“From 2007 through 2010, according to a study by the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, 10,763 industrial facilities were built or expanded across the country—but only 176 of those were in California.”
So with roughly 12% of the nation’s population, we got 1.6% of the built or expanded industrial facilities. And that’s BEFORE AB 32 takes effect!
From City Journal Podcast:
http://podcasts.odiogo.com/city-journal/podcasts-xml.php
NOTE: The link is to a poorly formatted mess, so unless you are a research fellow on the time clock, don’t go there.
Comments 4
That is stunning information. The next GOP state
Governor should name Richard Rider as Secretary
of Business, then step back and watch the Red
Tape shredder go to work with what President
Kennedy would call, “Geat Vig-ah.”
TJ Rogers spelled out California’s problem with characteristic bluntness:
The wage rate is one problem, but it’s surmountable, because the cost of a wafer is only 15 percent labor. So if I paid a 20
percent premium for labor, the wafer would only cost 3 percent more. The killer factor in California for a manufacturer to create, say, a thousand blue-collar jobs is a hostile government that doesn’t want you there and demonstrates it in thousands of ways, through bureaucrats and regulations.
Ayn Rand said no society can jail an honest man. So if you want to use the power of society on citizens, you have to make normal behavior illegal. The zoning ordinances and environmental ordinances are a classic example. I guarantee you that nobody truly understands them, and no plant can meet all of them simultaneously. So you end up with a dynamic that there are no laws, and there are no rules, and you’re completely at the mercy of the local government, and they don’t want you there. And they tell you that. So you go away. That’s why there’s no silicon left in Silicon Valley.
Even the manufacturing for renewable energy resources is relocating to the South. Governors like Barbour (MS), Jindal (LA), Perry (TX), Haley (SC), Bentley (AL), and Scott (FL), along with their respective legislatures, understand that states must compete with each other for business investment. That is why they have not only made their regulatory and tax regimes friendly to business and job creation, but they also look at positively affecting the whole business environment of their states by also working to bring down the costs of production by working to make things like water and energy cheap, and advancing their states transportation infrastructure. And where do those jobs come from? California.
Author
Thanks, Morton. California is indeed the engine of prosperity — for the other 49 states.
Or, as Obama so astutely pointed out, the other 56 states. Mas or menos.
FACTOID: It costs 38% more to build solar panels in California than in Tennessee – which is why European corporations have invested $2.3 billion in two Tennessee manufacturing plants to build solar panels for our state.
http://tinyurl.com/llussb