Report estimates 10K businesses left California over eight years

Discussion in 'Economics' started by dealmaker, Aug 15, 2016.

  1. dealmaker

    dealmaker

    Report estimates 10K businesses left California over eight years
    About 10,000 companies have left or curtailed operations in California over the last eight years, due to thestate's taxes and regulations,according to a report from Spectrum Location Solutions. The number is an estimate as some companies have left the state without making a public announcement or having to report such matters in regulatory filings. Only 1,687 "disinvestment events" were documented.(San Francisco Business Times)
     
  2. dealmaker likes this.
  3. WildBill

    WildBill

    My home state has a lot going for it, but I am pretty sure the best days are in the past.

    Any company that is portable and can relocate, probably will at some point.

    The underfunded public employee pension funds will eventually kill off most small and mid-size businesses.

    I have worked hard to position myself to move and reduce my expenses by 40-50%. I can trade from anywhere with good connectivity.

    I'll miss a lot about California, but plane tickets are cheap. Maybe I'll even buy vacation properties in CA once the inevitable crash happens.
     
    dealmaker likes this.
  4. Baron

    Baron ET Founder

    I love to visit California but the tax situation there is enough to make me feel super comfortable right here in no-state-income-tax Florida. But if money was no object, I'd probably pack my bags for La Jolla, CA and never look back.
     
    lawrence-lugar likes this.
  5. ironchef

    ironchef

    But the Cali economy is still more robust than a lot of other states and you cannot beat the weather and diversity.

    I view the tax situation as the price I have to pay to live here nothing more nothing less. In general higher taxes support those that are less fortunate than us and that is a good thing. Yes there are always wastes and abuses but nothing is perfect. If you look at states with low taxes they are generally less well developed.

    I could easily move out, to Las Vegas for example and save a ton of taxes but I don't want to live anywhere else.

    My only complain: The SoCal traffic. Perhaps it is better more people and businesses move out of here to ease the atrocious traffic.:D
     
  6. WildBill

    WildBill

    @ironchef

    Sounds like you are in the LA or OC area. I lived all over the OC and Venice Beach in the 80's. It was getting too crowded and I moved to San Diego in '89. I love it here, but it has changed for the worse in the last 27 years. Time to cash in my $1.1-1.2M upper middle class tract home and buy the same for half the amount and double the acreage in Boise.

    My brother moved there last fall. We visited over Christmas and everyone really likes it. It will be a little bit of a shock to my kids system, but they will get over it.

    The one thing I will miss is the diversity. My wife is ethnic Japanese and my kids are adopted via South Korea.

    Idaho is mighty white. They will be going from a school setting that is 50% Asian, 30% Pakistani/Indian/Persian and 20% white to being a minority. When we landed at the Boise airport my teen aged son joked to my wife "Mom..where's Waldo, laughed and said...he's everywhere".
     
  7. ironchef

    ironchef

    WildBill,

    I have a lot of faith in Californians and believe our best days are still ahead of us. We are a resourceful and innovative bunch and I am sure we will survive the exodus of good people and businesses to other states. I view it as spreading the good folks around to help other states out.:D

    Good luck on your upcoming move.
     
  8. Sig

    Sig

    It all depends what your industry is. If you're an entrepreneur founding a startup of any kind, but especially one that will require software developers, you're getting a huge benefit from the entire ecosystem of Silicon Valley. That ranges from access to capital to access to human capital that you really can't get anywhere else. The cost of doing business is well worth the price. Moving to Boise, as beautiful and inexpensive as it is, just isn't an option. Same thing if you're on the human capital side, a good software developer in Boise is just seen as an engineer and paid accordingly while a good software developer in San Francisco can make significantly more, even accounting for the cost of living difference, plus share in the upside of the company they're helping create. Plus CA is the only place in the U.S. you can live and get that combination of climate, culture, and access to the range of outside activities that are there.
    Bottom line, if you're working at McDonalds in Modesto then the taxes and regulation in CA probably aren't worth it. If you genuinely would rather live in Boise than CA, then by all means you should. If you move to KS only because you save a few percent in income tax, you may be suffering from some loss of perspective.
    As for the OP, 10K businesses leaving (although it turns out just opening an expansion office elsewhere is considered "leaving" in the study) over 8 years says absolutely nothing about the state's viability for businesses. How many businesses move to California (or opened a branch office in CA) during that time (this article would suggest more than left http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/04/07/50825/the-myth-of-businesses-leaving-southern-california/)? How many new businesses start in CA each year? From this SBA statistic it looks like about (https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/SB Profiles 2014-15_0.pdf) 240,000 per year. If 1,250 of those 240,000 are leaving per year, it means that less than 1/2 of 1% are leaving per year, hardly an exodus. Of course all of those numbers need context to see the kind and size of companies that are coming, going, and growing in the state. Don't get me wrong, I've started two companies in CA and am actually part of the .5% that left, and the taxes and rules were certainly annoying, perhaps occupying a fraction of a percent of my time/attention. But I didn't leave because of them and if those are what make or break you than you were living on the edge all along anyway. I'd submit that the vast majority of those trying to paint CA as a runaway big government gone wrong haven't run a business both there and in a genuine small government stronghold, like say Mississippi or Kansas, and certainly not a high growth startup.
     
  9. Surprising, since you're a young man!

    LaJolla is old & stuffy, maybe the least interesting place on live on the SoCal coast. Take a walk on the main drag -- it's like Rodeo Drive -- ick.
     
  10. Baron

    Baron ET Founder

    Ok, so where is the most interesting place in SoCal then? I'm open to suggestions. :D
     
    #10     Aug 16, 2016