Posted on 08/10/2008 10:19:56 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
A new survey of corporate executives considering relocating their firms provides fresh reasons to worry about California's economy. The Development Counsellors International survey found CEOs ranked California dead-last in attractiveness among the 50 states because of its high taxes and business-hobbling regulations.
California's reputation is likely to grow even worse in the next few weeks when a 2008-09 state budget is finally adopted, given the probability it will raise taxes. But what is truly depressing to contemplate is what happens come January 2011, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger departs and is likely to be replaced by a Democrat.
We have griped about Schwarzenegger on several fronts of late. Yet at least he understands that helping business is in everyone's interest, because a healthy economy doesn't just mean good jobs but plenty of revenue for the state government.
This basic truth doesn't register with Democratic lawmakers, who recently passed bills forcing employers to offer acupuncture coverage in their health plans, micromanaging meal times for private employees, increasing regulation of medical assistants and adding new costs to managed-care programs.
Schwarzenegger vetoed all these measures on Aug. 1. Someday soon, we may have a governor inclined to go along with these assaults on business.
So our dead-last ranking among CEOs looks secure. As for state revenue, what's now a persistent headache could soon become a migraine.
One can hope that one day that Democrats from those states at the bottom of the list will thoroughly wear out their welcome.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The problem with most refugees from out of control Blue states (NY, MA, CA, MI, etc) is this:
They go to a Red state and then breath a sigh of relief for 6 months to 2 years. Then they start to look around and bemoan the lack of social services (which they don’t need) and (imaginary) social inequities. Next thing you know, they’re working overtime to recreate the Hell they left behind ‘because (in a twisted kinda way) they’re homesick for the abuse.
You see the same syndrome with battered wives and immigrants from Muslim countries.
the #1 growth industry is government.
—
Talk about a special interest/bureaucratic monster that ate the Golden Goo$e and then asked for more.. burrrp!
Capitalsts flight....
I'm not sure that I agree 100% with this statement, but your observation is very keen. I've always maintained a sharp distinction between state governments and the federal government but, the more I think about your comment, the greater the similarity I can see between the two.
It's not a pretty picture.
“So try and cool the hyperbole please.”
Neither hyperbole nor exaggeration. California is in terrible shape culturally and economically. Businesses want no part of the place (hence its rank of #50 of the fifty states as to its friendliness toward business). California government is a complete basket case, and its courts are judicial obscenities. You seem to think that outside the two major cities things are hunky-dory. Yeah? Where? No matter where one is in California one cannot escape California law and judicial decrees.
“Shall we work to save it or leave?”
I left California because it did not want to save itself. Hence, I decided the place was not worth my sweat and toil and tears. I will never give up on America, though, and there are a great many who think the same way. If California ever reverses course and wants to save itself, I will be the first to cheer her on (I still have a few family members left there, you know). I do not see anything that suggests California will take such a step; quite the opposite, actually.
I’ll second ought-six. Sacramento is a great example of how other big cities other than the coastal Communist bastions are going down the third-world liberal rat-hole.
I lived in Sacramento from 1969 to 1996. I had a home in the Pocket/Greenhaven area. When it came time for me to return to Sacramento from 12 years working and living in the SF-Oakland bay area, I skipped over the rapidly ripening cesspool of Sacramento, for quieter, more stress free rural living in Yuba City, CA.
You of all people should be aware of the third-world gutter that places like Elk Grove and Natomas are becoming. The sprawling, rapidly running down, scale model San Jose otherwise known as “Elk Grove” doesn’t strike me as a “wonderful, beautiful place to live”.
Like I said, I lived in Sacramento since 1969. Straight through to the 1970s, all up El Camino Avenue, from Fair Oaks Ave straight through to beyond the Arden Fair area, were nice middle class homes, mostly kept up reasonably well. Then in the mid-1990s, I noticed that the old Pizzarias and burger joints that the school kids frequented were closed down and begin converted into Taqueria after Taqueria.
I’m not talking way out by West El Camino and Del Paso heights — I’m talking Country Club Center and right on down to El Camino High School. I saw the chain-link fences going up around front yards and homes as new residents did their best impressions of Los Angeles and Santa Ana, as the middle class fled to Folsom, Fair Oaks and El Dorado hills, to Roseville, Rocklin, Lincoln, Loomis and Auburn.
Ah, the unspoiled little piece of paradise that is Elk Grove. Glad you love it there. You couldn’t pay me enough to live there. Pocket area was barely acceptable on the edge of the Sacramento Armpit. I completely agree with ought-six. Anywhere near a major city is rapidly descending in to unwashed liberal hell and Sacramento and Elk Grove are prime examples.
Sorry to be so sensitive to this issue, but I saw my old town of Sacramento ruined and I’m not real pleased by the irresistible decay. It was such a nice, boring, peacful, inconsequential little cow town. Now it’s just becoming LA del Norte.
Ping to my post #29 (please read)
Yeah it's worse than Bangladesh. Rotting bodies in the streets. You have serious issues you need to get over. I'm sorry your income forces you to live off the beaten path in a trailer park county. But you should try to get over your problems not take them out on everyone else.
I've traveled the ENTIRE country. The quality of life in rural Sacramento County and the foothills is luxurious compared to 80% of rest of the nation. I love my home and I love where I live. Sorry I can't join you in your frustration and anger.
I am glad you love living in Elk Grove. You couldn’t pay me enough to live there.
Uh, Free Republic is located in CA. Should they wither and die too?
btt
Some people aren't fond of horses and vineyards and wide open spaces. If you found a neighborhood with lots of concrete and shopping malls and that's what you want, then more power to you.
You could not have me more thoroughly confused. Did they raze all of the homes in Elk Grove built since 1990 and replace them all with horse farms? Did they return Elk Grove to the rural farm communities it was back in the late 1980s?
You talk about how great it is living in rural California as if we aren’t losing rural California at a rapid rate, and as if the cities aren’t growing at a rapid clip.
My entire point is that Elk Grove and Natomas are being completely overdeveloped and being flooded with poorer class people and a criminal element, hence my statement that “You of all people should be aware of the third-world gutter that places like Elk Grove and Natomas are becoming.”
Since you LIVE in Elk Grove and have seen the changes from peaceful rural life to crowded, overdeveloped, suburban sprawl without plan or limit, I would think you of all people would understand that I meant we are losing the rural character of Elk Grove and the very thing you love about it. You completely missed my point?
Elk Grove has boomed from 30,000 in 1988 to 136,000 today. That is massive growth. Most to almost all of those people live packed into suburbs where two neighbors can lean out their windows and shake hands because the houses are built so close together.
That is why I said “you of all people” should understand the decay from the traditional old life style of Elk Grove. You of all people should have seen the changes. I’m baffled you disagreed with my statement and took offense. If you value the rural aspect of Elk Grove, I would think you would have agreed with my statement.
You have me completely confused. Completely. Right now I can’t figure out if you wholly support the rapid urbanization of Elk Grove/Laguna and the infestation with lots from the criminal element or what.
You have me completely confused. Completely.
That is ostly Laguna, which while technically is part of the newly incorporated "City" of Elk Grove now, never was part of historical Elk Grove. Laguna was a bunch of swamps and wetlands and dairy grazing up until 1990. The growth in the true Elk Grove hasn't nearly been as explosive. East and West of 99 are two different worlds. As you might have guessed, I live East of 99.
I understand completely about growth and the loss of rural lands. It happened where I grew up in Granada Hills in the foothills above LA . None of that however is a manifestation of anything the typical California haters think of when they call all of California a hellhole. California is a beautiful and (yes still) prosperous state.
Oh he's "helping business" all righty, his globalist friends to the exclusion of all else. They'll do just fine picking the bones until they're the last one's left standing. Once that's done, they'll discover "deregulation" and cash in all over again.
I am greatly saddened by what has happened to California. I once thought it was the greatest place on earth (in the 1950s and 1960s), but it started to change in the 1970s, and that is why I left; it was getting bad when I left, but it is light years worse today.
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