201–210 of 691 posts
So far I have Joe Rogan with his spotify deal and now Musk with some of his options coming up for payday.
Whenever I read news like this I can never figure out what moving a company's headquarters actually means. Musk has already been living in Texas for a while. Tesla already has sizable operations there (both offices and factories). The company is registered in Delaware, so legally this change means nothing. They aren't going to fire employees in California or force them to move (in fact Musk said that they will contin…
It's a PR move to cow CA politicians to be more amenable to C-suites without challenge. It's theater. Petty, obstinate, twattish theater.
Warning: This post is written from a libertarian/center-right viewpoint. While this move is great, I'm skeptical of the idea that moving to Austin is a political panacea for moderate/center-right/libertarian governance. - The same percentage of people who voted for hard leftist candidates in SF also voted for hard leftist candidates in Austin. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…
So it’s safe for glibertarians now.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/09/austin-texas-camping...
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I mean, you could just as easily argue that the problems of California are what caused his move to Texas, as simply testing the waters for the move of the HQ.
The main problem for musk in this case being his tax burden, since he is otherwise entirely insulated from every other issue affecting most californians.
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As someone who just bought a house in Austin this year, if the reason is "affordable housing", they're in for a world of hurt.
I talked to several Tesla and former Tesla folks that will probably relocate because of this, and the say is that since Austin in less NIMBY than the Bay Area new housing will get built and prices will go down. It's a more complex bet than just "we move there because houses are affordable now".
The only thing to remember is that Californians can afford the new area's current housing prices and a decade's worth of price increases.
California's tax regime is really backward. I suspect Tesla's departure is just the tip of the iceberg and that the repeal of the SALT deduction in 2017 really hastened this trend. High earners pay an effective tax rate of > 50%. They are partially picking up the slack from Prop 13, which artificially distorts the housing market by allowing longtime homeowners to pay property taxes based on decades-old assessed value…
> High earners pay an effective tax rate of > 50% How so? I put a salary of $300k in SF here, and came up with 38%: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#c0piT... . Obviously Fremont workers do not need to live in SF.
Honestly, coming from a third world country where I got taxed more and having had to work in Austin and Atlanta before on previous jobs, taxes are the least of my complains for California. Yeah they should fix property taxes... but my main complaint is that even though all politicians like speaking a mouthful about helping the poor and how broken healthcare is, every single government program that's supposed to help the mentally ill is utterly and completely broken beyond belief. And I'm saying this coming from Argentina that as a country has around the same population and way less GDP.
Literally the only thing about California that doesn't feel "first wordly" as all the nice places in Europe I've been to is how it deals with people that need mental health or that have housing issues. I tried discussing this with every other politician I meet or something but besides condescending smiles because of the perceived trauma they think growing up in Latin America caused (it didn't) I never get any iota of acknowledgement that something in the world is wrong. Except for the Republicans, which is the only problem in the US, apparently.
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> and frequently invasive What would be the top ten examples of "frequently invasive" conservative policies in Texas? Just wondering what your perspective might be on this.
1. abortion 2. limiting voting rights Would have to think for more than a seconds to add more.
California's tax regime is really backward. I suspect Tesla's departure is just the tip of the iceberg and that the repeal of the SALT deduction in 2017 really hastened this trend. High earners pay an effective tax rate of > 50%. They are partially picking up the slack from Prop 13, which artificially distorts the housing market by allowing longtime homeowners to pay property taxes based on decades-old assessed value…
> High earners pay an effective tax rate of > 50% How so? I put a salary of $300k in SF here, and came up with 38%: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#c0piT... . Obviously Fremont workers do not need to live in SF.
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Property taxes are higher than California, right? I can't find the source handy at the moment, but I've heard that a house in Austin that looks like a couple hundred grand cheaper than an equivalent house in California for the listing isn't actually any cheaper when you factor in the increased taxes and potentially other costs I'm not aware of.
The question is whether the equivalent house is just a couple hundred grand cheaper, or a million cheaper? Couple million maybe for a nice new mansion?
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As someone who just bought a house in Austin this year, if the reason is "affordable housing", they're in for a world of hurt.
Property taxes are higher than California, right? I can't find the source handy at the moment, but I've heard that a house in Austin that looks like a couple hundred grand cheaper than an equivalent house in California for the listing isn't actually any cheaper when you factor in the increased taxes and potentially other costs I'm not aware of.
Financially speaking, either place may turn out advantageous depending on your house's price and income. CA (Bay Area) has a lot of other positives that are almost impossible to get in TX - tech scene (quality and quantity), nearby sea, desert AND mountains, good weather are just some of them.
Many years ago, I chose to move to TX as opposed to CA. But most recently, after living abroad for some years, I picked Bay Area to move back to mainly because most of my friends have converged to Bay Area over the years - almost all are in tech. However, if you aren't involved in tech and don't care about some of the other positives of the Bay Area, Austin is almost a no-brainer.