As California goes, there goes the nation

Leaving LA

California’s unions try again to repleal Proposition 13 property tax cap.

The measure capped property tax rates at 1 percent of the sales price and limited increases to 2 percent a year (plus local bonds). Prop. 13 has been the third rail of California politics—you don't touch it, if you want to live—since then.

Californians' tax rates are among the nation's highest in almost every category, but their property tax levels have remained reasonable. Given high home values, the state still gets a hefty share of those dollars. According to a calculator from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the annual property taxes on my modest home would increase $15,000 if Proposition 13 were eliminated. I'd be moving out of state.

Liberals have long blamed Prop. 13 for destroying public services, but that's malarkey. The state's total tax take has increased significantly, even on a per-capita basis, over that time. Our government employees are the best paid in the nation, and they receive pension deals that boggle the mind. State budgets have set spending records and schools received a 66-percent funding boost over six years. Services are crummy because of bureaucratic priorities—not funding shortages.

You can consider any new property taxes as pension taxes. The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) are vastly underfunded even after years of record stock-market gains. If recession hits, they could get sucked into an inextricable hole. This is because for years cities and school districts have been passing unaffordable pension increases. Money is fungible, so new property tax dollars—however they are earmarked—will cover up this problem.

California was the first to strike back at Uber and Lyft, which threaten taxi unions, curtail Airbnb (hotel union employees) and charter schools (NEA). It certainly isn’t unique in its hostility to private, free individuals who interfere with socialists’ plans, but it’s the largest state completely controlled by Democrats. If you want a glimpse of the nation’s future under any of the Democrat presidential candidates, glance west. Then flee, if you can, but where?

Viva Agentina!

Argentinian gauchos use whips, horses to roust vegan protestors and crowd joins in.

Sod off, Swampy

(Video compilation)

The low end of the Riverside market continues to flourish

17 Miltiades Avenue, listed at $1.350 million, has sold for $1.250. A number of my contemporaries bought here in the 80s because it offered good “starter-home” pricing and lots of young parents and small kids as neighbors. That still seems to be the case.

It's not really anyone's fault, I suppose

16 Rock Ridge Avenue, which started at $11.9 million back in April, 2018, has cut its price to $7.9. The seller paid Ivan Lendle $4.8 million for the house in 1993 ($8,523,000 in current dollars), and “invested” more in updating/renovating it.

The $12 million range is pretty thin these days, as this seller has discovered, but maybe the $8 bracket will prove more hospitable. I note that the listing offers a $300,000 credit towards the building of a three-car garage, though whether that’s just an additional price cut, or the buyer would have to commit to actually building a garage is left unclear. Curious.

Riversville Road contract

350 Riversville Road, asking $2.150 million. Built in 2007 to replace an 1848 Italianate, this rather plebeian structure never appealed to me, but at least, at $2 million, it’s more attractive than the $3,187,900 these owners paid for it back in 20017.

The listing claims that unspecified “renovations” were performed in 2017; I hope they weren’t expensive.

They don't make land buyers the way they used to

58-acre lot on Sabine Farm (off Round Hill) dropped from $9.5 million yesterday to $5.9 million today. It’s all third-growth, overgrown pasture now, and 35 acres of it are reserved conservation land, but still, there are three lots to be carved out here, and you’d think they’d be worth something, Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Well if you won't abort it to save the planet, at least let us show you how to ruin the brat's life

While Bernie Sanders is busy advocating U.S. taxpayers subsidizing third-world abortions because climate change, another taxpayer-funded group has been working on the products of abortion failures:

Planned Parenthood transplains how to introduce transgenderism to your 3-year-old.

According to Fox News, the abortion giant is now advising parents on how to teach preschoolers about their bodies via their website, by telling them that “boy” and “girl” are just words:

On a page of its website titled “How do I talk with my preschooler about their body?” the abortion provider says if a child inquires why boys and girls have different bodies, a parent should introduce the concept of transgender identity.

“While the most simple answer is that girls have vulvas and boys have penises/testicles, that answer isn’t true for every boy and girl,” the organization says. “Boy, girl, man and woman are words that describe gender identity, and some people with the gender identities ‘boy’ or ‘man’ have vulvas, and some with the gender identity ‘girl’ or ‘woman’ have penises/testicles. Your genitals don’t make you a boy or a girl.”

None of this is accidental.

There's a perfect solution, and I'm surprised she doesn't mention it

Kamala Harris: “paper straws suck”.

Fortunately for Kamal, someone’s working hard to make our straws great again.

Troubles in the Northwest Passage

578 Riversville Rd

578 Riversville Road, discussed here when it was pending at $4.995 million, has closed at $4.6. Owners paid Tommy Hilfiger $7.8 for it in 2006. He, in turn, paid $5 million for it in 2000.

And 108 John Street cut its price today to $4.499 million. It started off at $6.3 in September, 2017, and maybe this will prove to be the right price.

On a far brighter note, 41 Binney Lane, in Old Greenwich, is pending. It’s currently asking $11.750 million, and I had feared that the 1895 structure was doomed to be razed and the lot sold off as land. Spectacular waterfront land, mind you, but land all the same. But not at this price; it appears that someone intends to retain the house, and that’s good news.

Riverside sale

27 Meadow Road, sold for $2.3 million. Originally asked $2.950 back in September, 2017, but you don’t always get what you want. Purchased for $2.785 in 2011, so this must have stung a bit. Still, while it takes a nice picture, the house itself was built to modest standards in 1979 when the lot it sits on was spun off of the original Marks house, and $2.3 seems an appropriate value.