Posted on 04/14/2011 7:29:15 AM PDT by freedombiz
California ranks near the bottom on some studies that claim to measure the business climate, yet the state’s economic growth is about the same as the nation’s from 1978 to 2008.
Why? some researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco wondered. PPIC found, in a study of 11 major state rankings, that the ones that measure productivity and quality of life have little relationship to a state’s economic growth. The rankings that measure taxes and the cost of doing business do correlate somewhat to a state’s job and wage growth. But get this: “The factors that have the strongest relationship to economic growth are not captured in the business climate rankings and are largely beyond the reach of short-term policy decisions. Those factors include natural advantages or disadvantages, such as weather and geography. So California’s biggest advantage really is the mild climate.
(Excerpt) Read more at jan.ocregister.com ...
Ya can’t eat the beautiful weather.
The only real assets in CA are the weather and geography. It’s a beautiful state weatherwise and scenery-wise.
That’s about it.
Lots of third-world countries have great weather too, but great weather doesn’t pay your bills.
I guess all it does is make being homeless suck slightly less, I guess sleeping in an LA alley is better than sleeping in an alley in Chicago, at least it’s warmer and probably drier.
Except in California, where the lovely weather is consistent and pleasant and just about the best thing ever.
Lots of our veggies come from Cali but they don’t have to. Personally I think there is wisdom in growing our food where it traditionally grew rather than relying on California adapted strains.
My tomatoes grew all year long down in San Diego.
That's pretty much it except for fruit trees, and then you find out Afghanistan is one of the main sources for cultivars of apples, etc.
You gotta' be kidding ~ those non-traditional sites definitely have some stuff going for them.
In other words, there’s nothing wrong with socialism if you have nice weather - business will continue to tolerate the increased government burden. I imagine the libs in Sacramento and SF are happily repeating this to themselves as they continue dismantling their future.
Their next step will be to tax the weather.
Good thing, too. The way things are going, a lot of Californians will soon have to subsist off their back yard gardens.
That’s funny, I don’t recall my great grandmother mentioning being fed by Afghanistan.
The Chicoms claim they invented the peach, but it was more likely they simply developed Afghan cherries into Apricots, got confused, and when some Iranian conqueror rode into Western China, they switched their claim from the apricot (a giant cherry) to the peach, a closer relative of the apple.
The thing to remember is that almost all of your domesticated fruits and vegetables in North America are "invasive species" ~ even squash and Jerusalem artichokes ~ they were "developed" in Kentucky (thousands of years ago) but originally came from the tropics and subtropics.
Don’t give them any ideas.
I can actually envision a Weather Tax being levied for enjoying the nice climate.
I’m not talking about their ancestral range. I’m talking about traditional crops grown in America up to the mid 1900s. Many of our traditional cool weather crops of the midwest have their orgins in Europe but we grow California adapted strains due to longer growing seasons, cheap labor etc.
Basically I’m saying that we need to decentralize and diversify enough of our crops to protect ourselves in the event of climatic swings, crop failures and other natural events.
On the other hand, people don’t seem to realize how many of our current crops come from places other than the southwest. Just using my own state as an example....
•*Michigan is the national leader in the production of tart cherries, having grown196 million pounds or 77% of the U.S. total in 2007.
•*Michigan also ranks first nationally for the production of pickling cucumbers, geraniums, petunias, squash and vegetable-type bedding plants.
•*Michigan ranks 3rd in the nation in apple production with over 770 million bushels produced in 2007. The estimated farm-level value was $97.1 million.
•*Michigan is 2nd nationally for beans, carrots, celery, plums and 3rd in asparagus production.
•*Over 887,560 tons of fresh market and processing vegetables were grown in Michigan in 2007. The state ranks 8th in fresh market and 5th in processed vegetable production nationally.
Other crops that were traditionally grown in the upper midwest were greens like Broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage etc. All forms of root crops were also primarily produced here. Things like tomatoes on the other hand are kind of hit or miss in the midwest so they do well in the south.
Virtually all the neat vegetables were developed by American Indians and were pre-adapted by them to every climate zone ~ smart Indians Fur Shur.
The European vegetables are much less interesting but they tend to have long meaningless names which is always mystifying.
East Asian veggies have a mixed background. Some are ancient but most of their main stuff this year has been brought from America or Africa over the last 600 years.
Frankly, I love peaches, apricots, watermelon and sweetpotatoes ~
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