Companies are fleeing California. Blame bad government

38 点作者 danielsht超过 4 年前

12 条评论

jedberg超过 4 年前

The problem is the direct proposition system. It makes good governance impossible. Most states require the legislature to approve all direct propositions, but California does not.Prop 13 was voted in by people who did not understand the long term ramifications of what they were doing. All they heard was "lower taxes!". The partial repeal of Prop 13 on the ballot failed (and the expansion of it passed!) just this November, again by people who don't understand the ramifications of what they are doing and just hear "lower taxes!".Prop 13 is single handedly destroying this state. 49 other states manage to get by without an equivalent and don't have old people getting priced out of their homes from tax increases. Yet somehow that is the red herring people use to keep Prop 13 around.Because of Prop 13, people won't sell their house, middle class people are subsidizing rich people, and in some cases, the profit being made on rentals is purely because of the low tax. If not for Prop 13, the rental would be breakeven and it would make more sense to sell.Prop 13 also encourages people to vote against expansion in housing supply, because they want their home price to go up, up, up! Especially since their property tax will be nearly flat.Local areas are starved for money because of long term owners. Here in the Silicon Valley I have found homes valued at over $4M that pay less than $1000 a year in property tax (whereas someone just buying that home would pay about $30,000).Pretty much every problem in this state can be traced to Prop 13. Everything else is just a poor workaround.

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jseliger超过 4 年前

The main missing word is "voters," which appears only once: "California's legislature has only made matters worse. A bill it enacted in 2019, ostensibly intended to protect gig workers, threatened to undo the business models of some of the state's biggest tech companies until voters granted them a reprieve in a November referendum."Voters put California's legislators into office and voters continue to vote for dysfunctional policies, like the continuation of Prop 13 (<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/</a>). While "bad government" is to blame, the proximate cause of "bad government" is still voters.

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dahart超过 4 年前

> Far from welcoming experimentation, it has sought to undermine or stamp out home-rental services, food-delivery apps, ride-hailing firms, electric-scooter companies, facial recognition technology, delivery robots and more, even as the pioneers in each of those fields attempted to set up shop in the city.This feels pretty hyperbolic and unreasonable to frame it this way. Startups have been trying to "disrupt" markets by doing things that are in gray areas, or sometimes are outright illegal, and they cause all kinds of problems and outsource the management and cleanup of the problems they cause to the communities and cities. Littering scooters on sidewalks everywhere and taking no responsibility for user safety isn't the kind of experimentation we need.California labor is super expensive, and HPE's stated reason for moving is cost savings. If anything, I might suggest that the Bay Area's friendliness to tech companies is the very reason the salaries there are so high. People in San Francisco have been complaining and protesting for at least a decade about the tech migration there, and the complete pricing out of the blue collar workforce. I think this article might have it completely wrong.

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outside1234超过 4 年前

C'mon. These companies are fleeing because they can't be competitive in the local labor market.Who wants to work at HPE or Oracle? Almost literally nobody.

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codemac超过 4 年前

Are HPE, Oracle and Palantir the "tech giants" we think of?I have pretty negative opinions of their future, financially and otherwise.I think there are plenty of things wrong with local governments, taxes, and policies - but I'm pretty sure each of these moves are easily explained financially rather than something "animosity".

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danielsht超过 4 年前

I'm really curious to hear what the community has to say about this perspective. This is very compelling argument to me, but I've heard other compelling arguments on the other side. These arguments tend to go like this:1. Big tech has gone unchecked for a long time and it's up to government and regulators to reign them in when it comes to privacy, offering sustainable compensation models for gig workers, limiting an increasing wage gap, and other inequities.2. The rise of big tech has outpaced the city/area's ability to offer services at low costs. No other industry has seen such a quick rise and it's no wonder prices (including houses) have climbed so much.I live in San Francisco, and have been disappointed, annoyed, and frustrated at many of the issues this article brings up, including high housing prices, homelessness, property crime, but it seems like an easy out to simply blame the government, or the tech industry exclusively. My guess is there's plenty of blame to go around and the answer might be more nuanced than finding a single scapegoat. What are people's thoughts?

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danielsht超过 4 年前

As I read the discussion, one interesting question came to mind. There are so many cities that want to be the next "tech hubs", and many of them have been promoting that label (with or without merit) for years. I can't tell you how many articles like this one [0] I've read.But in reality, many of these cities are making an honest effort to live up to that label by attracting talent, corporate HQs and investment to make these claims real. Texas' tax policies are one example [1]In contrast, I see SF and the broader Bay Area making moves in the opposite direction. One such example is the new CEO wealth tax [2], along with others that make SF seem hostile rather than welcoming. It's no surprise that companies want to leave.Do other people see it this way too? Has SF or the Bay Area enacted policies to attract or retain tech talent, investment and innovation? Or is the valley's success due to a strong network effect that has been self reinforcing (more talent means more investment means more talent, etc). Have California, SF or Bay Area policies in the last 20 years truly encouraged the flourishing of the tech industry, or has it happened despite these governments? Really curious to hear what people think.[0] <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/jpmc-2018/are-these-cities-americas-new-tech-hubs/1820/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/jpmc-2018/are-these-ci...</a>[1] <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/101415/taxes-texas-small-business-basics.asp" rel="nofollow">https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/10141...</a>[2] <a href="https://apnews.com/article/san-francisco-approves-taxes-on-ceos-9dbf9e764220830dcfabeed96b45a63d" rel="nofollow">https://apnews.com/article/san-francisco-approves-taxes-on-c...</a>

alphabettsy超过 4 年前

Surprised nobody has pointed out that the premise seems suspect. Does a few very large organizations mean companies in general are fleeing or does it say something about these companies?There are people who desperately want this to be true or believed, but it doesn’t seem supported by evidence.

DubiousPusher超过 4 年前

> These two traits - poor governance and animosity toward business - have collided calamitously with respect to the city's housing market.Yeah it has nothing to do with powerful property owners lobbying against loosening zoning because they're worried a housing project will "ruin" the neighborhood and decrease property values.

tomc1985超过 4 年前

Wow, whos payroll is this SFGate writer on?

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SecurityMinded超过 4 年前

Everybody with a modicum of common sense was saying this for the past decade and more I lived in this god damned quasi-communist state. Now, when Larry Ellison and Elon Musk flee, it makes it to the headlines. Good grief.

moocow01超过 4 年前

This narrative has been recycled for as long as I've lived and its not wrong but just continues to re-highlight what is actually just a constant current. California is a place where technology companies are birthed largely due to the educated talent here along with progressive values. When those companies become mature they start looking for tax cuts to bolster their established revenue model. Texas and the like is where these companies go to live out the rest of their lives