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Texas is America Inc's new centre of gravity

economist.com

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Re: Texas is America Inc's new centre of gravity

#61

Post by sleepyguy »

water-data-dude wrote: post #11

As a gay dude I will never take a job in Texas. Companies may enjoy the lax regulatory environment and favorable tax laws, but there are many bright people who - for one of a NUMBER of reasons - will never move there. It is repressive and frightening. Who knows if that will be enough to move the needle on any of this, but companies aren't just buildings and incorporation paperwork, they're also the people.

Where the hell are you getting your information? Texas has the second-largest LGBTQ+ population in the United States, trailing only California. An estimated 1.8 million LGBTQ+ adults reside in the state. Demographically, this includes approximately 735,000 gay or lesbian adults, over 1.2 million bisexual individuals, and nearly 93,000 transgender

Re: Texas is America Inc's new centre of gravity

#62

Post by _DeadFred_ »

scoofy wrote: post #40
water-data-dude wrote: post #11

As a gay dude I will never take a job in Texas. Companies may enjoy the lax regulatory environment and favorable tax laws, but there are many bright people who - for one of a NUMBER of reasons - will never move there. It is repressive and frightening. Who knows if that will be enough to move the needle on any of this, but companies aren't just buildings and incorporation paperwork, they're also the people.

People who "refuse to move" to Texas honestly have no idea what they're talking about. Yes, you probably wouldn't like it, but it's certainly not what you think it is. I grew up in Texas (mostly Austin), and later in life moved to California, and genuinely can't stand the navel-gazey "I've never been there but I know I'd hate it" type of attitude that prevails here. Texas is a gerrymandered purple state, not a red st…

Is it this state people are talking about? This isn't my center of anything.

"Racist clauses in property deeds can’t be enforced, but still exist. A Texas bill would make it easier to remove them."

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/17/texas-property-deeds...

"Racist Clauses Are Common In Local Zoning Documents. Several Texas Bills Would Make It Easier To Change That." https://www.kut.org/texas/2021-05-14/racist-clauses-are-comm...

The real reason companies are moving to Texas (the casual racism is just a bonus)? Court shopping for their arbitration clauses. If you sue/have an arbitration dispute with a Texas based company they have strategically located their headquarters in the areas with the most 'court shopped' judges that will rule for the corps.

And even worse than establishing corporate headquarters as a form of court shopping, creations of corporate courts. https://www.commondreams.org/news/texas-business-courts

And the new Texas hotness? Why yes, private courts. https://www.steptoe.com/en/news-publications/private-judges-...

Refuse to do business with Texas corporations. They are un-American and take away so many of your rights when you do business with companies based there.

Re: Texas is America Inc's new centre of gravity

#63

Post by Telemakhos »

sbmthakur wrote: post #27
moomoo11 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

california forever i hope the right people and companies leave and go deal with high humidity and heat waves

Y'all are welcome to Washington if you can stand the gloom.

People who have lived in Washington for a long time do not, in fact, welcome Californians to Washington, nor is Washington especially warm and welcoming to anyone else. The Seattle Freeze is real.

Re: Texas is America Inc's new centre of gravity

#64

Post by nostrademons »

Something I've wondered: for all its claims of business-friendliness, why does Texas insist on attracting the lowest-margin industries? All of the high-margin innovation-based industries continue to get started in California.

There was a huge Bitcoin push in Texas about 5ish years back. But the way they went about it was that they passed a bunch of tax breaks for Bitcoin miners - the most commodified, energy-intensive part of the value chain. Coinbase and Kraken and Ripple and Solana and Binance's U.S. operations are all based out of California.

The article mentions Exxon's reincorporation in Texas, and Chevron also recently moved their headquarters from California to Houston. But oil is a dying, commodified industry. The replacement is electrification, in terms of solar, batteries, EVs, inverters, and other parts of the value chain. Enphase is in California, SunPower was until its recent bankruptcy, Tesla R&D is still in Palo Alto, and other major companies like Rivian and Lucid also put all their R&D in the Bay Area.

The other major industry Texas is known for is construction, and cheap houses. But construction, if you read any of the construction-physics.com articles that frequently pop up here, is another famously low-margin industry. We know how to do it, and millions of people do.

My theory is that low-margin industries get located in Texas because they make it easy. By being business-friendly, low-regulation, and low-expenses, they become the only place that low-margin commodity businesses can survive. Thus, everyone who has no pricing power and struggles to cut costs moves to Texas, because they offer the lowest costs of everyone.

California is the opposite: by making business onerous, creating huge amounts of regulation, taxing the hell out of both people and businesses, and enshrining a pyramid scheme in their state constitution via Prop 13, they make sure that only the richest can survive there. And thus only the richest do survive. The state is filled with wealthy companies and wealthy individuals because everybody else got priced out and moved elsewhere. Selection effects dominate efficiency effects.

Re: Texas is America Inc's new centre of gravity

#65

Post by NewJazz »

dexwiz wrote: post #47
trial3 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol statistically life is longer in 23 other states

So that puts them in the middle? For such a massive state, regression to the median sounds likely.

New York, California, and Florida have higher life expectancies. That's a quarter of the US population better off, after only taking into account 3 states.

Re: Texas is America Inc's new centre of gravity

#66

Post by vitalyan1234 »

testing22321 wrote: post #13
water-data-dude wrote: post #11

As a gay dude I will never take a job in Texas. Companies may enjoy the lax regulatory environment and favorable tax laws, but there are many bright people who - for one of a NUMBER of reasons - will never move there. It is repressive and frightening. Who knows if that will be enough to move the needle on any of this, but companies aren't just buildings and incorporation paperwork, they're also the people.

Same thoughts as the father of a young girl. I don’t want her to have less rights.

[dead]

Re: Texas is America Inc's new centre of gravity

#68

Post by scoofy »

californical wrote: post #50
scoofy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who "refuse to move" to Texas honestly have no idea what they're talking about. Yes, you probably wouldn't like it, but it's certainly not what you think it is. I grew up in Texas (mostly Austin), and later in life moved to California, and genuinely can't stand the navel-gazey "I've never been there but I know I'd hate it" type of attitude that prevails here. Texas is a gerrymandered purple state, not a red st…

Honestly it may be 50-50 purple in population, but the policies are what affect people the most. I’m not even worried about Democrat vs Republican, as I’m not associated to either party, and both have their share of crazy. There are a number of laws in Texas that make it a non-option for many of us.

I don't even know how to respond to statements like this. Yes, if you care about issues de jour, yes, Texas is going to look terrible. And Texas has terrible stances on issues like abortion.

At the same time, you can't ignore the facts. Texas has high property taxes, which are de facto wealth taxes, so it shouldn't surprise anyone on that Texas has significantly lower wealth inequality than California does.

Again, unless you literally inherit a house with an inherited property tax assessment in CA or vest equity in a unicorn, you're probably going to be poorer in CA than in Texas.

We have to stop pretending the landed aristocracy that exist in California somehow "doesn't count" as inequality and injustice.

Re: Texas is America Inc's new centre of gravity

#69

Post by dylan604 »

scoofy wrote: post #40
water-data-dude wrote: post #11

As a gay dude I will never take a job in Texas. Companies may enjoy the lax regulatory environment and favorable tax laws, but there are many bright people who - for one of a NUMBER of reasons - will never move there. It is repressive and frightening. Who knows if that will be enough to move the needle on any of this, but companies aren't just buildings and incorporation paperwork, they're also the people.

People who "refuse to move" to Texas honestly have no idea what they're talking about. Yes, you probably wouldn't like it, but it's certainly not what you think it is. I grew up in Texas (mostly Austin), and later in life moved to California, and genuinely can't stand the navel-gazey "I've never been there but I know I'd hate it" type of attitude that prevails here. Texas is a gerrymandered purple state, not a red st…

> Texas is a gerrymandered purple state, not a red state

Man, I just don't get this at all. Sure, there may be some democratic areas in the large cities, but they pretty much have zero say in the local state governance. Look at the recent walk outs and leaving the state only to return to have the legislation they were protesting pass with nothing they could do. There is no democratic power. Even those large cities that lean left have attempted to buck the system by passing local regulations that the state then sues them to prevent those liberal policies from taking place. As an example, Dallas passed decriminalization for marijuana, but the governor said no via law suits. This idea of Texas being purple just comes across as farcical and out of touch. I say this as someone that grew up in Dallas, lived in LA, and now lives back in Dallas. You sound just like someone from Austin.

I know plenty of women that are very unhappy with the state for not dissimilar reasons as the GP with friends that have moved out of state specifically for the government's apparent disdain for women.

Re: Texas is America Inc's new centre of gravity

#70

Post by sleepyguy »

scoofy wrote: post #40
water-data-dude wrote: post #11

As a gay dude I will never take a job in Texas. Companies may enjoy the lax regulatory environment and favorable tax laws, but there are many bright people who - for one of a NUMBER of reasons - will never move there. It is repressive and frightening. Who knows if that will be enough to move the needle on any of this, but companies aren't just buildings and incorporation paperwork, they're also the people.

People who "refuse to move" to Texas honestly have no idea what they're talking about. Yes, you probably wouldn't like it, but it's certainly not what you think it is. I grew up in Texas (mostly Austin), and later in life moved to California, and genuinely can't stand the navel-gazey "I've never been there but I know I'd hate it" type of attitude that prevails here. Texas is a gerrymandered purple state, not a red st…

I don't know why you're being junked, you said nothing that any Texas resident wouldn't agree with. Shit, we have two of the largest airlines in the world that as an industry have always been incredibly welcoming to the LGBT community.

The only thing that sucks about Texas is the property taxes, other than that it is a very welcoming state with great infra and comfortable standard of living.

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