Population Changes and Tax/Business environment by state(s)

"The lesson is that high taxes and strong public employee unions tend to stifle growth and produce a two-tier society like coastal California's... The 16 states where collective bargaining with public employees is not required grew 15 percent in the last decade. The other states grew 7 percent." - Michael Barone

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=42546

This is by their own account, a conservative publication. Certainly correlation does not equal causation, etc. etc. but facts are facts...

And the question is?

And the question is? Originally Posted by pjorourke

Yea atl, wtf was your point?

That business will gravitate to cheaper labor? Or that labor gravitates towards business?

Check out China if you really want to see the final destination.

When two worlds collide...the one with the higher standard of living will go down and the one with the lower standard of living will rise.

Where do you think that leaves American workers long term?

I didn't know a thread required a question.

But, PJ, if it helps you out, I'll add what I thought was implicit, "Fellow Board Members, what do you think?"

once upon a golden age it was "california, here i come"... illinois, here i come? i doubt it...

"Fellow Board Members, what do you think?" Originally Posted by atlcomedy

OK, I'll bite. The population is following the money. It always does.

Nice weather, beaches and such are a distant second. The money has come south because the capital can come south...to buy land, build buildings, and find labor for a much lower investment. So, it does so. More workforce then follows where the capital has gone.

The ability to allow capital to move has been fostered by the fact that transportaion is so easy today. We can get from LA to NY in a few hours today...where 50 years ago it was a 3-5 day train ride...and 100 years ago it was a several month quest.

For the NE to "reinvent" itself is going to be a difficult task. Tearing out old, but existing, infrastrucutre to compete with newer infrastrucure elsewhere is a costly task...and must be done with a labor force that has expectations of higher income than its southern neighbors.