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Living in California is really like living in a developing country with all the government corruption. On top of this nonsense California has among the highest

Living in California is really like living in a developing country with all the government corruption. On top of this nonsense California has among the highest DMV fees in the country

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
The system makes much more sense if you assume the goal of government corruption is a wealth transfer to for the (politically connected subset of the) upper and middle classes and assume high DMV fees are a sin tax. The purpose of a system is what it does. I'm not saying that welfare for a subset of the people who can pay their own way and high sin taxes on essential services are good government policy (I personally think the combination is farcically regressive), just that the system makes sense if you take that viewpoint.
- bgorman 6y ago
  I completely agree, government is primarily being used as a way to make transfer payments from one group of people to another these days.
  - olivermarks 6y ago
    i live in California and collect old (literally: project, mostly european) cars. The Cal DMV are a nightmare to deal with despite the vibrant local car culture which is slowly dying for all but the rich due to the DMV and other bureaucracy. There is a fee and a form every time you exhale, it's getting worse and you have wait hours to be charged at their offices.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      Maybe the goal is just to get people to skirt the law and accept the legal ambiguity hanging over their head that comes with that? They're basically saying "fine, be a small time car flipper if you want but know that you are giving the state the authority to destroy your life at any time on whim". This is what police states that want to have the power of arbitrary enforcement do. I'm not saying CA is there yet but if you look at asinine policies from all the various states and their level of compliance it seems pretty clear that huge swaths of "perfectly fine when done reasonably" normal and common behaviors are more or less impossible to do while being legally in the clear. At what point does an unenforceable at scale policy become a backhanded infringement upon people's property rights?
      - grawprog 6y ago
        Reminds me of exactly the way the legal cannabis trade has gone in Canada. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/18/cannabis-canada-legal-recreational-business https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/18/cannabis-can... Stupidly high fees and requirements for production or sale licences, no real legal way to acquire initial stock, countless hoops to jump through and continuous fees, over top the exorbitant tax rates have made it fairly difficult for anyone without a lot of initial capital to even begin. Despite the fact there was already and still is a thriving underground grey market that gets mostly left alone until somebody needs to be made an example of.
    - costcopizza 6y ago
      Also an older euro car fan, no longer a CA resident. What are you stuck with besides standard registration? I know post 75 cars have to be smogged with factory equipment if using the stock engine (though I don’t know how the hell your average smog tech knows the factory setup for an 1980 Lancia Beta).
      - ryandrake 6y ago
        I had to sell my old euro car (to an out-of-stater) when I moved to CA because despite miraculously meeting strict CA smog guidelines it never had to meet in its decades of existence, it had non-approved (i.e. $CA stamped$) parts in it and failed the "visual". Clean-blowing, perfectly functional car, had to sell it anyway. I'm still bitter.
        olivermarks 6y ago
        you have to prep carefully for the visual...
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        >What are you stuck with besides standard registration? I've never done one for CA but some states make it hell to go from "car with no paperwork last owned by a dead person and last registered years ago" to "car with proper paperwork to sell/register" so for someone repairing old cars to flip that can cause a significant headache.
        olivermarks 6y ago
        I literally get cars from junkyards with no paperwork. Example: a wrecked, rare 76 Jaguar xj6C coupe with no paperwork, plates, keys. You have to trailer it to the police station for verification, show bill of sale etc etc, then go through months of DMV forms and fees which typically require a professional who does this bureaucracy, otherwise you will spend tens of hours waiting to go to a DMV window to be given the next hurdles to jump over. Transferring titles from purchased out of state cars is painful too. The smog issues are relatively straight forward in comparison.
jc_811 6y ago
Have you ever spent serious time actually living in a developing country? Do you truly believe California, the richest state in the US, is on par with a developing country because of their high DMV fees? Please think of those living in truly oppressive situations, or in brutal poverty, before making such generalizations.
- codelord 6y ago
  I grew up in a developing country. In some ways (e.g. quality of roads or number of homeless per mile) my home country is even better than California. Have you lived in a developing country? (Hint: It's not as bad as you think) The fact that it's kinda of comparable to California in some ways while California is collecting so much tax on top of federal budget is baffling.
  - komali2 6y ago
    I would imagine if we compared literacy rate, infant mortality rate, life expectancy, median net worth, retirement age, etc, we'd start to find some stark differences between california and a "developing country," though I'm curious what we define as "developing country." This from my time living on the border of Mexico. Everyone always talked about how the roads on our side were as bad as on Mexico's side as a criticism of texan infrastructure. It's fair, by the way, American infrastructure is a mess. But then the life expectancy was like ten years lower just a couple miles away because of an invisible line (and a fence you could easily hop over with a ladder).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - garmaine 6y ago
      This smells of untrue American exceptionalism. Being a very well traveled person with a spouse from a developing country that we travel to often, I would expect so-called “poorer” countries to do better on nearly all of those metrics you list (the exception being median net worth, unless you correct for cost of living in which case California lags behind on all metrics listed).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Living in California is really like living in a developing country with all the government corruption. On top of this nonsense California has among the highest DMV fees in the country

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

The system makes much more sense if you assume the goal of government corruption is a wealth transfer to for the (politically connected subset of the) upper and middle classes and assume high DMV fees are a sin tax. The purpose of a system is what it does. I'm not saying that welfare for a subset of the people who can pay their own way and high sin taxes on essential services are good government policy (I personally think the combination is farcically regressive), just that the system makes sense if you take that viewpoint.

bgorman 6y ago
I completely agree, government is primarily being used as a way to make transfer payments from one group of people to another these days.
- olivermarks 6y ago
  i live in California and collect old (literally: project, mostly european) cars. The Cal DMV are a nightmare to deal with despite the vibrant local car culture which is slowly dying for all but the rich due to the DMV and other bureaucracy. There is a fee and a form every time you exhale, it's getting worse and you have wait hours to be charged at their offices.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Maybe the goal is just to get people to skirt the law and accept the legal ambiguity hanging over their head that comes with that? They're basically saying "fine, be a small time car flipper if you want but know that you are giving the state the authority to destroy your life at any time on whim". This is what police states that want to have the power of arbitrary enforcement do. I'm not saying CA is there yet but if you look at asinine policies from all the various states and their level of compliance it seems pretty clear that huge swaths of "perfectly fine when done reasonably" normal and common behaviors are more or less impossible to do while being legally in the clear. At what point does an unenforceable at scale policy become a backhanded infringement upon people's property rights?
    - grawprog 6y ago
      Reminds me of exactly the way the legal cannabis trade has gone in Canada. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/18/cannabis-canada-legal-recreational-business https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/18/cannabis-can... Stupidly high fees and requirements for production or sale licences, no real legal way to acquire initial stock, countless hoops to jump through and continuous fees, over top the exorbitant tax rates have made it fairly difficult for anyone without a lot of initial capital to even begin. Despite the fact there was already and still is a thriving underground grey market that gets mostly left alone until somebody needs to be made an example of.
  - costcopizza 6y ago
    Also an older euro car fan, no longer a CA resident. What are you stuck with besides standard registration? I know post 75 cars have to be smogged with factory equipment if using the stock engine (though I don’t know how the hell your average smog tech knows the factory setup for an 1980 Lancia Beta).
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      I had to sell my old euro car (to an out-of-stater) when I moved to CA because despite miraculously meeting strict CA smog guidelines it never had to meet in its decades of existence, it had non-approved (i.e. $CA stamped$) parts in it and failed the "visual". Clean-blowing, perfectly functional car, had to sell it anyway. I'm still bitter.
      - olivermarks 6y ago
        you have to prep carefully for the visual...
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      >What are you stuck with besides standard registration? I've never done one for CA but some states make it hell to go from "car with no paperwork last owned by a dead person and last registered years ago" to "car with proper paperwork to sell/register" so for someone repairing old cars to flip that can cause a significant headache.
      - olivermarks 6y ago
        I literally get cars from junkyards with no paperwork. Example: a wrecked, rare 76 Jaguar xj6C coupe with no paperwork, plates, keys. You have to trailer it to the police station for verification, show bill of sale etc etc, then go through months of DMV forms and fees which typically require a professional who does this bureaucracy, otherwise you will spend tens of hours waiting to go to a DMV window to be given the next hurdles to jump over. Transferring titles from purchased out of state cars is painful too. The smog issues are relatively straight forward in comparison.

jc_811 6y ago

Have you ever spent serious time actually living in a developing country? Do you truly believe California, the richest state in the US, is on par with a developing country because of their high DMV fees? Please think of those living in truly oppressive situations, or in brutal poverty, before making such generalizations.

codelord 6y ago
I grew up in a developing country. In some ways (e.g. quality of roads or number of homeless per mile) my home country is even better than California. Have you lived in a developing country? (Hint: It's not as bad as you think) The fact that it's kinda of comparable to California in some ways while California is collecting so much tax on top of federal budget is baffling.
- komali2 6y ago
  I would imagine if we compared literacy rate, infant mortality rate, life expectancy, median net worth, retirement age, etc, we'd start to find some stark differences between california and a "developing country," though I'm curious what we define as "developing country." This from my time living on the border of Mexico. Everyone always talked about how the roads on our side were as bad as on Mexico's side as a criticism of texan infrastructure. It's fair, by the way, American infrastructure is a mess. But then the life expectancy was like ten years lower just a couple miles away because of an invisible line (and a fence you could easily hop over with a ladder).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - garmaine 6y ago
    This smells of untrue American exceptionalism. Being a very well traveled person with a spouse from a developing country that we travel to often, I would expect so-called “poorer” countries to do better on nearly all of those metrics you list (the exception being median net worth, unless you correct for cost of living in which case California lags behind on all metrics listed).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]