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Maybe the innovation isn't always a good thing. I question whether it's a good thing that people are glued to their iPhones 24/7.
Innovation and creativity is absolutely, and mostly, a great thing and California beats Texas in that. Texas could do the same especially with energy but that would be to difficult. Too non traditional and objective to change.
Innovation and creativity is absolutely, and mostly, a great thing and California beats Texas in that. Texas could do the same especially with energy but that would be to difficult. Too non traditional and objective to change.
It's not difficult at all..........you might note Texas is number one in wind power generation and currently number two (as of August) in solar generation...........TX solar power will quadruple from 2020-2022 and grow from there.
There are zero planned new coal fired power plants in TX.
I'd like to take this another level deep. And for sure not every point I'll make is directed towards your comments.
A. Appears to me labeling all CA to TX transplants as left-wing voters is amiss....more than half, probably. An overwhelming majority, no way.
B. More data will roll in over the next several weeks but a few bits are.......
1. Modern political polling does not work. A derivative of that is intentionally or not for multiple election cycles polling has unfairly helped democrats significantly by functioning as a republican voter suppression tool. The DMN ran stories nearly every day about how Hagar was within striking distance of Cornyn etc. I get that it's the job of writers to sell copy but it's not their job to use bad polling information to sell bogus angles. Cornyn won easily with libertarian siphoning off ~200,000 votes.
2. There was no important blue wave anywhere especially in Texas. The democrats targeted 10 TX US House races and went 0-10, many of the 10 were wholesale vote tally beatdowns. Republicans picked up a governorship and improved their lot in state houses across the country. Dem. loses in the US House point to real trouble going forward. The best dems may hope for it is a longshot tie in the Senate.
_________________________
CAers moving to Texas and taxes........
A. I've heard people, including you IIRC, make the claim that people move from CA mostly to avoid high prices not high taxes. Simplifying of course it's more or less settled economic writ that taxes are always bundled into prices paid by consumers irrespective of taxes paid directly by consumers of course.
In other words a key contributor towards high prices in high tax areas is simply taxes. One may look around the world and where taxes are high prices will be high. Relative exceptions like Monaco and Iowa noted.
A.1. Another factor in CA, NY, NJ, and a couple of other states.......compulsory non-tax levies, administrative requirements and fees are exceptionally high. I read the other day that a new house in SF requires ~$200K in various fees and mandates. I know from having a home there for a good while that figure is almost certainly correct at least in rough terms.
B. As it happens I've done 185-190 (maybe 1.5 a weeks since COVID hit) bar-napkin real pay analyses (nominal pay vs. COL and tax adjustments and keep in mind the only pay adjustments these people get are company paid ferry passes and sometimes subway passes) for prospective movers within my wife's company - for reasons that don't matter her company/her department ends up with lots of young professionals in greater NYC and The Bay Area. A common theme is about the time these people begin families the financial pain points hit and many literally ask to be transferred to Nashville, Dallas, Atlanta, Austin, OKC, KC and several others.
These people are well paid IT types so all are above median income by a good bit............while specific tax differences may not be staggering on a yearly basis they are usually the difference between no college fund and a nicely funded college fund, a new car every couple or three years or persistent very nice vacations etc.
My favorite and I've mentioned this family before. Rough numbers - I don't have their info. in front of me.......together they made ~$220K in Bay Area, lived in a small apt. with two kids and another on the way - one with high intensity special needs, no car......his commute was an hour plus both ways (bummed ride, ferry, walk) the worst problem was the kids faced a poor suite of public school options.
They moved to a nice suburb of Nashville. She quit working. Their income fell to ~$175,000. They have a car, a nice home, his commute is about two minutes (literally) and he reports they have been able to save more. He used the extra time to get and MBA and his kids are in a much better public school system.
That's a long way of saying state and local tax burdens really do matter. A 3, 4, 5% or more, sometimes much more, spread on a solid income is serious money over time.
Given all that it's utterly reasonable for Texans, after all we've seen our state perform better than other big states for a long time and under firm republican control, blanch at people leaving others states for financial reasons driven by left wing politics..........move here and vote for what drove them here in great part.
Sorry for the rambling and typos. I had the second of two eye surgeries yesterday and the pain meds are making me even more loopy than normal.
It's reasonable to confuse correlation and causation, but not rational. Have you considered if lack of open land and competitive high tech labor markets in the Bay Area might be the cause of cost of unfavorable cost of living-to-salary ratios?
From the conversations I've had with former/current Bay Area residents, they have a problem with all the high tech companies with 1,000-10,000 highly paid employees setting up shop west and south of the bay, and the entire Bay Area has built up to the mountains in every single direction. Current property owners are vehemently opposed to any densification that would help provide some downward pressure on housing costs, yet the corporations keep growing, having record profits, and needing more space and employees.
Geographical conditions and inflation via their own success seem to be primary cost-of-living drivers. Nashville wouldn't be capable of producing its own $175K IT professional. That's only possible because of California tech expanding to Middle America where there are smaller cities and more available land.
It's reasonable to confuse correlation and causation, but not rational. Have you considered if lack of open land and competitive high tech labor markets in the Bay Area might be the cause of cost of unfavorable cost of living-to-salary ratios?
From the conversations I've had with former/current Bay Area residents, they have a problem with all the high tech companies with 1,000-10,000 highly paid employees setting up shop west and south of the bay, and the entire Bay Area has built up to the mountains in every single direction. Current property owners are vehemently opposed to any densification that would help provide some downward pressure on housing costs, yet the corporations keep growing, having record profits, and needing more space and employees.
Geographical conditions and inflation via their own success seem to be primary cost-of-living drivers. Nashville wouldn't be capable of producing its own $175K IT professional. That's only possible because of California tech expanding to Middle America where there are smaller cities and more available land.
1. I've considered all those things and accounted for them in my statement above......all the items you listed plus the tax angle I listed are real and in play.
1.1. The correlation/causation sayings are in the main for researchers and the like. We are not doing that here. The fact of the matter is correlation usually does imply causation. Smokers develop more lung cancers....smoking causes cancer etc.
2. I agree with your second paragraph as a real issues in TBA.
3. Subbing Dallas as a proxy for Nashville.....my wife has made more than that here in Dallas for at least 20 years - maybe 25. Her shop's work is 95% internal IT development not "tech" in the NorCal sense, however. Dallas has had a thriving IT sector for many years.
I'd like to take this another level deep. And for sure not every point I'll make is directed towards your comments.
A. Appears to me labeling all CA to TX transplants as left-wing voters is amiss....more than half, probably. An overwhelming majority, no way.
B. More data will roll in over the next several weeks but a few bits are.......
1. Modern political polling does not work. A derivative of that is intentionally or not for multiple election cycles polling has unfairly helped democrats significantly by functioning as a republican voter suppression tool. The DMN ran stories nearly every day about how Hagar was within striking distance of Cornyn etc. I get that it's the job of writers to sell copy but it's not their job to use bad polling information to sell bogus angles. Cornyn won easily with libertarian siphoning off ~200,000 votes.
2. There was no important blue wave anywhere especially in Texas. The democrats targeted 10 TX US House races and went 0-10, many of the 10 were wholesale vote tally beatdowns. Republicans picked up a governorship and improved their lot in state houses across the country. Dem. loses in the US House point to real trouble going forward. The best dems may hope for it is a longshot tie in the Senate.
_________________________
CAers moving to Texas and taxes........
A. I've heard people, including you IIRC, make the claim that people move from CA mostly to avoid high prices not high taxes. Simplifying of course it's more or less settled economic writ that taxes are always bundled into prices paid by consumers irrespective of taxes paid directly by consumers of course.
In other words a key contributor towards high prices in high tax areas is simply taxes. One may look around the world and where taxes are high prices will be high. Relative exceptions like Monaco and Iowa noted.
A.1. Another factor in CA, NY, NJ, and a couple of other states.......compulsory non-tax levies, administrative requirements and fees are exceptionally high. I read the other day that a new house in SF requires ~$200K in various fees and mandates. I know from having a home there for a good while that figure is almost certainly correct at least in rough terms.
B. As it happens I've done 185-190 (maybe 1.5 a weeks since COVID hit) bar-napkin real pay analyses (nominal pay vs. COL and tax adjustments and keep in mind the only pay adjustments these people get are company paid ferry passes and sometimes subway passes) for prospective movers within my wife's company - for reasons that don't matter her company/her department ends up with lots of young professionals in greater NYC and The Bay Area. A common theme is about the time these people begin families the financial pain points hit and many literally ask to be transferred to Nashville, Dallas, Atlanta, Austin, OKC, KC and several others.
These people are well paid IT types so all are above median income by a good bit............while specific tax differences may not be staggering on a yearly basis they are usually the difference between no college fund and a nicely funded college fund, a new car every couple or three years or persistent very nice vacations etc.
My favorite and I've mentioned this family before. Rough numbers - I don't have their info. in front of me.......together they made ~$220K in Bay Area, lived in a small apt. with two kids and another on the way - one with high intensity special needs, no car......his commute was an hour plus both ways (bummed ride, ferry, walk) the worst problem was the kids faced a poor suite of public school options.
They moved to a nice suburb of Nashville. She quit working. Their income fell to ~$175,000. They have a car, a nice home, his commute is about two minutes (literally) and he reports they have been able to save more. He used the extra time to get and MBA and his kids are in a much better public school system.
That's a long way of saying state and local tax burdens really do matter. A 3, 4, 5% or more, sometimes much more, spread on a solid income is serious money over time.
Given all that it's utterly reasonable for Texans, after all we've seen our state perform better than other big states for a long time and under firm republican control, blanch at people leaving others states for financial reasons driven by left wing politics..........move here and vote for what drove them here in great part.
Sorry for the rambling and typos. I had the second of two eye surgeries yesterday and the pain meds are making me even more loopy than normal.
You make good points, but I think it's important to point out that direct taxes and fees are only part of the costs that force prices up in CA. The costs of excess process and regulations, IMHO, are as great or greater - those things increase "compliance costs" a huge amount and also in many ways restrict the supply of needed goods and services, housing most of all. Frankly, what those practices do to the cost of housing reverberate throughout the CA economy, because employers are forced to pay employees more just so they can have a roof over their head, so the effect ratchets through payroll expenses. The impact is unimaginably enormous.
You make good points, but I think it's important to point out that direct taxes and fees are only part of the costs that force prices up in CA. The costs of excess process and regulations, IMHO, are as great or greater - those things increase "compliance costs" a huge amount and also in many ways restrict the supply of needed goods and services, housing most of all. Frankly, what those practices do to the cost of housing reverberate throughout the CA economy, because employers are forced to pay employees more just so they can have a roof over their head, so the effect ratchets through payroll expenses. The impact is unimaginably enormous.
Get rid of all taxes and regulations in California, and it would still be far more crowded, innovative, and expensive than Texas, just more vulnerable to earthquakes (guess what most of the regulations are about?).
It's not difficult at all..........you might note Texas is number one in wind power generation and currently number two (as of August) in solar generation...........TX solar power will quadruple from 2020-2022 and grow from there.
There are zero planned new coal fired power plants in TX.
Let’s hope that continues. Texas could be the ultimate global powerhouse for energy.
You make good points, but I think it's important to point out that direct taxes and fees are only part of the costs that force prices up in CA. The costs of excess process and regulations, IMHO, are as great or greater - those things increase "compliance costs" a huge amount and also in many ways restrict the supply of needed goods and services, housing most of all. Frankly, what those practices do to the cost of housing reverberate throughout the CA economy, because employers are forced to pay employees more just so they can have a roof over their head, so the effect ratchets through payroll expenses. The impact is unimaginably enormous.
This.
If high taxes were the source of high cost of living, Illinois and Iowa would be almost as expensive as California.
Heres why taxes keep going up in California: because they can. California will always be considered desirable and people will always want to be there because of what it has: LA, San Diego, San Francisco, worldwide tech and entertainment leadership, mountains, oceans, Yosimite, Muir Woods, and countless other things. Illinois doesnt have that and its cold so thats just another reason for people to leave.
Get rid of all taxes and regulations in California, and it would still be far more crowded, innovative, and expensive than Texas, just more vulnerable to earthquakes (guess what most of the regulations are about?).
Only along the coast. Most of interior CA is more inhospitale than most of Texas.....guessing you've never been to Johannesburg, Boron, Ridgecrest, Needles, Bishop etc. Save the preaching for someone else.
If high taxes were the source of high cost of living, Illinois and Iowa would be almost as expensive as California.
Heres why taxes keep going up in California: because they can. California will always be considered desirable and people will always want to be there because of what it has: LA, San Diego, San Francisco, worldwide tech and entertainment leadership, mountains, oceans, Yosimite, Muir Woods, and countless other things. Illinois doesnt have that and its cold so thats just another reason for people to leave.
High taxes cant keep people out of California.
Then why are so many people leaving SF?
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