California Dreamin' -- July 25, 2023

Locator: 45200CALIFORNIA.  

 An inconvenient truth: due to its tax structure and Proposition 13, California's state budget is highly dependent on high-wage earners or those with lots of passive income (old money). 

California's high-tax payers include:

• tech
• Hollywood
• old money
• Teamsters (concentrated in one harbor, two ports)
  

Is that California's economy? Yes, except I "forgot" one: tourism.

But the service industry doesn't pay their hotel bed-changers much. 

Think about these factoids.

Tech can easily move. Tesla did. Arizona, Texas benefitting.

Population shifts as high tax-payers "flee" to states like Idaho and Texas. 

That puts a huge strain on the California budget.

Not yet talked about, but the longer this goes on, the greater impact it will have on the California budget: the actors' and writers' strike.

On a completely different note, but here in Texas, I'm seeing a lot of brand new $70,000-pickup trucks in front of Dollar Store and Family Dollar. Something tells me a lot of those pickup trucks are going to end up back on dealers' lots. Sooner than later. 

On yet another note, this article is behind a paywall over at The LA Times but one can read about him elsewhere.