> Your second statement struck me, and I was curious how the manufacturing sectors compare for California vs Texas.
And Wall Street was great in New York until they moved to Florida, North Carolina, and Hawaii... and Oil headquarters were huge in California until they moved to Texas... and Big Auto was big in Michigan until they moved to the South and on and on.
What is so mind-boggling about all these people not seeing the trends is acting like what is is what has to be. There's no divine right for these companies to remain in California. It has a terrible business climate. Were it not for oil, agriculture, and defense in parts of CA the Bay Area loathes, there would be very little actual "stuff" produced in California. Software has no geographic attachment to the land like ag or oil, so there's no reason they have to be forced to the Central Valley. They can just leave.
Numbers from the National Association of Manufacturers:
California: $316.7b manufacturing output, 10.67% of state product, 7.72% of employment. [1]
Texas: $230.45b manufacturing output, 12.98% of state product, 7.04% of employment. [2]
So really, it doesn't seem like one state is particularly better than the other for manufacturing by the numbers.
1: https://www.nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2019-california...
2: https://www.nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2019-texas-manu...