Why does California have so much industry/jobs?

Quote from WS_MJH:


High taxes don't make an area better for its people; it's the quality of the people that make it better. CA/NYC et al do well because of the people; they are just so successful that they succeed despite high taxes. If CA/NY lowered their taxes and became sane economically, they'd boom.
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Success means huge infrastructure and a big population to support. The logistics of success are different from the logistics of a place with a passive economy. Two lane highways from cow pastures don't take a lot of maintenance. Eight lane highways, big suspension bridges, and large subway systems do. That means big bills, and that means (relatively) high taxes.
It's very simple actually: you get what you pay for.
 
Quote from oldtime:

yes, I think it is now widely accepted by modern monetary theorists that taxes are a drain on the economy ...
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A ridiculous statement. It all depends on how the tax is being used. The tax money used to build the US interstate highway system, for instance, was not a net drain on our economy over the long term. Our tax money used to rebuild Iraq obviously was (looking only at our economy, not theirs.) Entitlements are debatable, I think they're largely a drain but that wealth at least stays within the country.
 
Some people were mentioning FL vs. CA a while back. They don't have a lot in common, I'll agree with that, but while reading the discussion on whether a $400k house in CA is doable I just had to laugh a bit. You can get 3 bedroom houses (needing some cosmetic fixer upper stuff, granted) for literally a tenth of that price a little over an hour away from Orlando, south of Cocoa, less than 20 minutes from the beach. I am not exaggerating. Now that isn't in ritzy neighborhoods by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not talking about Cocoa's slums or north FL's redneck stuff either. (At any rate, I feel perfectly safe taking midnight walks around here, but ymmv.) No state income tax either. If you want fancier there are pockets of rich areas with high 6 and 7 figure homes here and there, weirdly often just a block or two away from 5 figure homes. I think the entire thing screams of stalled gentrification, just waiting for the economy to pick up again. Wish I had more long term capital to spare.

Finding a good job and a decent school for your kids... ehhhhh, well that's another matter entirely. But I will say the hurricane thing is overblown (pun intended.) Just make sure you buy on the high ground, ensure your shingles are ok and don't have oak trees growing right next to your house. I'll take a cat 4 over an 8.x earthquake any day of the week. Besides, hurricane parties kick ass.
 
Quote from Vinny1:

I have a family of 3 (wife and one 4 year old daughter). My wife is an elementary school teacher so she can probably find a job anywhere that is reasonably close to home, no need to commute to downtown LA. I am self employed and work from home, so no need to commute to downtown LA either.

Do you know anything about a town called Canyon Country? How is that area? It is right next to Santa Clarita (about 34 miles northwest of Los Angeles) I found many affordable homes there. Here is one for $350k...

http://www.realtor.com/realestatean...atland-Dr_Santa-Clarita_CA_91351_M22076-40261
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I'll add my 2 cents to this conversation. I've lived in California since 1981 when my dad got a job at Bechtel (SF) -- we moved from NJ. I grew up in Fremont (10 miles north of Sunnyvale) and I went to a top 5 public high school (Mission San Jose) and it was a very upscale neighborhood -- upper Middle Class to lower Upper Class. My parents bought that house for $150K in 1983 which was a shock to them since their old house in NJ sold for $30K.

Anyway the schools in California are terrible compared to other parts of the US. Unless you live in one of these "wealthy" neighborhoods like Fremont/Oakland Hills/Palo Alto/SF/Marin/etc. Even my NJ school was harder than the junior high school I went to in Fremont.

Oh by the way the Long Beach school district sucks big time. I believe the best school districts in So Cal are in the coastal areas like Pacific Palisades & Malibu. Also areas where there are more Asians tend to have good school districts like Arcadia, Monrovia and even parts of Pasadena.

I have a friend who lives in Valencia in a nice house and it is a very good area. It was $450K for 2600 sf with 4 beds & 3 baths. It seems like it has been booming in the last few years since the massive defaults. It does get hot though not that much more than say West LA or Long Beach where my parents live. He used to live in an apartment in Canyon Country and it was nice, but I think Valencia/Santa Clarita have better school districts in that area.

Also Valencia is pretty close to Ventura which is good for famliy outings since it is a poor man's Santa Barbara/Malibu and its only about 40-50 minutes driving on CA-126. Its a nice view too. Its also not too far from Hollywood if you want a bit of nightlife or good eats.

And my friend & his wife are doctors who work in San Fernando Valley and the commute isn't too bad at about 20-30 minutes but it is really bad on weekends. Unfortunately San Fernando Valley went downhill really fast in the late 1990s & 2000s when the upper middle class fled aka "white flight". Thats why SF Valley is now a ghetto with strip malls in places like Van Nuys, Panorama, Simi Valley, etc.

-Sid
 
It is like asking, how come British make the most beautiful houses, Chinese make such good food, Italians make best clothing, Indians make the best jewelry, US makes the best entertainment.

In CA, it is in that culture to innovate and it feeds on itself and attracts talent. All engineers go to CA no matter where they study.
 
Quote from ashatet:

It is like asking, how come British make the most beautiful houses, Chinese make such good food, Italians make best clothing, Indians make the best jewelry, US makes the best entertainment.

In CA, it is in that culture to innovate and it feeds on itself and attracts talent. All engineers go to CA no matter where they study.
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There's been a huge change since I moved to California 20 years ago. Back then, when Companies started-up in Calfornia, they stayed and grew their business in California. Not anymore. California has become an "incubator." Companies start here to gather brains and money, then build the business in another state or country. California lost 1.5M jobs from 2007-2009, and very few have come back.

A high-tech business near us recently relocated most of its people to Utah. Two others moved production/maufacturing to Colorado. California is not the state it used to be, and may never fully recover. I'm sure things will improve over time, but I'm afraid the glory days are gone forever.

Creating jobs? Not California: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/09/11/v-print/3897992/creating-jobs-not-california.html
 
Quote from trefoil:

Success means huge infrastructure and a big population to support. The logistics of success are different from the logistics of a place with a passive economy. Two lane highways from cow pastures don't take a lot of maintenance. Eight lane highways, big suspension bridges, and large subway systems do. That means big bills, and that means (relatively) high taxes.
It's very simple actually: you get what you pay for.
More...

See this is when you know liberals are either stupid or intellectually dishonest. No one really is against infrastructure spending but...liberals! Remember all those shovel ready jobs that Obama promised; well he didn't remember. All the stimulus money went to public sector employee salaries, pension obligations, and other waste. That is what's killing CA. CA has horrible infrastructure and worthless crumbling schools, but their public sector workers are paid the big bucks and have insane pensions, six digits for no work. That in essence is what's killing CA; see Walter Russel Mead (a Democrat) for more on this.

Brown is trying to get big tax increases through this Nov, and a ballot measure to get rid of the 2/3rds rule on taxes. If that happens, CA becomes noncompetitive for most business but the really successful ones, eg Tech, Hollywood, Finance, etc.
 
Quote from minmike:

Florida is nothing like CA. The humidity in FL is unbearable. So cal has rain ~ 10 times a year.
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Yea thats trure I forgot about that... I like all of them, and the desert and scilicon valley too. Stanford has extraordinary weather. Last summer it rained two days!
 
Quote from WS_MJH:

See this is when you know liberals are either stupid or intellectually dishonest. No one really is against infrastructure spending but...liberals! Remember all those shovel ready jobs that Obama promised; well he didn't remember. All the stimulus money went to public sector employee salaries, pension obligations, and other waste. That is what's killing CA. CA has horrible infrastructure and worthless crumbling schools, but their public sector workers are paid the big bucks and have insane pensions, six digits for no work. That in essence is what's killing CA; see Walter Russel Mead (a Democrat) for more on this.

Brown is trying to get big tax increases through this Nov, and a ballot measure to get rid of the 2/3rds rule on taxes. If that happens, CA becomes noncompetitive for most business but the really successful ones, eg Tech, Hollywood, Finance, etc.
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Yep. Absolutely.
If that were true, I should be able to pick some other high tax states and find they're just as bad off, and pick some low tax ones and find they do way better, right?

California employment vs the rest

I picked NY and NJ because I either live or have lived in both, and of course they're pretty notoriously high tax. Florida is notoriously low tax, and I picked Arkansas just because it was right next to California on the Google form, and is nice and low tax too. Indiana I picked just to have another random state that normally goes Republican.
California is highest in unemployment, but its been that way chronically since all the way back, starting in 1993 according to this graph. New York and New Jersey are in the middle, both do much better than Florida recently, and neither have lines that are chronically higher than the rest, like California does.
So whatever ails California is unique to California, and not something it shares with other high tax, large public sector states. I don't know what it is, but since you cited stuff it shares with NY and NJ, you don't either.
The only reason you guys on the right go after the public sector folks is cause they're the only ones who've managed to keep the stuff all workers had back in the sixties. Makes you all mad. Doesn't mean it causes California to have chronically higher unemployment than all the other states, because if that were the case, you'd see it in New York certainly, and you don't.
 
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