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Leaving California For Las Vegas

Visbek said:
And yet, California has a solid economy, complete with a major tech region (Bay Area) and a massive entertainment industry (LA), creates new jobs hand over fist, and has the 7th largest economy in the world.

Don't let a little thing like facts get in the way of your rant.
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I don't think you know what a rant is. Solid economy? Only under the Cash-basis of accounting. One of the many accounting gimmicks California engages in, like deferring payroll expenses from June to July. Under the accrual basis, your "Wall of debt" is unsustainable and as for your so called entertainment industry, they film so much in Vancouver for a reason. Ruinous regulations make it too expensive to do so in Cali.

New jobs hand over fist? You may be at a bull**** full employment now (ignoring your laborforce participation rate) but economists are predicting much less job growth over the next two years.

1.6% for 2017 and only 0.08 for 2018. If you're counting on Prop 30 to save you, good luck if we have another recession, because Atlas will continue to shrug.

Bragging about how big you are despite trends is a bit like Fox News bragging about their viewership. People don't want to live there because of the regulations, they want to despite them, simply because its so nice there they'll suffer under them.
 
Lachean said:
I don't think you know what a rant is. Solid economy? Only under the Cash-basis of accounting.
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I'm not talking about fiscal policy, I'm talking about California's economy. Production, employment, income....

However, speaking of: California has improved its fiscal condition, and is trying hard to deal with its debt -- a process that included making tough calls like cutting spending, and raising taxes. It is certainly not 100%, but is moving in the right direction. In comparison, Kansas is slashing taxes, and has only succeeded in gouging huge holes in its own revenues, which it has to deal with by raiding transportation funds and cutting education to the bone.


as for your so called entertainment industry, they film so much in Vancouver for a reason. Ruinous regulations make it too expensive to do so in Cali.
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It's not regulations. It's that BC offered film and TV massive incentives and tax breaks, e.g. up to 40% in Vancouver. They scaled that back in the spring, so let's see what effect that has.

Meanwhile, there is still a huge amount of film activity in CA/LA, and it's still the top location for film production:
California Top Movie Production Center in 2015 | Variety

And of course, the Bay Area is not losing its prestige (or money) as the key technology center. Other areas that are growing in tech are also getting very expensive, have lots of regulations, have high cost of living, high MW laws -- notably Seattle, VA tech corridor, Austin TX....


New jobs hand over fist? You may be at a bull**** full employment now (ignoring your laborforce participation rate) but economists are predicting much less job growth over the next two years.
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So, you... ignored all the good news in that article -- like steady economic gains, job growth, and CA at full employment -- and focus exclusively on the negatives? Nice.

Fortunately, we can dispense with most of those concerns quite easily.
1) There is actually little evidence of "Rich Flight" when tax rates go up. E.g. Mark Zuckerberg didn't move to Montana when Prop 30 was passed in 2012, and he won't leave because it was extended.

2) The second issue is a national issue. E.g. if Trump starts a trade war, and it hurts the US economy, there isn't much California can do about it except get hurt.

3) Yet again, evidence is thin that companies will leave CA because MW goes up.

Maybe you ought to actually read the articles you link. Just a thought. :thumbs:
 
Visbek said:
And yet, California has a solid economy, complete with a major tech region (Bay Area) and a massive entertainment industry (LA), creates new jobs hand over fist, and has the 7th largest economy in the world.

Don't let a little thing like facts get in the way of your rant.
Click to expand...


California is in the process of killing two of their major industries, agriculture and oil. They are also in the process of killing off the ancillaries of these industries including transportation. I was staunchly against leaving the state, but the stupidity has become too much for me to bear so I am in the process of leaving. California is not going to be an economic powerhouse for much longer as the diversity of industry it had is becoming much less. That diversity was a good thing because even if a couple of sectors were going though busts other sectors were booming. California is making itself much more vulnerable to boom and bust cycles.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
Now you are being silly

Liberals tended to be against the free trade (not democrats or republicans) due to the effect on jobs (ie unions which tended to vote democrat). Big Business which used to be more republican/conservative pushed for the free trade policies which hurt the blue states.

Now as to the effect

$10/hr in California leads to a poor quality of life, in Nevada probably is better by about 20% or more. The US has no internal border controls so that people who are to work in the the jobs listed can move to Nevada, earn the same or similar wages and yet lead a better quality of life. Free trade (which is what the US has internally) can really only work with the free movement of labor as well, so people can go to where the jobs are. Luckily the US has that internally as well. So by having this specific company move to Nevada, everyone is a winner. The company keeps costs lower, the workers who move have a better standard of living as the COL in Nevada I expect is lower, and the tight housing market in California has fewer people looking for a place to stay. It makes sense for everyone
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You said it yourself that you are willing to just let jobs go from California. Other liberals are just fine with just letting jobs go all over the country, such as with Carrier. Carrier left some jobs here and now Ford has decided to keep jobs here and it looks like GM is going to keep jobs here. Liberals didn't even try, just saying that there is nothing we can do about it.
 
Visbek said:
sigh

I did read the article. Some of my questions where rhetorical, and serve to point out the ludicrous nature of his claims (e.g. is he completely unable to raise his prices to cover any of his costs, for the next 4-5 years?) Others were certainly not answered (how much would he have to increase his prices to close a $200k labor cost increase?).

It also illustrates how there are all sorts of hidden costs that someone is not considering. For example: As long as his customers are in LA, he's going to need offices in LA, and a 2000 sq ft office can easily run him $60,000 a year. He'd break even on his higher wages after 3 years.

Either someone isn't showing us all the math, or... just hasn't run all the numbers yet.



And comments like that are yet another example of the right attempting to co-opt the arguments of the left.

The goal is to ensure that workers have a living wage. $10/hour is not a living wage in Los Angeles -- at 40 hours a week, that's $20,000 a year, in one of the most expensive parts of the US. Something doesn't add up.



Since you missed it, support for minimum wage hikes is around 60%, and many states that voted for Trump also voted in minimum wage hikes -- Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, South Dakota.

Second, the fact that your candidate won the electoral college -- while losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million -- does not mean that all those voters agree with every idea that you have, or that the nation took a wild swing to the right.

Third, the proclamation by one business owner that it's leaving is not evidence of anything except that "one small business is planning to leave CA." There is scant evidence that raising minimum wages has a significant effect on employment

Fourth, as I've told you several times, and you have absolutely no excuse not to recognize: If minimum wages aren't increased at least to match inflation, then the employer is basically getting a 3% reduction in labor costs every year -- at the employee's expense. An employer is somehow incapable of just keeping wages in line with inflation is already in serious trouble, as they are poorly positioned to handle the slightest decrease in sales, or increase in any costs (like rent or energy or raw materials or advertising).

People who care about workers might be bothered to recognize that a refusal to increase minimum wages results in deteriorating pay for employees. Just a thought.
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Support for minimum wage hikes is a stupid argument. If you take a poll of who supports raising the minimum wage to $100 per hour, 60% would support that too. Why don't we take a poll of the one percenters and ask them how many are in favor of reducing their taxes?
 
Lachean said:
I thought the mentality went like this:
1. Pass ruinous idea in liberal state.
2. Businesses and rich people engage in capital flight to business friendly state.
3. Complain about backfire
3. Pass ruinous idea Federally so they can't escape it.
4. Businesses and rich people engage in capital flight to business friendly country.
5. Complain about backfire.
6. Propose new ruinous idea in a state.
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Don't really understand all that mumbo jumbo but liberals have enacted policies that backfired all the time and yet their answer to that is to double down because we didn't do enough of it.
 
PirateMk1 said:
California is in the process of killing two of their major industries, agriculture and oil. They are also in the process of killing off the ancillaries of these industries including transportation.
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The state isn't killing agriculture. A massive multi-year drought is killing agriculture. Since Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown can't summon fresh water out of thin air, the state is doing what it can -- forcing conservation and rationing water. (Note that even as I type this, CA is getting hit by numerous storms, which may provide some relief; expect a better harvest this year.)

The state also isn't killing oil. Saudi Arabia is killing the oil industry, by deliberately increasing production, sending prices to the basement, in an attempt to drive competitors out of business.

It's also not a great idea to push fracking in a state that has an epic drought problem. In addition to using up large amounts of water, it also potentially fouls ground water (what little is left...).


I was staunchly against leaving the state, but the stupidity has become too much for me to bear so I am in the process of leaving. California is not going to be an economic powerhouse for much longer as the diversity of industry it had is becoming much less. That diversity was a good thing because even if a couple of sectors were going though busts other sectors were booming. California is making itself much more vulnerable to boom and bust cycles.
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Actually, the citizens of California have made its government vulnerable to economic cycles, via good ol' Prop 13. When they held down property tax rates, they forced the state to rely on more volatile sources of income, such as sales tax and income taxes -- i.e. taxation that drops precipitously during a recession. (Property taxes are more stable.)

The economy? Not so much. CA's economy as a whole is quite diversified. Real estate, technology, manufacturing, trade, construction, agriculture, mining, professional services, tourism.... Which states are more diverse? Montana? New Hampshire? Massachusetts? Maybe Texas, but if so then only because it's got a good aerospace/defense sector, an advantage offset by a much bigger dependence on energy -- and its own drought problems.
 
Moderate Right said:
Support for minimum wage hikes is a stupid argument. If you take a poll of who supports raising the minimum wage to $100 per hour, 60% would support that too. Why don't we take a poll of the one percenters and ask them how many are in favor of reducing their taxes?
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1) You didn't respond to 90% of my post. Weak.

2) You basically said that support for policies like minimum wage hikes cost Dems in the past election. That doesn't make sense, given wide-spread support for MW hikes, and other factors.
 
Visbek said:
1) You didn't respond to 90% of my post. Weak.

2) You basically said that support for policies like minimum wage hikes cost Dems in the past election. That doesn't make sense, given wide-spread support for MW hikes, and other factors.
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There you go again with the one track mind. Liberals don't have a plan for high paying job losses in battleground and blue states (or any state for that matter) and that is why Hillary lost. Her solution was your solution, take workers who were doing better than minimum wage, let their jobs leave the country, and tell these same workers that there is a $15 per hour minimum wage job waiting for them at McDonalds (and it may not even be full time and not even with the benefits they used to enjoy). You actually want them to go from doing better than minimum wage to working AT minimum wage. Trump told them that he will stop their jobs from leaving the country and duh, I wonder why he won and Hillary lost?
 
Moderate Right said:
There you go again with the one track mind.
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You still haven't responded to most of my points, and instead go straight to straw man attacks on "liberals." No surprise there.


Liberals don't have a plan for high paying job losses in battleground and blue states (or any state for that matter) and that is why Hillary lost.
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Incorrect.

The plan is to provide better training, secondary education, adult education so people can gain the skills they will need in our changing economy. In addition, by raising taxes on the wealthy and bolstering education and safety nets, we'll better distribute income, potentially blunting some of the worst problems caused by economic inequality.


Her solution was your solution, take workers who were doing better than minimum wage, let their jobs leave the country, and tell these same workers that there is a $15 per hour minimum wage job waiting for them at McDonalds...
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:roll:

Straw man. Not worth any further response.


You actually want them to go from doing better than minimum wage to working AT minimum wage.
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Incorrect. I've said many times that the goal is NOT to shove people into MW jobs. It's to train them to do the work that the US needs.

In addition, the goal is to ensure a fairer wage for MW workers. Nothing about that says "I want more people to work MW jobs!" I'm saying that "we know people will work those jobs, and they ought to be paid fairly, and their employers should not get annual cuts in labor costs at the expense of their employees."

Meanwhile, and unsurprisingly:
• You've never shown the slightest recognition of the effect of inflation on wages
• You've demonstrated no interest in whether minimum wages are in any way fair
• You've never shown any care whatsoever for MW workers
• You've never offered the slightest shred of evidence to back up any of your claims
• You never grow tired of deliberately misrepresenting liberal views, and then attacking your own phantasms


Trump told them that he will stop their jobs from leaving the country and duh, I wonder why he won and Hillary lost?
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sigh

Yet again... He won the electoral college, and lost the popular vote by 3 million. Stop pretending he has some sort of mandate.

More to the point, promises are cheap, and he's made a lot of promises that he can't deliver. What do you think will happen in 2 or 3 years, when all those unemployed ex-factory workers in Michigan listen to Trump proclaim he's made America great again?
 
Visbek said:
The plan is to provide better training, secondary education, adult education so people can gain the skills they will need in our changing economy. In addition, by raising taxes on the wealthy and bolstering education and safety nets, we'll better distribute income, potentially blunting some of the worst problems caused by economic inequality. Are you kidding me? You want people to have better training, secondary education, and adult education so people can gain the skills they will need to work at McDonalds?

I've said many times that the goal is NOT to shove people into MW jobs. It's to train them to do the work that the US needs. But you say the work the US needs will be service sector jobs that will pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour.

In addition, the goal is to ensure a fairer wage for MW workers. Nothing about that says "I want more people to work MW jobs!" I'm saying that "we know people will work those jobs, and they ought to be paid fairly, and their employers should not get annual cuts in labor costs at the expense of their employees." Who's the judge as to what a fair wage is? Many minimum wage workers aren't even worth $7.25 per hour. On top of that, you want to trash all small businesses who can't afford huge increases to the minimum wage.

Meanwhile, and unsurprisingly:
• You've never shown the slightest recognition of the effect of inflation on wages The inflation adjusment for the 1938 minimum wage is around $7.25 per hour, exactly where it is today
• You've demonstrated no interest in whether minimum wages are in any way fair Again, who decides what is fair?
• You've never shown any care whatsoever for MW workers That's because if they want more than minimum wage then they should quit their jobs and apply at places that pay more than the minimum wage. If they want to work at a minimum wage job for the rest of their lives then they get what they wanted.
• You've never offered the slightest shred of evidence to back up any of your claims I have many times. Just because you discard it doesn't mean I haven't. I discard your arguments as well.
• You never grow tired of deliberately misrepresenting liberal views and you never get tired of presenting your biased and partisan liberal cherry picked views


Yet again... He won the electoral college, and lost the popular vote by 3 million. Stop pretending he has some sort of mandate. By electing a Republican president, House and Senate, not to mention a gaggle of governors and state houses, voters did give Republicans some sort of mandate.

More to the point, promises are cheap, and he's made a lot of promises that he can't deliver. What do you think will happen in 2 or 3 years, when all those unemployed ex-factory workers in Michigan listen to Trump proclaim he's made America great again? Why don't you just wait until that happens and then say I told you so. Right now you have zero proof that that is going to happen, only your biased partisan liberal misrepresented talking points.
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.....
 
Visbek said:
The state isn't killing agriculture. A massive multi-year drought is killing agriculture. Since Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown can't summon fresh water out of thin air, the state is doing what it can -- forcing conservation and rationing water. (Note that even as I type this, CA is getting hit by numerous storms, which may provide some relief; expect a better harvest this year.)

The state also isn't killing oil. Saudi Arabia is killing the oil industry, by deliberately increasing production, sending prices to the basement, in an attempt to drive competitors out of business.

It's also not a great idea to push fracking in a state that has an epic drought problem. In addition to using up large amounts of water, it also potentially fouls ground water (what little is left...).



Actually, the citizens of California have made its government vulnerable to economic cycles, via good ol' Prop 13. When they held down property tax rates, they forced the state to rely on more volatile sources of income, such as sales tax and income taxes -- i.e. taxation that drops precipitously during a recession. (Property taxes are more stable.)

The economy? Not so much. CA's economy as a whole is quite diversified. Real estate, technology, manufacturing, trade, construction, agriculture, mining, professional services, tourism.... Which states are more diverse? Montana? New Hampshire? Massachusetts? Maybe Texas, but if so then only because it's got a good aerospace/defense sector, an advantage offset by a much bigger dependence on energy -- and its own drought problems.
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I still live here buddy I know whats killing the state. The government is killing it. Period. The "drought". Thank the state. Oil the state. Transportation the state. Damn near most of the problems California is having is in part caused by the state. That's why I am moving.

Prop 13 is the only that has kept the state from dying just that much faster, as it keeps the counties and cites from seriously jacking the property tax up. If prop 13 were over turned somehow it would accelerate the process that much faster of turning California into a western version of New York except worse. Quite frankly I don't care anymore, **** em, I am on my way out. I am a native bred and born Californian, maybe I will be able to go back someday but right now they have a very serious case of the self destructive stupids.
 
Moderate Right said:
Leaving for Las Vegas: California's minimum wage law leaves businesses no choice - LA Times

The exodus has already begun.
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Oh yes indeed.

I recently sold my business to a group of investors. Although I tried to find a way to keep the business in Southern California because there are some really good people who have been working for me, they will be moving it it towards the later part of 2017 to Reno, Nevada.

@ 85+ jobs no longer in So Cal, and they are jobs paying way above $15/hr. The reason is not only minimum wage and the impact on all goods and services, but Workers Comp, and many other cost of doing business issues.

California's leadership is not interested in creating jobs, it is interested in getting the rich to pay for the people it sentences to a world of mediocrity and government handouts. As long as they keep voting as instructed, the handouts will keep coming, and the jobs will keep leaving for other states.
 
ocean515 said:
Oh yes indeed.

I recently sold my business to a group of investors. Although I tried to find a way to keep the business in Southern California because there are some really good people who have been working for me, they will be moving it it towards the later part of 2017 to Reno, Nevada.

@ 85+ jobs no longer in So Cal, and they are jobs paying way above $15/hr. The reason is not only minimum wage and the impact on all goods and services, but Workers Comp, and many other cost of doing business issues.

California's leadership is not interested in creating jobs, it is interested in getting the rich to pay for the people it sentences to a world of mediocrity and government handouts. As long as they keep voting as instructed, the handouts will keep coming, and the jobs will keep leaving for other states.
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The more I hear about California the more I think that it is going to fall into the ocean, not because of an earthquake but because of the weight of liberal policies. My wife is from the bay area and she would love to return some day but a relative just wrote her a note which we got just today, telling her to stay where she is because she would not want to come back.
 
Moderate Right said:
The more I hear about California the more I think that it is going to fall into the ocean, not because of an earthquake but because of the weight of liberal policies. My wife is from the bay area and she would love to return some day but a relative just wrote her a note which we got just today, telling her to stay where she is because she would not want to come back.
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You should thank that relative. Your wife should remember the Bay Area as it was, not what liberal/socialist progressives have turned in into.

A number of years back I instituted a policy in my company that we would not do any business in San Francisco, period.
 
If ever there was a vote for status quo, it's people that think this way. Sometimes, change is necessary. And sometimes, that change is hard.

Moderate Right said:
The reality is that liberals are just fine with letting jobs go, whether it be in California or anywhere in the US. Often the principles in which you fight for set precedent over the people actually having jobs. That's why Hillary lost blue states and Trump won the election.
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And, way to make an attempt at not being partisan.

the problem isn't liberals, or conservatives, it's people wearing blinders that can't see that there are good people in both camps (you're not one of those good people, by the way). As if anybody - liberal or conservative - is "fine with letting jobs go". But LT is right, there are certain things that don't make sense in some locations. So guess what? Don't do them there.
 
Moderate Right said:
Support for minimum wage hikes is a stupid argument. If you take a poll of who supports raising the minimum wage to $100 per hour, 60% would support that too. Why don't we take a poll of the one percenters and ask them how many are in favor of reducing their taxes?
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Yet you swear that since the country voted for Trump that Trump must be the best candidate.

The irony is thick around here.
 
PirateMk1 said:
I still live here buddy I know whats killing the state. The government is killing it. Period. The "drought". Thank the state.
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Seriously? What, did Moonbeam forget to do his rain dances?

The reality is that there isn't much the government can do about this. Water rights in the West are highly contested, and extremely difficult to negotiate. They're already putting in desalination plants, but they are not a cure-all; they are expensive, they use a lot of energy, and produce a lot of pollution. The government can't contract for water delivery from the eastern half of the US; transport is too expensive, no regions of the US have consistent surplus water supplies, there's competition from all over the West and South. The aquifers are being emptied.

Oh, I know! The state hasn't been strict enough with mandatory conservation.

Let's get real. Water is a scarce resource in the West, and the government cannot summon billions of gallons of fresh water out of thin air.


Oil the state.
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Was California supposed to negotiate directly with OPEC?

News flash! Assertion is not a proof. Next time, back up your claims.


Prop 13 is the only that has kept the state from dying just that much faster, as it keeps the counties and cites from seriously jacking the property tax up. If prop 13 were over turned somehow it would accelerate the process that much faster of turning California into a western version of New York except worse.
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zomg... such nonsense.

Prop 13 is the disaster that keeps on giving. It keeps real estate taxes low -- but that makes real estate more expensive. Again, it causes problems for the state's fiscal health.

CA would be much better off without it. Even if that means being like NY. Not sure why that's such a bad thing, by the way.
 
Lord Tammerlain said:
From the article
Why would he have to pay high workers compensation rates? I expect because he has a high level of claims
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No because the state sets workers comp rates based on employee type.
so the more possible danger to the employee the higher the worker rate is.

so a guy doing construction or something is in a fairly dangerous job his comp rate is going to be way higher than
a dish washer. a professional textile is a fairly dangerous job with all the equipment.

however it varies from state to state. CA like everything else there has high workmans comp.
it can increase if you wrack up to much but even the base is expensive.

also it is usually based on a % of pay. so as a workers pay increases so does the amount that is owed on workmans comp.
 
Double and triple down on job cutting policies soon businesses will just fly everywhere but where you are.

which means more people living off the government.
 
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