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#2 | Posted by oneironaut
Do you have any idea what it costs to live here? Pretty close to 10x elsewhere in the country.
- - - - - #11 | Posted by Derek_Wildstar at 2026-07-13 01:05 PM
- - - - - Isn't that capitalism?
Generally it would be, but it's also that the CA government in the last 20+ years was hell-bent on increasing the cost of living by constantly raising "minimum wage," taxes, and regulatory costs of mandates for "clean energy," emissions or almost anything - that's why cost of living under "capitalism" in e.g., TX, TN or GA is different from cost of living under "capitalism" in CA, NY, WA etc.
Unlike Vegas ("What happens here stays here"), just because capital currently flows into VCs in Menlo Park and Palo Alto in CA, it doesn't mean it's going to stay in CA - VCs are really just way stations, capital distribution points - exactly like Wall Street in NYC.
And while the "whales" Anthropic and OpenAI are HQ'd in CA / SFO area, their datacenters, R&D and other offices (which require capital) may well be located in other states and countries - see Oracle, SpaceX and many other companies either closing shop in CA or moving significant parts of their businesses elsewhere
Chasing businesses out with higher taxes and capricious regulatory burdens and mandates is not providing a healthy long-term economic climate. Look at "Hollywood" CA problems - you can't constantly raise costs of doing business in the state or city, and then try to "protect" the people in it from consequences - you can read any number of headlines about it, e.g., more recent:
www.latimes.com - 'This is a complete decimation.' Why family businesses that built Hollywood are closing - 2026-05-10
www.latimes.com - State lawmakers cry foul over new cap placed on film tax credits - 2026-07-12
There are reasons why US unemployment and cost of living is [one of the] highest in California and why it's one of the few states losing jobs to other states in the last few years - CA (and some other states') business environment is often described as "If it moves - tax it; if it keeps moving - regulate it; if it stops moving - subsidize it."
Pricing yourself out of the market doesn't bode well for the future, as many states and cities found out... though it happens "first gradually, then suddenly."
First Law of Capital : Capital goes where it's welcome and stays and multiplies where it's respected and well treated.
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Pretty good insurance to allow you to stay in the hospital for multiple days just from a fall.
Aunt falls, breaks hip, surgery next day and off to rehab the next day. My aunt was 96 when that exact scenario happened.
Pneumonia gets you one day of IV antibiotics then home care with a visiting nurse.