5 ms·

Lol, have you ever actually been to California? The infrastructure was all built in the 1960s, and appears to have been abandoned as thoroughly as the Roman aqu

Lol, have you ever actually been to California? The infrastructure was all built in the 1960s, and appears to have been abandoned as thoroughly as the Roman aqueduct system after the barbarian invasions. Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen; most of the money goes to buying votes.

bob_theslob646 8y ago
You are not wrong, but by per capita it is less. Page 26. UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS’ OFFICES FEDERAL PUBLIC CORRUPTION CONVICTIONS BY DISTRICT OVER THE PAST DECADE (https://www.justice.gov/criminal/file/1096306/download https://www.justice.gov/criminal/file/1096306/download)
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  Funny Texas looks comparable at a glance in number of corruption convictions, and somehow manages to do this at 0% income tax rate. Kinda rankles less when you don't have to pay for it.
bhauer 8y ago
I live in California for the weather and the fact that other people are here. Government services and infrastructure are below average, in my opinion. Infrastructure is serviceable where I live (Los Angeles) but not reflective of the massive income of the state. Without the weather, Los Angeles would lose a huge amount of its appeal. All it would have left is the simple fact that a lot of people already live here. But with its weather, it's like a year-round paradise to many people.
vonmoltke 8y ago
> Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen You have obviously not spent significant time in New Jersey or Louisiana.
cptskippy 8y ago
What specifically about the infrastructure are you objecting to besides the aesthetic?
- pandaman 8y ago
  Not the OP, but the ongoing typhus epidemic in LA would be near the head of my list.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    Are medical outbreaks something that's typically considered part of infrastructure? At least in GA that's something the CDC would manage. I considered infrastructure to be roads, sewers, water mains, electrical, etc... not necessarily a medical outbreak.
    - pandaman 8y ago
      Typhus is not flu, you need to have the city in a very bad shape to get such an outbreak. Has nothing to do with medicine.
      - cptskippy 8y ago
        Typhus is a disease spread by organisms like fleas. Fleas can exist in people and animals (e.g. rats). The epidemic in LA is among the homeless and those who have been exposed to them (e.g. city workers). The problem is one primarily of policy and not due to infrastructure being in disrepair. Stating that a typhus outbreak is due to crumbling infrastructure just outright false.
        pandaman 8y ago
        Typhus is spread by rats and other animals, it is transferred to humans through parasite bites. Rats infestation is an infrastructure issue, at least for me. It could be a policy issue for native Californians though. Should we clear garbage off the streets? Outside California this is not a political question.
scroot 8y ago
Uh, have you seen what the rest of the country is like?
jrs235 8y ago
>Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen Have you ever seen Illinois?
- larrywright 8y ago
  Hey it’s been at least a couple of years since we’ve sent a governor to jail.
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    At least Illinois sends its corrupt governors to jail. https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-blogs/long-list-of-illinois-politicians-convicted-for-corruption/86da77fb-c3e4-4d08-adb2-f1c42110afe8 https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-blogs/long-list-of-illinois-... Since moving to Alabama, I learned that the county sheriffs get an "allowance" for feeding prisoners in their jails, with little accounting. It should come as no surprise that they buy the cheapest food they can find, without regard to nutrition or foodborne illnesses, and pocket the rest for their private beach-house fund.
justin66 8y ago
> Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen Don't get out much?
logfromblammo 8y ago
If anyone lives in a state that is not corrupt, please raise your hand. Don't be shy. We promise that we won't move in and ruin it for you all at once. ...No one? Corruption follows the money. Highly paid jobs follow the money. By an argument purely by correlations and assumptions, I'd say that most of the people on HN have highly paid jobs in states with plenty of people, and plenty of money to spend on the tech industry, and therefore also experience some local corruption. It's easy for a county, parish, or state to be honest when there's really nothing around to steal and no one rich enough to extort. It's only when someone shows up flashing a big wad of cash that people start to think about how to peel a few bills off of it. But then there are also plenty of places that steal as much as they can from everybody, all the time, no matter how poor, because they're the only ones around, and the system is already in place to do it. So, in short, all rich counties are a little bit corrupt, because they're where the money is. Poor counties are either all the way corrupt, because that's the only way to pay for their corruption, or not corrupt at all, because there'd be no profit in it. So by this hypothesis, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Georgia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Virginia, Washington, Michigan, and Maryland are all at least a little bit corrupt. Vermont, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Maine, Idaho, Delaware, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Puerto Rico might possibly not be corrupt, or might be sickeningly pervasively corrupt, but you don't live there, so how would you know?
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  New Hampshire is great; unlike California corruption, whatever hypothetical corruption there is here, I don't have to pay for with my tax dollars. The place is run with Prussian efficiency, so hypothetical corruption doesn't impact my daily life. It's an astounding upgrade. Unlike California, the roads work (the potholes start on 93 as soon as you cross the border to Massachusetts). Let's do a full stop there. California basically doesn't have weather, meaning the simple governmental function of road maintenance should be trivial. Here we have snowstorms (yes, yes California does too ... in the mountains where nobody lives), and somehow the roads are vastly better. Building new lanes or new stretches of highway also takes months instead of decades. Beyond that, despite the existence of copwatch in places like Berkeley, and the lack thereof here, somehow NH police are not insane stormtroopers. Housing outside of Portsmouth is zoned to be easy to build in, so property is what it should cost. Small businesses aren't regulated to death. Streets are safe despite the fact that you can walk around with a submachine gun in your pocket. Water is clean. There is no pollution to speak of. There aren't vast seasonal forest fires because the state doesn't have lunatics preventing normal forestry management practices. I've been here a year and there have been no pitched street battles between gangs of thugs over ... people talking ... in the entire state; a regular fall occurrence in Berkeley (and no doubt other towns in California). Oh yeah, and it took me 20 minutes to get a NH drivers license and register a car; something that would probably take me multiple days in California. You can talk about corruption as if it is "well this many people went to jail for corruption" -IMO that is a lousy proxy for corruption. Nothing works in California; it is "failed state" level corruption; anarcho-tyrrany except for Google/Facebook oligarch tier people who probably don't pay California taxes either. If I could bribe minor officials like I could in other failed states, it would actually be an improvement over the way California works now. California is an IRL dystopia. Nice weather though, and some interesting people live there out of what I assume is inertia and provincialism.
sdinsn 8y ago
> Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen Have you only seen California?

bob_theslob646 8y ago

You are not wrong, but by per capita it is less. Page 26. UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS’ OFFICES FEDERAL PUBLIC CORRUPTION CONVICTIONS BY DISTRICT OVER THE PAST DECADE (https://www.justice.gov/criminal/file/1096306/download https://www.justice.gov/criminal/file/1096306/download)

scottlocklin 8y ago
Funny Texas looks comparable at a glance in number of corruption convictions, and somehow manages to do this at 0% income tax rate. Kinda rankles less when you don't have to pay for it.

bhauer 8y ago

I live in California for the weather and the fact that other people are here. Government services and infrastructure are below average, in my opinion. Infrastructure is serviceable where I live (Los Angeles) but not reflective of the massive income of the state. Without the weather, Los Angeles would lose a huge amount of its appeal. All it would have left is the simple fact that a lot of people already live here. But with its weather, it's like a year-round paradise to many people.

vonmoltke 8y ago

> Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen You have obviously not spent significant time in New Jersey or Louisiana.

cptskippy 8y ago

What specifically about the infrastructure are you objecting to besides the aesthetic?

pandaman 8y ago
Not the OP, but the ongoing typhus epidemic in LA would be near the head of my list.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  Are medical outbreaks something that's typically considered part of infrastructure? At least in GA that's something the CDC would manage. I considered infrastructure to be roads, sewers, water mains, electrical, etc... not necessarily a medical outbreak.
  - pandaman 8y ago
    Typhus is not flu, you need to have the city in a very bad shape to get such an outbreak. Has nothing to do with medicine.
    - cptskippy 8y ago
      Typhus is a disease spread by organisms like fleas. Fleas can exist in people and animals (e.g. rats). The epidemic in LA is among the homeless and those who have been exposed to them (e.g. city workers). The problem is one primarily of policy and not due to infrastructure being in disrepair. Stating that a typhus outbreak is due to crumbling infrastructure just outright false.
      - pandaman 8y ago
        Typhus is spread by rats and other animals, it is transferred to humans through parasite bites. Rats infestation is an infrastructure issue, at least for me. It could be a policy issue for native Californians though. Should we clear garbage off the streets? Outside California this is not a political question.

scroot 8y ago

Uh, have you seen what the rest of the country is like?

jrs235 8y ago

>Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen Have you ever seen Illinois?

larrywright 8y ago
Hey it’s been at least a couple of years since we’ve sent a governor to jail.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  At least Illinois sends its corrupt governors to jail. https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-blogs/long-list-of-illinois-politicians-convicted-for-corruption/86da77fb-c3e4-4d08-adb2-f1c42110afe8 https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-blogs/long-list-of-illinois-... Since moving to Alabama, I learned that the county sheriffs get an "allowance" for feeding prisoners in their jails, with little accounting. It should come as no surprise that they buy the cheapest food they can find, without regard to nutrition or foodborne illnesses, and pocket the rest for their private beach-house fund.

justin66 8y ago

> Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen Don't get out much?

logfromblammo 8y ago

If anyone lives in a state that is not corrupt, please raise your hand. Don't be shy. We promise that we won't move in and ruin it for you all at once. ...No one? Corruption follows the money. Highly paid jobs follow the money. By an argument purely by correlations and assumptions, I'd say that most of the people on HN have highly paid jobs in states with plenty of people, and plenty of money to spend on the tech industry, and therefore also experience some local corruption. It's easy for a county, parish, or state to be honest when there's really nothing around to steal and no one rich enough to extort. It's only when someone shows up flashing a big wad of cash that people start to think about how to peel a few bills off of it. But then there are also plenty of places that steal as much as they can from everybody, all the time, no matter how poor, because they're the only ones around, and the system is already in place to do it. So, in short, all rich counties are a little bit corrupt, because they're where the money is. Poor counties are either all the way corrupt, because that's the only way to pay for their corruption, or not corrupt at all, because there'd be no profit in it. So by this hypothesis, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Georgia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Virginia, Washington, Michigan, and Maryland are all at least a little bit corrupt. Vermont, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Maine, Idaho, Delaware, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Puerto Rico might possibly not be corrupt, or might be sickeningly pervasively corrupt, but you don't live there, so how would you know?

scottlocklin 8y ago
New Hampshire is great; unlike California corruption, whatever hypothetical corruption there is here, I don't have to pay for with my tax dollars. The place is run with Prussian efficiency, so hypothetical corruption doesn't impact my daily life. It's an astounding upgrade. Unlike California, the roads work (the potholes start on 93 as soon as you cross the border to Massachusetts). Let's do a full stop there. California basically doesn't have weather, meaning the simple governmental function of road maintenance should be trivial. Here we have snowstorms (yes, yes California does too ... in the mountains where nobody lives), and somehow the roads are vastly better. Building new lanes or new stretches of highway also takes months instead of decades. Beyond that, despite the existence of copwatch in places like Berkeley, and the lack thereof here, somehow NH police are not insane stormtroopers. Housing outside of Portsmouth is zoned to be easy to build in, so property is what it should cost. Small businesses aren't regulated to death. Streets are safe despite the fact that you can walk around with a submachine gun in your pocket. Water is clean. There is no pollution to speak of. There aren't vast seasonal forest fires because the state doesn't have lunatics preventing normal forestry management practices. I've been here a year and there have been no pitched street battles between gangs of thugs over ... people talking ... in the entire state; a regular fall occurrence in Berkeley (and no doubt other towns in California). Oh yeah, and it took me 20 minutes to get a NH drivers license and register a car; something that would probably take me multiple days in California. You can talk about corruption as if it is "well this many people went to jail for corruption" -IMO that is a lousy proxy for corruption. Nothing works in California; it is "failed state" level corruption; anarcho-tyrrany except for Google/Facebook oligarch tier people who probably don't pay California taxes either. If I could bribe minor officials like I could in other failed states, it would actually be an improvement over the way California works now. California is an IRL dystopia. Nice weather though, and some interesting people live there out of what I assume is inertia and provincialism.

sdinsn 8y ago

> Easily the most corrupt state I've ever seen Have you only seen California?