Joel Kotkin Strikes Again On What Ails California

Chapman University professor and Orange County Register columnist Joel Kotkin has written another brilliant piece on the monumental problems facing California that is certain to raise the hackles of the left.
As The Sacramento Bee is reporting that there is a $3,000,000,000 budget surplus and what the dominant Democrat majority in Sacramento want to do with it, Mr. Kotkin writes about the long-term prospects for California under the current Democrat regime.
Oh, FTR, the Democrats want to spend it all on education. A payoff for the teacher unions if there ever was one.
Mr. Kotkin and even I will give a bit of credit to Gov. Brown. It is as if he is the one adult left in the state capital.
But Mr. Kotkin does pretty much dissect the fact that in terms of economic growth, California is non-existent in that category.
For instance, a sure sign on economic growth is job creation.
Mr. Kotkin pointed out that last year, California added about 450,000 jobs and for the first time, in raw numbers, outranked Texas in the last 10 years. But a look beyond the numbers and it turns out that it is roughly the same rate of job growth. For the period of 2007-2014, California had an anemic 0.7% job growth while Texas had a 11% of job growth. And the number of jobs in California during that time? A rip-roaring 120,000 new jobs. Not good. Not good at all.
Another aspect of the so-called recovery is how narrow it is.
According to Mr. Kotkin, much of the recovery is centered in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley. Outside of that area, the rest of the urban areas of California are not doing so well. my area, the Los Angeles area, is either at or below national average on all economic indicators. And while the rich are really getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and being joined by one-time middle-class workers. California has the fifth highest level of state unemployment in the United States.
Before anyone suggests that the high unemployment is centered in the inland areas, particularly and especially in the Central Valley, Three urban areas, Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco are in the top 10 in income inequality.
What this is leading to is a continuation of the exodus of the middle class that can get out. Many are just too tied to this state and or where they are and it is not viable to leave.
The most depressing aspect of all of this is the current progressive zeitgeist is the attempt to basically make California like, like . . .New York. That's state and city.
Look at the anti-farmer policies of Brown and company. It's not so much anti-farmer but more clueless than anything else.
We all know that industry is so disliked by the left. But they are under the delusion that the government, in this case the state of California, can jump start a nascent "green" economy. It is one of the main reasons why Gov. Brown is so pushing for the bullet train to nowhere. A rail line that will not be up and going in full until 2028 according to this article in this past Sunday's Los Angeles Times.
But here is something that is truth and not conspiracy.
The Democrats and the left now would like to pack cities with people instead of people wanting to live where they want.
One of the leftist fetishes is the concept of the mixed-use building.
What is a mixed-use building?
It is overwhelming apartments but, usually, on the ground floor are businesses of all kinds so that you don't have to drive to so many places. Even markets are located in some mixed-use buildings. And the other idea is to have one's workplace within walking and or bike-riding distance. What the left would like is to revert to Peking of the 1970s that we saw few if any cars (usually Communist party mucks) and lots of bikes on extremely wide thoroughfares.
Mr. Kotkin points all of this up in the article.
In fact, he ends the article with this point:

Being like New York – crowded and hectic but with better weather – is not exactly the future most people seek in California. I know few adults who look forward to giving up tree-lined sun-drenched residential streets for dark apartment warrens. It was better when the Eastern press laughed at us, since we always knew that we owned the better part of the deal. Now they are both praising us and becoming us and, in the process, challenging the very things that have made this such a special place.

Of course, as a native-born and raised Californian, the thought of being anything like New York is, well plain revolting.
What is needed to get California more on track?
First, getting rid of the cap and trade regulation that does not one thing that it claims it will do.
Second a complete audit of all state regulations and get rid of those that stunt economic growth and those that are redundant.
Lastly California needs a complete tax overhaul. Remember, by and large the ways of tax revenue are the state income tax, sales tax and property taxes.
It's a long-term project that just does not do well in 30 second sound bites. Or even 60 second sound bites. It will take a leader of courage to tell us the truth once and for all.
Maybe Joel Kotkin can run for governor?!

The Dear Leader Really Does Hate Business And The Private Sector

I have waited a while to comment on the remarks that the Dear Leader, President Obama, made in Roanoke, Virginia, last week concerning American business and his true disdain for the private sector and entrepreneurs in general.
Now I have purposely linked the official White House transcript regarding this issue because of the memes on the left is that his remarks are taken out of context.
So, lets examine the remarks that the Dear Leader, President Obama, made in reference to businessmen* and those that actually take the risks to create a strong, growing private-sector economy:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

I highlighted the money part of the remarks that has gotten the most attention this past week:

 If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that.

Really? A person and or a group of people that invested money in an endeavor that is
a) Successful.
b) Providing a product and or a service that people want.
c) Rolling with the inevitable ups and downs in an business endeavor.
d) Provided jobs in a community.
did not do that on their own? They did NOT build it?
I am sorry folks, but if that is not socialist clap-trap, I do not know what is.
In fact, the whole two-paragraph diatribe is a window on what the Dear Leader, President Obama, really thinks about those who are
a) Smart.
b) Work hard.
Yes, people who do the above are just terrible in the eyes and the mind of our Dear Leader, President Obama.
Sorry to inform the Dear Leader, President Obama, but many of the most successful people in this nation, well they never spent a day in college. Some barely graduated high school. Yet they did become successful. And not because they ran to the government for help and guidance.
One name that comes to mind is the late Steve Jobs. A man who revolutionized computers. He went to college, but never graduated. But what he learned would actually help him in developing the now famous Apple computer. The dude was smart and talented and it is why there is the kind of computer, phones and now tablets that are known and loved the world over.
Funny, I don't remember when Mr. Jobs went to the government, hat in hand, to help him develop the modern computer. Same for his competitor, Bill Gates, and MicroSoft. Oh yeah, Mr. Gates, well he did go to Harvard, but did not graduate either. I guess that he just had the lousy professors.
But there are those that did graduate college but changed the face of the United States.
How about Sam Walton, the founder of WalMart? This man single-handily changed the way that Americans, and now many around the world, shop. Oh, this dude and his company are Public Enemy Number One on the left-wing radar screen. Because of the fact that this eeeeevvvvviiiiilllll company does all that it can to. . .keep labor unions from organizing. Yet many an employee has started at the low end and become very successful within the company. And yeah, because of the same smarts and hard work that was the hallmark of Mr. Walton.
And one last example is a guy named George W. Romney.
Does that last name sound familiar?
Because Mr. Romney was the late father of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney.
The late Mr. Romney came from very humble beginnings and that was a motivator in his ability to be a very successful businessman. He rescued American Motors in the late 1950s.
Oh, snaps!
Mr. Romney went to numerous colleges and universities and did not graduate. Again, must have been lousy professors.
Why am I focusing on the education of the aforementioned?
Because the Dear Leader, President Obama, seems to think that people can not make it for themselves in life without a crutch. Whether it is the crutch of government or a teacher or a mentor or the village, whatever.
The reality is that these people all were and are very smart in their own way. And they did something most do not. They took risk. And that is what the free market is.
A reality is that the overwhelming number of new business and new business ventures fail. Yet someone, somewhere does succeed. And it maybe small to some. But look at restaurants as a great example.
Hey, we all have to eat, right?
Yet how many times have you gone to a new restaurant in your town and loved it. Yet you go back six months later and it is gone. Why is that? I mean, you loved it and thought it was great. Yet for a host of reasons, the owners and investors just could not make it work.
But what if no one took these risks? What if no one tried to start a business? Hire some people? Make a profit? And, paid taxes?
Ahh, the taxes!
Yes, it is the taxes that pays fot the roads and bridges that the Dear Leader, President Obama, talked about in his diatribe. But if there is not a successful private-sector economy that broadens the tax base, the government at all levels will not have enough money to keep up the maintenance of the roads and bridges.
So, why does the Dear Leader, President Obama, not get it?
Because in his mind, those that are successful must be doing something wrong. Maybe even nefarious. It can not be that they are pretty damned smart, work hard and most important take the risk.
Oh, one last thought.
You realize that the reason we have the kind of roads that we do today is because of the wonderful invention called the automobile, right? And the vision of a guy named Henry Ford that developed the first car that most Americans could afford to buy. It was during the 1920s, that eeeeevvvvviiiiiillllll, greedy decade of unrivaled economic growth that people were flocking to buy the now famous Model T's. But the United States had to transition from the dirt road to the kind of concrete and tar roads we have today.
In other words, it was the private sector that made the government have to change. If the automobile had not become what it is today, we could still have a majority of dirt roads and be a Third-world nation.
But we are not.
And it is because of a lot of people that had vision, smarts, wherewithal and an amazing ability to take risk. And if successful, many, many people are employed and able to obtain these amazing products.
At one time, we had political leadership that welcomed that. Today, we have a political class that is trying to develop a frightening resentment of success.
That is what was so revealing about the Dear Leader, President Obama's comments. He made a case to resent success.