hedge wrote:And yet if you go to California, you see lots and lots of people who appear to be doing very well and seem to be very happy. Somehow it just doesn't square with your doomsday scenario. But it sounds good, at least to a certain type of mind. Oh well, carry on. The end is nigh. Repent!
California's loss of businesses in 2010 and 2011 (after leading the nation in business growth from 2000-2009) was more a function of the economy than over-regulation. It's more expensive to live in CA and all the costs associated with starting a business are higher than other places, especially the cost of bringing in talent from outside the state since they'll have to find housing. Hat in hand are the number of people who left California because of the housing boom - a number of people (including a significant portion of the Black population) moved to the south and southwest because they couldn't afford to buy homes in California. [Case in point: I have a 3 bedroom/3 bathroom home in a slightly upper middle class section of the Valley in Los Angeles. My late brother owned a 3-bed/3-bath house in an upper middle class suburb east of Cleveland. When he died in 2008, I inherited his house, which appraised at 1/21 of the value of my house in LA. 1/21 of the value of my house. 1/21 of the value of my house. 1/21 of the value of my house. Worse yet - I got ZERO offers on it at the appraised price. And no, I do not live in a million dollar house).
Utah consistently ranks as among the best states for business. According to Gaebler, Utah had roughly fifty nine thousand small businesses with at least 1 employee besides the owner in 2011. California - which ranks worst, according to Forbes - had over one point two million.
Of the top 100 companies to work for, California had 18 of them - only Texas (12) and New York (10) came anywhere close.
The issue is not the negative business climate, but rather the population density (especially in LA, SD, SF, OAK) which makes the cost of living so high.
At the height of the housing boom (2006), one of my members sold her home in Moreno Valley (aka "The Sticks", about 80 miles southeast of LA) and bought THREE houses in suburban Houston - on adjacent lakefront lots - with the proceeds of the sale. She moved her daughter's family into one house and her son's into the other.
During a press conference later, O'Mara was asked if he had any advice for Zimmerman, and he answered, "Pay me."