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California Reaps Google Windfall
theodp writes "The SF Chronicle reports that California took in a record $11.3B in personal income tax receipts in April, $4.3B more than it collected last April, attributing a significant chunk of the surprise windfall to Google employees. Fourteen of Google's top execs and directors sold $4.4B worth of stock last year, including founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, each of whom unloaded about $1.3B."
California ought to take this "windfall" and invest in the hospitals in southern California. The alarming rate at which they are closing is, well, alarming.
I'm sad to think that the government of California would be more likely to squander the cash on pet projects rather than bolstering their ability to help people unable to pay for health care.
In other news Washington state was heard to mutter -- "Damn, if only we had state income tax!"
I keep hoping that the California software industry starts outpacing the entertainment industry. That way the politicians there will start introducing legislation backed by folks like Google and not folks like the RIAA.
Of course, a few billion dollars is chump change to the entertainment industry. There's a long way to go.
The banks are offering 40- to 50-year mortgages and other financial tricks (i.e., no money down and bad credit is no problem whatsoever!) to make it even feasible to think about buying a California home.
As a CA resident, this is good news. The state as a whole has been bitching about budget gaps and junk loans and a poor credit rating for the last 5 years, well since the end of the dot bomb days. This should either a) fix the problem in a big way or b) identify the real problem in an even bigger way.
'A' will happen if the legislature and Governor use the windfall responsibly and pay off huge amounts of existing loans (there's probably 20 billion or so still outstanding) cutting them by a 3rd or more and making them manageable debt instead of out-of-control debt.
'B' will happen if they simply add an additional 6 billion or more to the existing spending budget for next year, with the hopes that somehow this will happen again in the next year or two, essentially throwing away the opportunity to be responsible.
I'm hoping for A obviously and hoping that Arnold is the one to do it.. he preached fiscal responsibility all through his campaign, he better stand up and enforce it or get thrown out trying to, no matter what they say about him (Arnold won't give money to education, he wants to pay off those fat-cat loan companies instead, think about the children!).
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
If you're from B.C. you'd know that the state of California (or I should say the people of) owes B.C. just over a billon, maybe more for electricity we had sold them. Is that going to be paid back? Good luck there, we have to try and collect it from bankrupt companies. It'd be nice to see that paid back, but no, Americans are just a bunch of bums...
How the hell can you guys afford to live there?
I own a home in San Francisco and no, I'm not making five times your median income. You can live quite nicely if you don't have to go out and buy whatever shiny new gadget is being advertised on TV. I own a car but rarely drive since public transportation gets me where I want to go. I spend roughly $20 / month on gas. In Ohio, $20 might last a week driving from one mall to another to do my shopping. You just re-prioritize your spending is all.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
That way the politicians there will start introducing legislation backed by folks like Google and not folks like the RIAA.
Did you mean to say that lobbying for expansion of the scope of software patents is preferable to lobbying for expansion of the scope of copyrights?
Mono- D'oh!
A $200,000 home in Ohio would fetch over a million dollars there.
There is, incidentally, a surprisingly healthy million dollar home market in Ohio suburbs. The reason is because people who are moved by their companies from housing markets where there is a bubble, need to put the equity they have (500k+) into their next home to avoid capital gains.
I've been wondering a lot about this lately, and I think that a certain amount of income differentials are becoming unjustifiable. There's one large company with a significant New York and Columbus presence(s) that has employees making $200k in New York who do the same thing as a $75k Columbus employee. Unless the New York employee is magically 2 1/2 times more productive, they might have to justify themselves very differently in the future.
In another *unrelated* news; Microsoft has lobbied for a "Law Against Defection" in Washington
I own a car but rarely drive since public transportation gets me where I want to go. I spend roughly $20 / month on gas. In Ohio, $20 might last a week driving from one mall to another to do my shopping.
So you only spend $5/week on gas in SF instead of $20/week on gas in Ohio. But how much do you spend per week on public transportation in SF? I pay about $5+ to BART every weekday. That's $100+/month.
cpeterso
My nephew is getting nervous. He's in the loan paperwork side of the real estate business where he gets a small percentage of each one he handles. Since he's been doing 30 x $1 million loans a month for the past year after getting out of college, he bought two properties that he wants to flip in the near future. That works fine for a hot market but not a slow one.
He would've been better off sitting on the first one for five years before buying the next one to slowly build up a rental empire. That's how a lot of Californians became rich in real estate -- one property at a time.
But how much do you spend per week on public transportation in SF?
$45 per month for a FastPass, but that's a minor point. The real issue is managing your money. Factoring in my reduced tax bill from itemizing deductions for interest payments, I am actually paying less for housing now than when I was renting. People who complain that they can't afford to buy a house either can't manage their money or expect to live in Pacific Heights.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.