. We’ve had outbreaks of large-scale local violence against African-Americans. then there was 1965 – 1975, with large scale violence both political and racial. Bombings, riots, the national guard in the streets.
What we have now is an apathetic passive people (we just like to think we’re big and bad, on the verge of grabbing our guns or protesting on the street).
The news media scoop up every tiny local event and broadcast it, whereas 50 years ago these might appear in the village newspaper. Color me skeptical that we’re capable of action. Perhaps we’ll just whine, like an abused dog. That’s what the leaders of the Left and Right assume.
“What we have now is an apathetic passive people (we just like to think we’re big and bad, on the verge of grabbing our guns or protesting on the street).
The news media scoop up every tiny local event and broadcast it, whereas 50 years ago these might appear in the village newspaper. Color me skeptical that we’re capable of action. Perhaps we’ll just whine, like an abused dog. That’s what the leaders of the Left and Right assume.”
Does chase bank closing conservative bank accounts?
And mastercard doing similar actions fit into that same pattern?
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/visa-mastercard-cut-off-all-credit-card-donations-to-us-says-us-conservativ
https://dailycaller.com/2018/09/04/mastercard-conservative-nonprofits/
Recent action by NGO’s to pressure mastercard to cut off service:
https://www.jpost.com/International/NGOs-attempt-to-hold-MasterCard-accountable-for-servicing-neo-Nazi-group-593745
As exaggerations by media and much ado about nothing?
It is incredible how brainwashed many people are, and continually point to our so-called immigrant past and values. Well, I keep telling them the data (as you always post lots of it) do not support this myth.
Every country at some point was a country of immigrants, but times evolve. We must put America first to protect our western culture. Unfortunately, the President has few allies that support what the people want done, enforcement of our immigration laws and secure borders. The left has waged a brilliant campaign, anyone that disagrees is labeled a racist or bigot when in reality is about economics and security. But until the American middle class wake up and vote for more America first politicians, this will only get worse. Thank you for a great and relevant post.
Don,
Don’t forget the other side of the equation. Trump wasn’t able to get anything through a GOP-run Congress to slow the flow of migrants. Open borders is a bipartisan policy. Busiensses want cheap labor, and open borders is the fast track to that.
This is an example of what I’ve so often said: both Left and Right (not fringes, but broadly speaking) are working against us. That is a peril unique in our history. Only large-scale political mobilization can put America back on track.
That is one thing I have never understood, you have these extremely large agribusinesses and builders that use cheap illegal immigrant labor and everyone knows who they are, yet instead of going after them and targeting the demand side for this issue, everyone gets focused on the people coming here.
This makes it into an identity politics issue and plays on the sympathies of Americans towards the plight of people seeking a better life. All to the benefit of those that want to continue the status quo.
I guarantee you that if you make it a felony punishable by actual jail-time, to hire a person without e-verify or allow subcontractors to provide you labor without verification, then the demand for this sort of labor is going to go down dramatically.
You couple that with effective barriers and border security and you can stem the tide without getting into unhelpful rhetoric about immigrants.
Dave,
“instead of going after them and targeting the demand side for this issue”
Bipartisan coalitions meet the often heterogenous needs of key members. Businesses support open borders because they provide cheaper workers (and more customers). Enforcement on the demand side would ruin the game. For the same reasons, Republicans in Congress ignored Trump’s call for a wall – despite its strong support from their base. Some count for more than others.
“everyone gets focused on the people coming here.”
Who is this “everyone”? Legal and illegal immigration has been skyrocketing since the borders were cracked back open in the 1970s. Our elites have opened the borders with their usual deliberate speed, in slow increments – accompanied by massive propaganda from their tame journalists and hordes of paid shills.
, everyone gets focused on the people coming here.
“You couple that with effective barriers and border security and you can stem the tide without getting into unhelpful rhetoric about immigrants.”
It’s not a matter of just imagining solutions. Solutions to political problems must be politically feasible. That’s not going to happen.
By “everyone”, I mean both those that demonize the illegals and those that are ok with millions more just coming here and think mass immigration has no effect on a country. This does not need to be an emotional issue and I think that makes things worse in terms of finding solutions.
Why do you think it is not politically feasible to target the businesses that hire illegals vs the illegals themselves?
Would the left not be more amenable to that given their penchant to make all immigrants into victims and their general distrust of big business? Rule of law republicans and people who want to solve this crisis would also in my opinion be willing to do that.
Also, have you heard of Peter Zeihan? He is a geopolitical strategist that has worked for Stratfor. He has predicted that the border wall will be built, but not along the US-Mexico border but rather the Mexico- Guatemalan border. This seems more feasible and relevant given that net migration from Mexico has fallen to zero in recent years as they have moved towards becoming a middle income country, not to mention the fall in birthrates there.
Dave,
“Why do you think it is not politically feasible to target the businesses that hire illegals vs the illegals themselves?”
Because we are moving rapidly to a plutocracy. Although Charles Wilson (CEO of GM and SecDef for Ike) did not say ” “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country” – that has become the guiding principle of the 1% that own and run America.
“Would the left not be more amenable to that given their penchant to make all immigrants into victims and their general distrust of big business?”
Massive immigration is their fast path to a New America. Their concern for the migrants is no than that for the residents of America’s inner cities – which their policies have wrecked into hellholes.
“have you heard of Peter Zeihan?”
I talked to him a few times when he was at Stratfor (he read my articles). I know too little about Mexico to have an opinion about their immigration policy.
The Republicans tried to make the past midterms about immigration and got creamed. The Dems are smart to move away from a republican-lite stance on immigration.
Chunta,
“The Republicans tried to make the past midterms about immigration”
What is the basis for that claim? It was made by Democrats (“you racists!”), with little substantive support. The Republican Party leaders have no interest in limiting immigration – hence Trump’s inability to get the GOP Congress to support his proposals. Objective analysts found that health care was by far the top issue, but not the majority one – since there were many issues on the table.
“got creamed”
You’re reading people who lie to you. The GOP won two seats in the Senate, unusual in an off-year election.
They lost 40 seats in the House, which is within the normal range. Of the 18 off-year elections since 1946, the six worst losses (ie, the worst third) for the top party were 43, 47, 47, 53. 55, and 64 seats. The 2018 result wasn’t even in the worst third.
The GOP had several disadvantages. Worst of all, 44 House Republicans retired vs. only 20 Democrats. Also, President Trump had a 40% job approval rating. According to Gallup’s polling history, presidents with an approval rating below 50% have seen their party lose 37 House seats on average.
Follow-up to Chunta,
A less rabidly partisan, more fact-based interpretation of the 2018 Congressional election results – the GOP had been running against Obamacare since it was proposed in 2009. By 2018, people had 4 years of experience with the full package. Several things were clear to most people with clear sight.
Since Obamacare was the largest issue in the campaign by most metrics, I’m amazed the GOP didn’t lose more seats. But in tribal America, party allegiances can’t easily be shaken by facts.
This is a tough issue for me to navigate. My family is from Ecuador, I was also born there but we came to the US when I was around 3 so this is the only country I have really known as home.
One thing that has always struck me is that we never had any trouble assimilating because we lived in neighborhoods that were not predominately Hispanic or immigrant and pretty much had to adapt to our surroundings.
At the same time we all speak Spanish and retain the positive aspects of Hispanic culture (family values, religiosity, traditional gender roles).
All of us recognize, having gone back at various points to Ecuador for business our tourism, that there is a great deal of dysfunction in our country of origin.
This is not just a question of corruption in politics, or a lack of economic opportunity, there are also cultural values and expectations that come with those things that many of these bleeding heart liberals don’t understand.
In Latin America there is a sense that you are stupid or naive if you don’t do what you can to gain advantage. That means if you work for the govt you take whatever “extras” come your way and in business you will do whatever it takes to beat the competition. It even manifests itself in driving where people will cut each other off because they are afraid someone else will take advantage of them.
Further, because the whole system is so unequal and too many wealthy people obtain their success through graft or cronyism, there is a sense among the wider population that they are owed something by the government in order to make up for this. The upper classes feel guilty and have a sense of paternalism towards the lower classes, so politics is dominated by promises for handouts. This creates a societal context that makes turning Latin American countries into mini USs highly unlikely, at least in the short term.
I do not believe however that this means Hispanics can’t assimilate, and they are themselves products of Western Civilization, albeit with the influence of 16th century Spain rather than England.
We all believe in democracy, rule of law, markets, etc, its just that the societies we come from can and do condition us to act in certain ways that I don’t think are very conducive towards a republic of self-governing citizens.
The issue as you have pointed out, is that in too large a number, any immigrant group is going to retain more of their sociological modes of behavior.
While I do feel a sense of guilt for closing the door behind me so to speak, I have also given up a lot to make a life for myself in the US, I have served in the military, educated myself, and I want my kids to grow up in roughly the same country I grew up in, and with more opportunities not less.
This is why I think immigration reform is necessary, and that the idea of anyone just showing up to the border and getting in is both ridiculous and dangerous. However we must proceed with reason and not emotion, as both sides tend to do in my opinion. The democrats are 100% wrong to consider the social and cultural component, but the ethno-nationalists types are also wrong to discount assimilation.
From my travels and research, it seems that 19th century Italy, Spain, Poland, etc were similar in many respects to Latin America today, and those people assimilated just fine. I and over 30 of our family members, 1st, 2nd and now 3rd generation Americans are also proof of that.
We have to be able to speak honestly about these issues.
Dave,
Thank you for sharing your experiences and perspective! Such first-person testimony is always useful.
“While I do feel a sense of guilt for closing the door behind me so to speak”
Polls show that very few want to close the door. Rather it is restoring the limitations on immigration that worked well for this nation for a long time. Social systems have limits to changes, and the Left and Right clearly intend to change America by overwhelming our assimilation “machinery.” This is a form of attack, and likely to prove devestatingly effective.
I just hope we can get back to a rational discourse on this issue.
One thing that comes to mind reading your thoughts on this matter, is that perhaps the reason the elite are pushing more openly for open borders is that they are looking at the fertility levels and increased economic opportunities in Latin America and seeing that the excess labor willing to come here is actually diminishing on its own.
However, if all of a sudden you make it extremely easy to come, and offer all sorts of incentives like California is doing, then you will continue to have a steady flow of cheap labor.
They are out babying citizens and in the end tribes will pick their own tribe members over non-tribe members of the same party. In other words they have already started to turn on their fellow moron white liberal members. I gotta say I kind of enjoy it.
I want what’s best for my fellow citizens and country and they ain’t it.
There is little doubt that in a few short years that whites are going to be shown the door in the Democrat party. They will still be expected to vote Democrat and to write checks for the party, but they can forget about white candidates.
Frank,
That’s already true of white men. The Democratic Party’s activists hate with a passion that a white male is leading in the primary polls. They will do whatever necessary to see that a candidate with acceptable gender and race wins.
As I have written, more interesting is the changing status of black men on the Left. They’re moving to the bottom of the barrel (again). When they realize this, things might change.
This is the sort of fear/emotion based argument I think is counterproductive. Hispanics are not out babying citizens, second and third generation Hispanic immigrants have a fertility rate about the same as White Americans.
Additionally, El Salvador and Nicaragua have birth rates of around replacement level. Colombia has a fertility rate the same as the US.
So the problem is not in any way that you are going to have White people eliminated in this Country, or even become a minority in the near future, unless of course you have mass migration.
Also, we Hispanics do not fit within the Black/White dynamic that has existed in the US. We are as likely to stick together based on some ethnic identity as French and Germans are in Europe. This is because Hispanic is a cultural marker, not an ethnic one.
It is also because unlike Black people who for obvious reasons are unable to trace their ancestry back to any one country in Africa, Latinos do have identifiable ancestry and so are more likely to group along national origin lines than some wider Hispanic identity or tribe.
In some ways this is worse for the country because if assimilation breaks down as Larry warns, you wont have Hispanics vs Blacks vs Whites, you’ll have tons of little enclaves of Salvadorans vs Mexicans vs Colombians, etc.
Yet this scenario won’t happen if we can create better upward mobility for all Americans, cut down the plutocracy, and push back against this de-facto open borders nonsense.
Trust me, no one wants to live in a low-income neighborhood if they can help it and the first thing people do when they can is move towards more affluent areas. Upward mobility, a decent middle income job, these things are what strengthen assimilation and prevent the creation of multi-generational second class citizen enclaves.
It was breathtaking to see all the Dem candidates tripping over each other as they promised cash and prizes to illegal immigrants, and to listen to them pander to the illegals in halting Spanish. One can only hope that the electorate will come to its senses regarding these promises, but a lot of people are convinced that “someone else” will pay the taxes to fund these promises.
A relative of mine is a school teacher and she told me that illegals whose children are her students are pulling up the stakes in her state (which is stingy with the cash and prizes) and are moving to places like California where the gib me dats are better.
Frank,
I saw this when we lived in California (we left last summer). There is a flood of bums and illegal aliens going to California for the nice weather and benefits. It is already seeing symptoms of collapse to Third World conditions.
The flip side of this is the outmigration of middle-class households (like mine). This will eventually put the housing market under pressure. Then people will begin selling – because middle-class households in CA have most of their money in their home. This selling generates positive feedback (selling stimulates more selling). The consequences for California of falling home prices will be immense. Bigger than immense.
I fled California over 20 years ago, and every time I go back to visit I am appalled by what I see. It is painfully obvious that if one rewards illegals for coming, that one will get even more of them. I can only conclude that either the Left is insane, or they serve a foreign master (yeah, I know, why not both?).
The out migration of productive people should lead to lower home prices, but from what I have observed is that in Silicon Valley there is no shortage of newcomers who hope to hit the startup jack pot. Of course, they eventually realize, after working at a few startups that fail, that 1) They’re now too old to be desirable to the next start up, 2) It’s harder to win the start up lottery than they thought and 3) while salaries at established firms are great by national standards, they don’t go far at all in Silicon Valley and there is virtually no potential for a seven figure windfall at places like Hewlett-Packard or Intel (unless you get promoted to VP)
Anyway, I fear that locales like Silicon Valley will always be utterly unaffordable. Then again, Silicon Valley is only a small corner in California.
Frank,
“I can only conclude that either the Left is insane, or they serve a foreign master”
Not at all. The Left and Right both support massive immigration, both for rational reasons. I’ve written a great deal about this, as have others. I briefly discuss it in this post. The Right gets cheap labor. The Left gets voters and destabilizes our society – on whose ruins they hope to build a Left society.
“is that in Silicon Valley there is no shortage of newcomers ”
Everybody believes the trees will grow to the sky, that trends will continue forever, and ignores contrary signs. The SF Bay economy is supported by the stock market bubble (supporting all those unprofitable companies and hordes of doomed start-ups). Its popping will be like the last similar event – the Texas miracle, which popped after oil prices crashed in the 1980s.
“I fear that locales like Silicon Valley will always be utterly unaffordable.”
That’s a self-refuting statement. People always believe that bubbles won’t pop. Bubbles always pop.
I tend to agree that bubbles always pop, but when the last national housing bubble popped over 10 years ago, prices did not collapse in Silicon Valley. They did drop, but there was no return to affordability there as many predicted would happen. As Housing Bubble 2.0 is starting to pop I think that we will again see a softening in Silicon Valley, but house prices there will remain in the stratosphere, like they did last time. House prices will collapse in many metros, but I suspect they won’t in Silicon Valley. And by collapse, I mean return to a point where the median price isn’t more than 3X the median household income.
Frank,
That’s called the “recency fallacy.” You get better forecasting results if you look at causes. Then you’ll see that the factors driving the San Francisco Bay Area (it’s not just Silicon Valley) have already begun to turn. People predict by looking at the past, which is why most predictions are wrong.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I suppose that if enough people bail out and try to sell their shacks and leave that prices could collapse, and if the state continues on its journey into a 3rd world cesspool that enough people might bail.
But when I chat with my colleagues over there, few if any express any serious desire to leave. Yes, it’s anecdotal and I have seen the poll numbers that say 40%+ want to leave. But saying you want to leave and actually doing it are two different things. It was the same in San Diego when we left. Everybody complained about how expensive it was and that salaries were low, but when we made our move our social circle was stunned, they couldn’t believe we were actually leaving.
Frank,
You’re firmly looking at the past. The weakest point in the SFBA is the number of retired people. They have the greatest incentive to sell, and many will do so when home prices begin to decline.
FWIW, I remember people making similar arguments 10 years ago. The one key difference this time is the slide into a 3rd World State. Maybe that will make the difference this time. Or maybe not. Time will tell.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Mollie_Tibbetts
She was raped, murdered, and left to rot in a field and her own damn father said he doesnt want trump to use her story against immigrants.
That is some serious virtue signalling. I wonder if he has a sign on his front lawn saying: “Hate not welcome in this home. Immigrants welcome.”
How could he not be livid over the fact that his daughter was sacrificed (and died a horrible death) to the open borders gods?
Frank,
When we moved to Iowa from the San Francisco Bay Area, we found signs saying such things like mushrooms on people’s lawns. I thought our GPS was broken and we had turned around and traveled back to California.
Decades of propaganda – based almost entirely on lies – have succeeded in molding American’s opinion. Of course, modern Americans are (imo) exceptionally gullible – so that’s not an extraordinary achievement. We truly are a gift to our rulers.
What floors me is that “right thinking” is more important to Mr. Tibbetts than the reason his daughter was brutally murdered. Will he shake the murderer’s hand while smiling for a photo op after the killer is acquitted? It seems like there is nothing left that is surprising.
I recall reading that he said that his daughter is a hero, and not a victim. I’m fairly sure she wasn’t feeling heroic as she was violently killed.
Sven,
Tibbetts disappear 100 miles from my home. I’ve found much of Iowa to be surprisingly liberal.
Lots of positive press here about her father’s pro-migrant statement.