Nutty California

[cgoudie1]

Except Utah. Maybe it's all the praying ;*) . To me it actually looks more like Southern states have shorter life spans regardless of political affiliation.
I've been down there. I'm thinking food that's not so good for you, and a
culture that really really craves that food.

-Craig

[techno900]

[mac]

Techno--assuming that you have asked a legitimate question, not a troll, I'll answer. First, Randy Desoto and Western Journal are hard core conservative. Not just spin, but careless with facts. Second, there are more than 3.6 million small businesses in California. https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/CA_1.pdf

The departure of 0.05% of those businesses does not mean much, for whatever reason. There is a healthy turnover rate among entrepreneurial efforts. Reasoning by anecdote doesn't carry much weight, particularly a tiny anecdote at that. Something like 30% of new businesses fail in the first year.

With that said, there is both good and bad news in California--but much better I think than on the national level. California is an expensive state, for many reasons. The climate is really nice, especially compared to Charleston in the summer. The economy is booming, so it is relatively easy to find a job. But the lack of a supply of housing within easy range of those jobs, and the entry level education requirements for the best jobs, have blown up the cost of housing even more than the other costs of living (and wages) have increased. This has been forty years in the making, and was pretty much inevitable, and certainly can't be blamed on the current politicians. California hasn't created any new land, perhaps we need some active volcanoes near the cities? The last freeway built was, I think, 710, but precious little money has been spent on new highways since 1984. The land within reasonable commuting range is getting pretty scarce, and NIMBY policies have made it difficult to build with any substantial density. Light rail helps, and I think it was a mistake for California to turn to high speed rail rather than more transit projects. So there is no easy way out of that problem.

I also deeply regret that the Republican party became the party of anti-immigration rather than good government. Liberals in the party were excoriated by the far right for not hating all government programs instead of focusing on those that didn't work. The collapse of the party at the state level after Pete Wilson supported an anti-immigrant measure has led to the current situation where Republicans have no statewide office seat, and no Republican votes are needed to pass the state budget. That collapse has given unions, and particularly municipal employee unions undue influence in public policy.

California's budget is in pretty good shape, but like all governments, it has trouble setting priorities among competing claims and loud shouting. While I believe that tax systems should be progressive, in California (and to a lesser extent at the national level) a lot of the tax revenue is provided by high income earners, and that revenue tends to be very volatile and falls during recessions. At the same time, the middle class demands programs that they are able, but not willing, to pay for. At the national level, we can see this with the high fixed costs that go into the military, social security, and medicare budgets. Those expenses--military and security, health, and social security--account for 69.5% of the federal budget, and the bulk of the benefits go to the middle class.

It is too easy to push conservative memes about California without digging a little. My wife is from a relatively small town in Wisconsin, where the average house costs about $160,000. I wouldn't live there, even if I could sell my house in California, buy a high end house and use the left over money to visit Europe for three months in the summer and Mexico in the winter. I tried to move to Oregon when I finished grad school, figuring that it was a place I could windsurf and I could cash out my house--then for about $250,000. But when I put together a budget with the salaries I was being offered, I couldn't make it work on a cash flow basis.

By the way, I have been in and windsurfed in the Carolinas. I wouldn't live there if you paid me.

[techno900]

mac said:

[mac]

Having nothing better to do than play golf sounds like hell. 130 days of windsurfing and about 50 on a bike sounds better..

[mat-ty]

[mac]

Yes indeed, I hate the sight of confederate flags and 90% humidity. The barbecue is good, if you’re with a local but the ice tea and beer are terrible. Golf?

[swchandler]

I think that we have a big North Carolina booster here that also happens to be a very vocal California detractor. It's hard to imagine so much angst from 2500 miles away, but I guess there's something deep going on that keeps eating away.

[coachg]

[boggsman1]