# Sam Stone believes Trump's tweets **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2020, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633 "2020-10-10T13:47:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 59
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2021, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1164 "2021-08-27T21:04:39Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > What Sam also doesn’t get is that bringing Californians in to Texas means bringing people who: What Sam really doesn’t get is how I keep getting associated with things I didn’t say. Upon reflection, I think I get it. I think people here treat me as an avatar for their idea of conservatism, which is largely made of up nut-picking the worst examples of conservatives that make the rounds of liberal twitter and here, and arguing with me as if I hold those opinions, rather than anything I actually said. Thus I get labelled ‘extreme’, even though my own positions are notably centrist in an American context. For the record, I think people are leaving California primarily because of the high cost of living and high taxes. I never said a word about how this affects other states, so I don’t know how you concluded that I don’t ‘get it’. I’ll leave you with this: > **[California businesses leaving state accelerates in 2021](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2588666/california-businesses-leaving-state-accelerates-in-2021/)** > > A report studying business headquarter migration says California’s businesses are moving their centers of operations at a much higher rate in 2021 compared to previous years. The Hoover Institution at Stanford University on Monday released its... Another issue these blue states have is not just that people are leaving, but _who_ is leaving. Tax too much, and the wealthy leave and take the revenue with them. If you lose your tax base and replace it with low paid or unemployed immigrants, you will start to decline. Silicon Valley is ripe for disruption. I predict that it will be the next Detroit - once the powerhouse of the American economy, it succumbed to corruption, machine politics, and overly-powerful unions that drove the cost of doing business through the roof, and eventually led to the decline of the city and an exodus of car manufacturers to cheaper states. Silicon Valley is a lot easier to relocate than an auto industry. Especially with work-at-home, California could see its tax base plummet as the engineers and technologists realize they can live in a state with no income tax in a much nicer home and still do their job. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-11/richest-1-in-new-york-earning-133-billion-will-devastate-city-if-they-leave](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-11/richest-1-in-new-york-earning-133-billion-will-devastate-city-if-they-leave) Funny that on the one hand the left believes that the rich pay almost nothing in tax, but panic when the rich threaten to leave, because they need their taxes. Also, highly progressive taxes are risky, because the tax base becomes very thin. According to the article, New York City gets 42.5% of all its tax revenue from a group of 38,700 people. And if the Pareto curve applies, I’d guess that about 30% of the revenue comes from maybe 7500 people, and 25% from the top 1500 or so. And at the very top, I think there are a few billionaires that, if they moved out of state, would demonstrably damage the budget. That’s not a good position to be in. Relying on revenue from the very rich is also volatile because if the market crashes their wealth crashes with it, so you can take a nasty revenue hit in a recession when you most need the money. Diversity is a good thing, including diversity of tax revenue… ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2021, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1165 "2021-08-27T21:05:02Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > For example, I get at least 3 calls a day from people wanting to buy my home. Cash, for about twice what I paid for it 11 years ago. I paid $128k for my home in 2011 and we just had the first $300k sale in our neighborhood… and I live in what was the ‘model’ home when this neighborhood went up forty years ago. I very often get personal realtor letters/phone calls asking me to sell my townhouse in an expensive area of SoCal. We bought 37 years ago for $158.9K; our neighbor in a comparable townhouse (3 “doors” down from us) just sold for $825k. If you’re in a desirable area people still want to buy. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2021, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1166 "2021-08-27T21:06:41Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > Thanks for the newer article! People around these parts still complain loudly about Californians and Seattleites driving up the housing costs _spit!_ Whereas we just complain about the Californians… ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2021, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1167 "2021-08-27T21:08:03Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Silicon Valley is ripe for disruption. I predict that it will be the next Detroit - once the powerhouse of the American economy, it succumbed to corruption, machine politics, and overly-powerful unions that drove the cost of doing business through the roof, and eventually led to the decline of the city and an exodus of car manufacturers to cheaper states. I don’t know where you get this idea that Silicon Valley is some bastion of progressive ideology. Don’t confuse its faux “wokeness” for progressivism. Anyone who’s ever lived in Silicon Valley knows it for what it is: the epitome of go-for-the-jugular cut-throat American capitalism. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2021, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1168 "2021-08-27T21:20:23Z")
When I see stories like yours and JT’s, it’s clear that the invisible hand has lost its mind. After 1933, it wasn’t until around 1987 that we had anything remotely resembling a financial crisis with the S&L scandal – a good 54-year run. But it took only 20 years to have the next one after that. Our regulatory system isn’t keeping up with our appetite for financial “innovation”. How long before the next financial crisis? 5 years? 10? 2? ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2021, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1169 "2021-08-27T22:37:50Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Anyone who’s ever lived in Silicon Valley knows it for what it is: the epitome of go-for-the-jugular cut-throat American capitalism. I’d have to agree. We’ve got resources pooled here, so we’ve got companies. The businesses are almost universally shitty to work for, and usually poorly run to boot. A few other data points on people leaving California > **[Who’s Leaving California—and Who’s Moving In?](https://www.ppic.org/blog/whos-leaving-california-and-whos-moving-in/)** > > The primary driver of California’s population loss over the past few years has been residents moving elsewhere. And in a major shift, California is now losing higher-income residents and people with a college degree to other states. From the next article: > “To date, the pandemic has not so much propelled people out of California as it has shifted them around within it,” > **[UC Study Tracks People Leaving California](https://therealdeal.com/la/2021/03/16/did-pandemic-really-trigger-mass-exodus-from-california/)** > > More than 267,000 Californians left the state at the end of last year, compared to just 128,000 who moved in, according to a new California Policy Lab study. I was hoping that the mass exodus would tip some of these purple states blue, but alas it turns out that not all that many people left. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2021, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1170 "2021-08-28T00:03:24Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > The businesses are almost universally shitty to work for, and usually poorly run to boot. And bastions of anti-unionism. A good friend of mine who held various VP-level positions left the Silicon Valley tech company grind because she just got tired of the cluelessly casual misogyny she encountered everywhere. Even in companies where she liked her boss and team in other respects. Like being the only female executive in a meeting and constantly being completely ignored even when the discussion bore directly on her area of expertise or even immediate responsibility. Silicon Valley is very progressive in certain respects, but can be weirdly regressive in others. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2021, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1171 "2021-08-28T00:06:41Z")
Your friend’s experience is eerily familiar. Most companies are just flat out toxic. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2021, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1172 "2021-08-28T00:11:13Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Silicon Valley is very progressive in certain respects, but can be weirdly regressive in others. Nothing very weird about it. US “progressivism” is a weird mash-up of basic human rights (LGBTA, etc.) and left economic beliefs (strong unions, etc.). They’re completely unrelated concepts, so it shouldn’t be surprising to find people that support one and not the other. Especially in an area dominated by STEM professionals, who have little need for unions or general workers rights protection. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2021, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1173 "2021-08-28T00:17:01Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Especially in an area dominated by STEM professionals, who have little need for unions or general workers rights protection. To some extent. But the ‘basic human rights’ stuff is kinda at odds with the rampant misogyny. Which anecdotally at least is really widespread. [It can perhaps be attributed to a historic techie boy’s club attitude.](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-silicon-valley-so-awful-to-women/517788/) But it has been a real problem. ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2021, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1174 "2021-08-28T00:28:25Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > For the record, I think people are leaving California primarily because of the high cost of living and high taxes. I never said a word about how this affects other states, so I don’t know how you concluded that I don’t ‘get it’. > > Another issue these blue states have is not just that people are leaving, but _who_ is leaving. Tax too much, and the wealthy leave and take the revenue with them. If you lose your tax base and replace it with low paid or unemployed immigrants, you will start to decline. But that doesn’t seem to be happening. From @Sunny_Daze [cite](https://www.ppic.org/blog/whos-leaving-california-and-whos-moving-in/): > [@](#): > > people who move to California have higher incomes than those who move away. Some have argued that the opposite is taking place—that California’s relatively progressive and high personal income tax rates drive out higher-income residents. But the fact is that California has been losing lower- and middle-income residents to other states for some time while continuing to gain higher-income adults. In the past five years the flow of middle-income residents out of the state has accelerated. You say later: > [@](#): > > Relying on revenue from the very rich is also volatile because if the market crashes their wealth crashes with it, so you can take a nasty revenue hit Except wealth isn’t taxed. 🤨 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2021, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1175 "2021-08-28T00:30:02Z")
I don’t deny that there is plenty of misogyny, though in my _limited_ experience I haven’t seen it (just reports of it). I’m mostly just disputing that this has anything to do with unions. Silicon Valley does better with LGBTA rights than women’s. Some can be attributed to a boy’s club attitude, some to the fact that men are simply overrepresented in these jobs, and some due to plain toxicity. We could and should do a better job with that, but _overall_ I’d say SV does well in a human rights sense. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2021, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1176 "2021-08-31T20:56:15Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > In fact, the top 5 states with the most domestic outwards migration are: > > California > New York > Illinois > New Jersey > Massachussetts > > Blue states, all. Pretty much the bluest of the blue. And you have to go way down the list before you find the first red state. > > The top 5 states with the most domestic inwards migration are: > > Florida > Texas > Arizona > North Dakota > South Dakota Sam, where are you getting those stats? Because [the place I found listing similar data](https://taxfoundation.org/state-migration-trends/) is based on [the 2020 National Movers Study from United Van Lines](https://www.unitedvanlines.com/newsroom/movers-study-2020): > [@](#): > > United Van Lines today released the company’s 44th Annual National Migration Study, revealing in 2020, Americans continued to move westbound and southbound – and the COVID-19 pandemic factored into and accelerated many of those decisions to move. […] > > According to the study, which tracks the company’s exclusive data for customers’ 2020 state-to-state migration patterns, **Idaho** was the state with the highest percentage of inbound migration (70%) among states experiencing more than 250 moves with United Van Lines […] > > United Van Lines also conducts a survey examining the reasons behind Americans’ migration patterns as a companion to the study’s findings. This year’s survey results indicated 40% of Americans who moved did so for a new job or job transfer (down from prior years), and more than one in four (27%) moved to be closer to family (which is significantly up over prior years). > > Data from March to October 2020 also revealed the COVID-19 pandemic influenced Americans’ decisions to move. […] > > Throughout the pandemic in 2020, major metropolitan areas and hotspots, such as **New York City** (72%), **Newark** (72%) and **Chicago** (69%), experienced greater outbound migration, while lower-density cities like **Wilmington, North Carolina** (79%) and **Boise, Idaho** (75%) saw high levels of inbound moves. Right away, Sam, I notice that this data is obviously very distorted by virtue of excluding all the moves that don’t involve hiring United Van Lines movers. People who rent a U-Haul or hire another moving company are simply not represented in this data. So Sam, I think you need to be careful about the conclusions you’re attempting to draw from this survey. Not only are you trying to deduce overall “red state” versus “blue state” trends from a very flawed sample space composed exclusively of a commercial moving company’s customers, you’re speculating about motives for relocation while ignoring the survey information about them. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1177 "2021-09-11T19:54:44Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Sam, where are you getting those stats? Because [the place I found listing similar data](https://taxfoundation.org/state-migration-trends/) is based on [the 2020 National Movers Study from United Van Lines](https://www.unitedvanlines.com/newsroom/movers-study-2020): > [@Kimstu](#): > > Right away, Sam, I notice that this data is obviously very distorted by virtue of excluding all the moves that don’t involve hiring United Van Lines movers. > > People who rent a U-Haul or hire another moving company are simply not represented in this data. > > So Sam, I think you need to be careful about the conclusions you’re attempting to draw from this survey. Not only are you trying to deduce overall “red state” versus “blue state” trends from a very flawed sample space composed exclusively of a commercial moving company’s customers, you’re speculating about motives for relocation while ignoring the survey information about them. I forgot about this earlier, but want to address it. First, you _assume_ that I got the data from a trucking line, then without verifying that you went on to criticize me for my ‘source’. Unfortunately, you were wrong. I based my data on the U.S. Census. > **[State Population Totals and Components of Change: 2010-2019](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2010s-state-total.html)** > > This page features Vintage 2019 population estimates totals and components of change. If you don’t want to slog through a bunch of Excel tables, here’s a nice summary at Wikipedia: > **[List of U.S. states and territories by net migration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_net_migration)** > > This is a list of U.S. states and the District of Columbia by annual net migration. The first table lists U.S. states and the District of Columbia by annual net domestic migration, while the second table lists U.S. states and the District of Columbia by annual net international migration. There is a separate table for the U.S. territories. The term net domestic migration describes the total number of people moving to a state from another state minus people moving to another state from that state... Maybe next time check your criticism until you find out if your assumptions are correct. Especially when criticising someone for drawing conclusions with bad data. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1178 "2021-09-11T23:37:35Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I based my data on the U.S. Census. Thanks for the clarification, and the cite. If you could manage to get into the habit of citing your sources at the time when you actually make a claim about some complex social phenomenon, instead of just proclaiming an unsupported assertion and then letting the argument drag on for weeks before you bother to dig up a cite, there might be fewer such misunderstandings. I notice that what you referred to in your post that I replied to as “the last few years” is, according to the census data you cited, the entire decade from 2010-2019. Which kind of opens up the phenomenon of interstate migration to a lot more potential demographic and social influences than just the last “few years”. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2021, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1179 "2021-09-12T17:17:15Z")
Here’s a chart of net migration per capita versus Republican lean in 2020 (share of two party presidential vote minus 0.5). [![Google Photos](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/mjqhAaIvNCF2dUUtje-zIxAyZV8I6Wjvndf8aQm-NgRGSo1TqLmUdQuSCT6xTQQB-OgFHEybD5slHg69FymSH507Qe4eOgRMZ8PW8rsypQI1ZUMlVBbvikGsWph7LPhUpRpC9VndqQ=w600-h315-p-k "New item by K S") ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/KacbR9gt2TvCNwCU9) This is the trend Sam is crowing about. While here is an ever so slight trend in the direction he desires, the model explains less than 5% of the variation in net migration. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2021, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1180 "2021-09-12T17:48:08Z")
Is your chart net migration, or net _internal_ migration? California lost 203,000 people in 2019, but gained a bunch from other countries so their actual population loss was a lot smaller. But if you are trying to figure out whether people like living in a state or not, external immigration is a confounding factor you need to control. Also, ‘R Lean’ is not the metric I used. I compared the ‘bluest’ states to the ‘reddest’ states. Comparing a state that is slightly Republican to one which is slightly Democrat doesn’t really show much, and I would expect partisan differences to be swamped by other factors. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2021, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1181 "2021-09-12T17:52:16Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Is your chart net migration, or net _internal_ migration? California lost 203,000 people in 2019, but gained a bunch from other countries so their actual population loss was a lot smaller. I used “Net domestic migration rate per 1,000 inhabitants” from the Wikipedia page you linked earlier. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Also, ‘R Lean’ is not the metric I used. You didn’t use any metric at all as far as I can tell. Just a bit of cherry picking. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2021, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1182 "2021-09-12T19:01:58Z")
Actually, your graph does show what I said. Look at the most Democratic quadrant and conpare it to the most Republican quadrant. I would consider the middle section to be noise, since there are either no partisan differences or very small ones. Your graph shows that all of the ‘most partisan Democrat’ states have net outwards internal migration, while the majority of ‘most Republican’ states have net internal migration. And the ones that have net outwards migrtion have smaller amounts than almost all of the ‘most Democrtic’ states. Which is all I was claiming in my post. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2021, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633/1183 "2021-09-12T19:54:28Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Actually, your graph does show what I said. Look at the most Democratic quadrant and conpare it to the most Republican quadrant. Go take a statistics course please. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633.md?page=58) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-believes-trumps-tweets/922633.md?page=60)