When ORACLE and HEWLITT- PACKARD join TESLA in exiting, you know things are accelerating in the wrong direction.
From the article:
This dialogue was punctuated by a pithy tweet from Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who describes herself as a progressive Democrat, “F*ck Elon Musk.”
At that time, we had no idea how much that tweet, and attitude, would cost us.
Nine months later, Elon Musk is gone. He is selling all his personal real estate in the state. He is now a resident of the state of Texas. He has moved his philanthropic foundation to Texas, too.
Consider the unfathomable irony of progressive Democrats forcing Elon Musk to give up on California. Musk came to this state as an immigrant and proceeded to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) and its subsidiary, solar panel manufacturer SolarCity Corp., than all the “progressive” politicians in the state combined. Musk didn’t talk about it. He simply brought products to market that benefited the consumer, the environment and his shareholders. He should have been the poster boy for the green agenda, but instead they turned on him because he committed the ultimate sins: He made money and he questioned their authority.
This year, Musk is likely paying billions in state tax. Next year, he will be a resident of another state.
The damage goes much deeper than the tax revenue of one person. Musk didn’t just leave the state. He turned on the state. It is now his mission to get other innovators to leave as well. According to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, he is on the phone with Musk once a week, strategizing about how to get other California companies to relocate to Texas. In the last few weeks, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (NYSE: HPE) and Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) have both announced they are moving their headquarters to Texas, with other potential moves in the pipeline.
In a nutshell, California state income tax is the highest in the nation, California’s ranking for “business friendliness” is the lowest, and we have elected representatives who would lob crass, vulgar F-bombs at the people who are paying the freight.
The worst thing about the Gonzalez tweet is that no one called her on it. No one in state government had the guts to repudiate her words and show a modicum of respect for a man many call “the da Vinci of our age.” Don’t think other business owners don’t notice.
My part of California may survive simply by seceding and forming a whole new state, or joining another existing one, but that too will be fraught with difficulty, when the final impetus arrives.
The humor in it all is that it was entirely foreseeable and unnecessary.
Sounds like a winner for America, correct? NOPE. The exodus will only result in the Liberal/Socialist cultural cancer metastasizing in states where it has formerly been kept under control.
ReplyDeleteNot so fast. People who leave California are of two types, political refugees and economic refugees. The political refugees leave because of California's liberal politics and the general mess that Democrats have made of the state.
DeleteEconomic refugees leave because they have no choice if they ever want to own a home. It is economic refugees who are more likely to pose a threat by taking their liberal politics with them.
My son left for Arizona last January. My daughter left for South Carolina in December. Conservatives in both places have nothing to fear. They are political refugees and should be viewed as "reinforcements."
I, myself, may well follow them in a few months. Zillow.com beckons.
Not so fast. People who leave California are of two types, political refugees and economic refugees. The political refugees leave because of California's liberal politics and the general mess that Democrats have made of the state.
DeleteEconomic refugees leave because they have no choice if they ever want to own a home. It is economic refugees who are more likely to pose a threat by taking their liberal politics with them.
My son left for Arizona last January. My daughter left for South Carolina in December. Conservatives in both places have nothing to fear. They are political refugees and should be viewed as "reinforcements."
I, myself, may well follow them in a few months. Zillow.com beckons.
Survivormann, You and your Conservative children are just a very small minority. I live in Western North Carolina and for every Conservative person who moves here there are 1,000 Northern Liberal invaders.
DeleteShoot them. I speak as a lifelong resident of the Northeast, will probably die here. There are still a lot of us conservatives but the near total political corruption robs us of any chance of fixing things here.
DeleteAt least by my continued existence I can irritate the Hell out of the libs.
If blogger allowed embedding images I'd show you my "Stop the Steal" sign at the end of the driveway.
A 'conservative' in CA would stick out like a sore thumb in any of the free states. That is because even the conservatives in CA have been inculcated by leftist policies in CA.
DeleteSeveral recent polls have shown of the people fleeing CA are majority right leaning. Something like 60% of those that leave. Even if one trusts the polls, they would still have to consider 40% or so of those leaving CA will bring their leftist ideologies with them. That makes it up to the people in those other states to apply ample amounts of teaching to their new neighbors. I favor the percussion method of teaching.
Still, because those who are conservative by CA standards are not conservative by free state standards, they too will need some educating.
I have long urged everyone who has left, or about to leave, CA that they keep their trap shut and head down. Watch, look, and listen.
"The humor in it all is that it was entirely foreseeable and unnecessary."
DeleteA little long to be a motto, but certainly the central theme of leftist programs everywhere.
Defund the police? Nationalize health care? Stop enforcing border security? Establish an unaccountable monopoly on K-12 education? How could any of those things have unintended consequences?
Exactly. As a Texan I can tell you we don't want (or really need) the Commiefornia Kook refugees here.
ReplyDeleteGo away. Texas is closed to you.
Texas is not experiencing what Washington State went through 30 some years ago. Look at what has happened up there in recent months. Your future.
DeleteIf all of the socialist businesses leaving commiefornia settle in Austin, at least Austin is already leftist....here in Florida, the leftist assholes from New York and New Jersey seem to settle on the southeast gold coast between West Palm and Miami, but there are enough of the bastards to influence politics to the point that the state almost went for Biden....everybody, please heed this warning.....Florida is full of Pythons and gators, poisonous snakes of all kinds, and sharks in the water off the beaches....we are the home of "Florida man/woman"......crazy shit down here....stay where you are and don't come here for your own safety and well being....if you do move here, go to Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm.....they are already crazy left....hell, anybody who would vote for Debbie What thefuck'smyname Schultz is at least 50% nuts already....
ReplyDeleteA company in business since 1936 in Santa Ana relocated to Grand Prairie in 1996. The CEO told us reps that, after moving expenses, they saved $800,000 in the first year. (ATK/Vega Remanufactured Engines) No biggie, right? California only lost 60 jobs.
ReplyDeleteThere are other smaller moves going on as well. A friend just moved to Scottsdale, AZ. He lives in CA for now, but set up his virtual office in Arizona, where he will be doing business until he can relocate his household. For every big company like Oracle, there are a thousand small guys. Or ten thousand. If your job doesn't require your physical presence in CA, why stay?
ReplyDeleteDemocrats ruin everything that they govern.
Once upon ago California floated the idea of taxing money earned in California even if the individual loved elsewhere. Pensions, for example come to mind. Treat a California pension as income taxed in California even if the pensioner retired elsewhere. I expect to see these types of ideas floated again.
ReplyDeleteAlready happening. My brother recently moved from San Diego to Idaho. I told him to look into making sure his pensions and investments are completely detached from CA. He replied to say one of his neighbors (a recent CA transplant) had gotten a letter from CA advising they are applying new taxes to his investments and, oh by the way, you owe $ in personal taxes. The only proper response is to use such a letter as toilet paper.
DeleteI had my airplane in LA County for exactly nine months. I continue to receive lien notices from the county saying I owe. They keep threatening prosecution but for ten years now they have failed to act. It will be one heck of a legal action if they dare to move forward on their threats. And it will set precedent.
Several boat owners - world cruisers - have asked how should they respond to lien notices they've received from CA. These originated from one time fuel receipts when their vessel bought fuel somewhere in CA. The state assumes the property is based in CA and it is up to the owner to prove - just like me and my aircraft - that that is not the case. Meanwhile, the state continues to accrue interest on the alleged fees.
California is a black hole, stay as far away from black holes as possible.
DeleteAlso, CA is attempting to write law on being able to reach across state lines, or even into other countries, to lay taxes on individuals for ten years if that individual had been in CA for sixty days.
DeleteSure, it is a tax on income above an amount which few of us would ever see, but the problem is obvious. Say you spent a summer in CA. For ten years thereafter, your entire income would be taxable under the proposed law. (AB 2088)
The trouble with Californicas moving to other states is that they bring their socalist ideas and politics with them. Thereby ruining otherwise perfectly decent states.
ReplyDeleteThey followed boat buyers for decades demanding taxes even for boats that weren't bought in California. People took to sailing them to Mexico to conduct the sale and then told CA to get lost. State still pursued them.
ReplyDeleteBack in 2012 there were stories about California trying to recover income tax from anyone that passed through the state. There were stories of California taking money from bank accounts of people who didn't even live in the state.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar12/predatory-California3-12.html
They've tried to get income tax from people who might have passed through the state. Investigated inventors, going through their trash and trying to find a shred of evidence they could use to claim their invention was in California.
Again, this was 2012; there are similar stories from 2014. The mode is usually they steal something like a few hundred bucks from somebody that has to balance whether they take the loss of money rather than spend hundreds or thousands on lawyers and trips to California to fight it in court. Which could compound the problem. They pick on the little guys, not the companies with a floor or building full of lawyers.
Calexit, last one out turn off the lights,
ReplyDeleteIf any are running still.
The STUPID was STRONG in California...
ReplyDeleteOne on the hallmarks of liberalism/progressivism/Communism is the total inability or unwillingness to either foresee or accept the obvious outcomes of their choices and actions.
ReplyDeleteNo pity. They got what they voted for. I laugh every time I hear them talk about not having any new fossil fuel power stations in their state or they are closing them all down. There is a power plant south of my hometown in very rural Kansas, huge thing, powered by coal brought down in 150 car trains from Wyoming. Power does not go to my hometown or Kansas, or Colorado or any other close state. Ultimate destination? Yup, Commiefornia!!!
ReplyDelete