Global Warming Bill Could Become Big Pork Barrel
Crossposted on Orange County Register One of the principal justifications for the California High Speed Rail line planned from Anaheim to San Francisco is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Air Resources Board seem poised to spend “cap and trade” revenue from Assembly Bill 32 (the “Global Warming Solutions Act” […]
The Export Business in California (People and Jobs)
California Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg countered my Wall Street Journal commentary California Declares War on Suburbia in a letter to the editor (A Bold Plan for Sustainable California Communities) that could be interpreted as suggesting that all is well in the Golden State. The letter suggests that business are not being driven away to […]
California and the New Class Warfare
Crossposted on New Geography Few states have offered the class warriors of Occupy Wall Street more enthusiastic support than California has. Before they overstayed their welcome and police began dispersing their camps, the Occupiers won official endorsements from city councils and mayors in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, Irvine, Santa Rosa, and Santa Ana. […]
California’s High-Speed Rail Fibs
(Editors Note: Fox and Hounds Daily frequent contributors Wendell Cox and Joe Vranich published this piece in today’s Wall Street Journal ) > A few days ago, the California High Speed Rail Peer Review Group, an expert body mandated by state law, expressed serious doubts about the proposed Los Angeles-San Francisco rail system. It concluded […]
The Business Exodus
Waste Connections, one of the Sacramento region’s largest publicly traded companies, announced last week that it will be relocating its headquarters from Folsom, California to Houston, Texas. Currently valued at $3.6 billion, Waste Connections has been one of the area’s few thriving home-grown businesses, infusing approximately $100 million dollars into the local economy each year. […]
Profs at Leg Hearing Push More Govt.
Crossposted on CalWatchdog The rich are getting richer and everyone else is losing wealth. This phenomenon supposedly would justify more aggressive government policies redistributing wealth. At an Assembly hearing Wednesday about whether the state of California should be actively pursuing additional wealth redistribution policies, Legislators and academics said that the highest degree of inequality is because […]
Friday Wrap: Lost CA Businesses; State Budget Shortfall; Possible Troubles for the Rose Parade and Game
Why Businesses Leave CA Fox and Hounds Daily contributor, Joe Vranich, known as the business relocation coach, was interviewed as part of a five part series produced by Fox 11 News in Los Angeles this week on why California is losing businesses and jobs. Vranich produced a top ten list that create the state’s business […]
The Enduring Proposition 13
Cross-posted at CityJournal. Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a man in search of a new résumé entry. A former city councilman and Speaker of the California Assembly, Villaraigosa—who in 2005 became the City of Angels’ first Hispanic mayor in modern history—has less than two years left before he’s term-limited out as chief executive of […]
World High-Speed Cost Increase Record
Cross-posted at NewGeography.
California’s high-speed rail project is setting speed records, not on tracks, but rather in cost escalation. Last week, the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) announced that the Bakersfield to Merced section, part of which will comprise the first part of the system to be built, will cost between $10.0 and $13.9 billion. This is an increase of approximately 40 percent to 100 percent over the previous estimate of $7.1 billion, an estimate itself less than two years old.
This "flatter than Kansas" section should be the least expensive part of the system. It can only be imagined how much costs might rise where construction is more challenging, such as tunneling through the Tehachapi Mountains and for the route across the environmentally sensitive Pacheco Pass that leads to the Silicon Valley. CHSRA officials admit that the present $43 billion cost estimate to complete the Los Angeles (Anaheim) to San Francisco first phase will rise substantially. This estimate was also less than two years old.
Employees Now Asking Companies to Leave California
If I hadn’t heard it from clients I wouldn’t have believed
it – Californians are asking their companies to leave the state.
Some time ago a decision-maker told me he had evaluated the
benefits of moving his department out of Los Angeles. He said: "When I
discovered how substantial the savings would be, I quipped in front of my
staff, ‘We should move to Texas.’ I was surprised by what happened next –
people approached me one by one, came in my office, closed the door, and asked
that we move to Texas. Once I saw the employee reactions, I’d like for the
relocation to occur."
Businesses relocate generally for cost factors (taxes, the
burdens of excessive regulations, high rents) but people move for life-style
reasons. Here is a sampling of employee motivations: