> Many, many billionaires live, have lived, and thrive in CA
That's probably owing to the fact that California's economy is just that large. We're the 5th largest economy in the world.. there's bound to be a higher number of billionaires here.
> The grievance rhetoric has gone too far
I live here, and I disagree. The civil situation in California has done nothing but slowly get worse for the past 3 years, and it has obviously started accelerating in the last 9 months.
> the premise that taxes on wealthy people are nearly criminal theft
That may be the argument.. it may be that for our high taxes in CA, we've been seeing less of it's impact in this state recently. I also have even been wondering if it's still "worth it" to live in CA over the past few months.
> AFAIK, taxes on wealthy people are at historic lows.
Federal personal and business income taxes are. State taxes are not. California in particular is not. Sales taxes are the highest in the nation, and personal income taxes are as well. The state spent the last 8 years going from running a few million in deficit to having several billion in surplus.
Unfortunately, due to corona, that surplus is entirely wiped out and now we're facing several billion in deficit again.
There's not a lot of optimism in CA right now.