You are right. Things that are killing California is the Political climate in the state and diabolical beliefs of the ruling elites. For example. elites think business and people have unlimited capacity to pay taxes. Or it is Ok for a Mayor to tip illegals to run away from ICE or police. The legal system is being twisted. The president visited California back in 2016 as a candidate and he had to enter his hotel through back door. police did not do anything. Same thing happened in San Jose. police just watched as mobsters were thrashing people with impunity who had come to listen their candidate. People like nice weather of California and its high paying job. But the quality of people you live among plays some role too.
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GDP is a poor measure. You can increase GDP just by adding bodies. Doesnât mean living standards are rising. And even if wealth per person rises on average thereâs still the distribution of it to consider.
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Didnât I show that Texas is adding bodies way faster than California?
GDP is not a perfect measure, but itâs a pretty good proxy for the overall health of an economy. If instead it shows Texas growing on California I am sure the CA doom and gloomers would waste no time pointing that out as Evidence Number One why California is in permanent decline. Too bad data doesnât agree with their biases.
I think what is being said is that even though GDP is a good metric, it does not point to overall well-being. That is why cost of living index come into play. It is the classic question. Do you want freedom or freebie?
In Bhutan the government invented a metric called âgross domestic happinessâ. I thought only hippies bought into kooky stuff like that. Didnât know it appeals to so-called conservatives.
Pick your lane and stick to it. I saw people wheeling out anecdotes of companies moving to Texas as evidence of Californiaâ imaginary permanent decline. If you are instead talking about people having the freedom to do random crap then stop those pseudo arguments. Itâs a personal choice and I have been saying for a long time people should go live in a place that makes them happy.
We are sticking here. I , for one, am not going anywhere. Those who are destroying the state will have to think what they want to do. The momentum against the faulty âCalifornia Valuesâ is slowly and surely getting stronger. Even the governor and the state leadership has taken note of this. They just do not know how to react to the situation because their values and ethics do not provide them with right tools to handle this.
The funny thing is California population has doubled while the number of income tax payers is flat. The top 1% are paying 46% of the income tax. I guess that means California is great if you arenât the 1% paying the bills for the 99%. If you are, you get pretty sick of paying for all failed policies and political boondoggles.
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He hid in ta hole so quality of people doesnât matter. Some background, he lost a fortune messing with RE in Sugarland, Texas - probably still bitter about it, my guess is speculating on the oil boom. The city of interest now is Austin 
Texas, very diversified* economy i.e. not depending only on oil industry. *Government (Capital, research centers), music, medical, tech, UoT, âŚ
Tons of info 
gathered from this statement.
@marcus335 belongs to the 1% since he moved from SV to Seattle.
@manch and @pandeyathotmail belong to the 99%.
To translate 1% to some real numbers, I found this (itâs from 2018 so factor in inflation):
Here are the minimum household income needed to crack the top 1 percent in each state and the District of Columbia:
- Connecticut: $700,800
- District of Columbia: $598,155
- New Jersey: $588,575
- Massachusetts: $582,774
- New York: $550,174
- California: $514,694
Also this about 5% in California (this is 2019):
Hereâs what the data shows for the Golden State:
- Average top 5% income: $447,207
- Lower limit of top 5%: $250,000
Now you know where you are. 
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If you donât want to pay taxes, then move away. Simple as that.
However, looking just at the cost of living here but ignoring all the benefits is like looking at the debt of a company but ignoring all its assets. Is that how conservatives evaluate companies?
No rational people make decisions based on nothing but the costs. If so we all will be driving Kia compacts and Tesla would be bankrupt. Whatâs the market cap of Tesla again?
Some of them are doing that already. Moving away instead of paying the taxes. I am staying put.
But I belong to the bottom 0.005%. Sorry @hanera. You were wrong. I do not belong to 99%.
CA is #32 ranked among top states for business 2019. Texas is #2. Study was done by CNBC. My guess is nobody at CNBC can read or write a balance sheet i.e. assets vs liabilities for a business??
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California is so uncompetitive its GDP per capita grew faster than Texas. I love that kind of bad performance.
On the one hand we have some random synthetic benchmark in which people vote with their mouths. On the other we have concrete, rigorous measurement. Man, am I torn⌠
@manch, I do not know where you get your numbers from. But, This one says some other story.
BTW, I do not trust Wikipedia, so I go by what you say. This one wrongly lists TX at 2 and CA at 29.
California was a moderate state not that long ago. It even had a republican governor. Now itâs gone so far off the rails it is killing the golden goose. NY is doing the same, and they are determined to take the rest of the country with them.
Instead of looking at the state level, how about looking at the metro levels? Which big metros have republican mayors?
I donât think along ideological lines. Thats like arguing on religions. You picked yours and I picked mine. What I have been saying is pretty simple. California has its flaws but it also has a lot of strengths. To just zero in on its flaws but turning a blind eye to its strengths is illogical.
To flip it around you can think from the side of state officials. How come they can raise all these taxes and still can get away with it? They have access to the same stats as you and me.
While some people are obsessing over the tax burden of California, maybe, just maybe, itâs not the most salient factor for a businessâ success? It is an important factor no doubt, but there are a multitude of other factors.
It does not really matter if California is minted in GOLD. If people do not like it, that is a problem. Basic civics lesson tell that a system of governance only lasts till it has the consent of the âgovernedâ. You can sit on this forum and keep defending the numbers and drawing conclusions. And you may be right too in your own way. Actually you are right and you do make valid points from your frame of refrence. But, who cares?
Republicans were run out of big cities in the 1960âs. Now you see what we have in big cities.
You literally turn a blind eye to all flaws and point to GDP as the best measure. Now that you realize the GDP trend is swinging against California, the argument changes to subjective factors.
Right, it must be the favorable regulations that create a good business environment. Oh wait, California is one of the worst there too.
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Low tax AZ also has better roads and better government services. So, paying lots of taxes doesnât necessarily equal getting lots of benefits.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastructure/transportation
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