Best States For Business

[flintlock]

Re: Best States For Business

Tech jobs make headliines but do not necessarily make a huge impact in most areas. I know a lot of Itulipers are techies, but a reality check is in order in terms of what people do for a living.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/a...creating-jobs/

Working with fellow MIT professor Andrew McAfee, Brynjolfsson compared the market capitalization and payrolls of four of the biggest tech companies. His conclusion: While the companies had astronomical values on Wall Street, their job production was minimal.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Best States For Business

Tech jobs make headliines but do not necessarily make a huge impact in most areas. I know a lot of Itulipers are techies, but a reality check is in order in terms of what people do for a living.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/a...creating-jobs/

Outlier productivity?

Are we heading towards the super producers with a thinner middle and a massive lower caste?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVQPY4LlbJ4

Glengarry Glen Ross......cadillac for 1st, steak knives for 2nd, 3rd you're fired.

[lektrode]

Re: Best States For Business

Outlier productivity?

Are we heading towards the super producers with a thinner middle and a massive lower caste?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVQPY4LlbJ4

Glengarry Glen Ross......cadillac for 1st, steak knives for 2nd, 3rd you're fired.

uh huh...

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Best States For Business

If might be more useful if they had two lists. One for Big Business and one for small. Because the right environment for one doesn't always work for the other. I live in one of the more prosperous counties in the US. Not a lot of fortune 500 companies here, but while a lot of residents work for large corporations closer in to the city, what sets our area apart is how many successful small businesses are located here. Just a huge number of small time entrepreneurs doing well for themselves. Low taxes, low crime, low corruption, low government interference. All factors that encourage small business more than big.

I would agree completely......hard to have a single all encompassing list.

I also prefer an environment that is far more supportive of new business formation/support and small business rather than pimping the region out for big brand multinational jobs.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Best States For Business

First of all, I agree a simplistic "best for business" rating is stupid. And its not all about taxes either.

That's good. I'm glad we can agree here. These rankings are nothing more than vapid media talking points.

All I know is when my neighbor from upstate NY tells me about the property taxes I shudder. So many towns are left with only the wealthy or the poor, or those elderly diehards like his parents who are sticking it out because that's where they have been for so long. Not exactly conducive to attracting some types of business when there is no one left to work there for less than six figures. Look at the kind of industry left in the NE. Banking being a huge one. Those don't employ huge numbers of blue collar or lesser educated folks.

I'm going to pick a bone here. Boston has a huge blue collar working culture. New York might have thrown them overboard. But outside of the greater Manhattan area, things are different. Just look at the GINI index for the city and Fairfield county CT. Your assessment is right in some parts. But remember. Houston as a city is nearly half the size of Rhode Island - it's bigger than Providence County if I remember right. Cities are small geographically and highly populated in the northeast. We fit 20 towns into one elsewhere. Things change more quickly in much smaller geographic ranges in the northeast too. "Meds and eds" are what powers the region outside of NYC's gravity. And mostly meds. Health jobs have replaced manufacturing jobs 1 for 1 while we lost them. Only the population has grown. But it serves no good to point us out as a region of bankers. There are 100,000 thick-necked blue collar boys from Boston that would disagree with force. If you want to fault this region for being full of anything, it's nurses and healthworkers. But that's a nationwide trend.

Sure there are always support businesses that serve the better off, but taxes and other policies have driven out large numbers from that region despite your wish to say it ain't so. The majority of "startups" are not corporate tech, financial, and consulting firms like are reported in the Wall Street Journal. They are plumbers, mom and pop restaurants, hardware stores, house cleaners, Painters, specialty manufacturiing, etc. These companies will possibly never report to Dunn and Bradstreet so will never "count" in job creation but they are HUGE in terms of employing middle and lower class Americans and providing decent paying jobs in areas these people can still afford to live in.

Sure. I agree with you 100%. These companies will never have DUNS numbers. They matter a lot. And the "knowledge economy" won't help most of us. No disagreement.

No one is saying that the NE is washed up and in decay like Detroit.

Good. My only point was that if taxes are all that matter, one would expect we would be.

Only that the high taxes that well meaning Socialists there want to use to "help" people actually end up driving up the cost of living and driving out the very people they supposedly mean to help.

I've asked everyone not to call us socialists, explained why we were not, and done everything else I could think of to dispel vapid right wing media talking points. I guess it was all for not and the brainwashing is just too thick. Nobody here wants state control of the means of production. I promise you. But call us names if it make you feel righteous. Just remember, the history of Northeast income taxes in the last 10-20 years is a history of removing brackets and slashing top rates. That much is documented. Rhode Island might be the most extreme. It went from 10% to 6% at the top bracket over the last few years. Massachusetts has a Steve Forbes style flat tax. Some socialism.

What you end up with is an elitist society of the well heeled vs the rest of the poor slobs who choose to stick around. Not everyone is well educated and able to work in Wall Street or some high tech software company. Hell not everyone wants to do that even if they could. A lot of people would rather tap dance over glass than do a job like that. As a country we need to recognize this instead of maintaining the fantasy that if we just spend enough money on education and turn everyone into a little minion this Ponzi scheme will all work out in the end.

I 100% agree with this sentiment and statement. But I think this is a country-wide problem, not a regional problem, although NYC is leading the way. Look. New England is legions away from NYC. As culturally and economically different as NYC and Virginia. I don't think that always gets across. We see the problem too. That's why they have the income inequality of Rwanda and Mass and Georgia only have the income inequality of Ukraine.

Its not just about land. You can have land but you have to have water. A lot of these states don't have enough of that to support growth in some vast tracts of land.

No doubt. Only people in the sun belt don't pay the real economic cost of their water. The Feds and army corps subsidize the hell out of it. The desert west is in trouble in the long term.

Or other infrastructure.

This is my point. Infrastructure is expensive. Especially in cities. Busses and subways and trains and highways and ports don't run themselves. They cost tax money.

And contrary to popular belief, they are not out of land in huge parts of the North East. A lot of it is still very rural. Quite a lot. Sure there is a much higher cost of housing in the North East. Ever wonder why? Its not just about availability of land. Its also sky high property taxes, government interference with development, lots of things.

True to some extent. But they are still nowhere near as rural as every state not in the northeast. Smartgrowth and planning drive up housing costs. As does the earnings in the area (see Hudson - land prices expand to eat incomes), and taxes again matter. But adding $100 to a $1300 monthly mortgage on a crap 2 bedroom isn't just the tax rate's fault. The zoning, lack of land, nimbyism, and general growth limitations have more to do with is.

Everyone has their hand out for a cut. Unions, local government.

This seems like more right wing nonsense to me. Sure everyone has a cut. But just look who's winning. Look where the money's going. It's certainly not some selectman or IBEW schlub. It's finance.

High taxes get passed on to the end consumer.[ So tax the carpenter who builds your homes and guess what, YOU pay that when you buy a home.

Same goes for transporting costs to get crap to the middle of nowhere.

I understand a lot of that is on purpose. The current residents don't want a large housing tract going up in their backyard. So they put in zoning and other barriers to cheaper homes. That's the elitist thing coming in again. The, " I'm on the boat, pull up the gang plank" mentality. Some banker making $500,000 year doesn't mind paying high taxes as long as he doesn't have to rub elbows with the plebes. I saw the same thing in San Diego. They all but restricted new home construction. So a home that would be $200,000 tops here was selling for $1,000,000. And then $500,000, and then $1,000,000 etc. Depending on the economy.

Agreed. This is crap. It's a big part of why the GINI has increased in every single state in the US drastically over the last 30 years.

No taxes are not everything, but they are something.

Agreed.

There is a reason they are making cars in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia and not New York.

Yes. The same reason that textiles moved the same direction in the 1800s. New England innovates. The South provides cheap labor for mature technologies. This has been the way of things for hundreds of years. They make the cotton gin in New Haven. They put it to work in Mississippi. They cultivate tobacco in Virginia. Yankees stuff it into packs of 20 paper tubes, put it on a boat, and sell it to Europe and Asia. Some things are constant.

Texas tax incentives are a primary reason they have done much better during the recession than most of the country.

North Dakota has done similarly well. The bottom line is high oil prices and commodity prices generally. That's why commodity producing states (and countries like Australia and Canada) have done well during this worldwide recession. Not some minor interstate tax break that might have mattered very little on the margin. Drop oil to $40 per barrel and Texas is Michigan tomorrow.

Taxes are necessary. There is the level of taxes required to run a municipality, and then there is the excess waste, nepotism, and corruption that typifies almost ALL major cities( and many smaller ones) in the US, regardless of where they are located. Keep feeding the monster and you are going to continue to see exactly what we have seen in the US. A system where you are either with the "in crowd" elitist or you are left out in the cold. I group many large corporations with the in crowd as the distinction between them and corrupt government is becoming insignificant due to their ability to lobby for special consideration.

I think you are overestimating the effect of taxes. They matter. Many other factors matter more. Sweden has far higher taxes than Spain. It is doing much better. Why? South Africa has much higher taxes than Liberia. It is doing much better. Why? I think the answer is obvious. But anti-tax crusaders just don't want to see it.

The bigger question in my mind is how taxes are levied, who bears the brunt of them, and what that does to incentives. I've talked before about how NH is one of the best states for the middle class, among the most equal states in the country (far more equal than VT or ME), and has no income or sales tax, but among the highest property and corporate taxes in the country. I think there is something to be said about rethinking how states get revenue.

But the pop-media tripe line about low Texas taxes driving economic growth and high Michigan taxes killing business is mostly myth. Free trade deals with Mexico, Canada, and China along with an expanding auto producer market in Japan and Korea killed Detroit. A huge run up in ag and oil prices are what fueled the economic success of America's energy and breadbasket plains. The property bubble shaded/shades everything. Estate, property, sales, and personal income taxes matter, but they had comparatively little to do with it.

[lektrode]

Re: Best States For Business

That's good. I'm glad we can agree here. These rankings are nothing more than vapid media talking points.

the real question, once past how much the rates are etc - is: does The Public/the citizenry Get What Its Paying For?

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No doubt. Only people in the sun belt don't pay the real economic cost of their water. The Feds and army corps subsidize the hell out of it. The desert west is in trouble in the long term.

the desert SOUTH west is, for sure - but some areas of 'the west' arent so dependent upon the big federal water projects, and long as somewhere near normal precip levels happen, arent in bad shape at all - that said, areas like los wages (vegas) are living in LaLa land with their water usage rates for stuff like lawns and golf courses and THEY are indeed in trouble.

This is my point. Infrastructure is expensive. Especially in cities. Busses and subways and trains and highways and ports don't run themselves. They cost tax money.

no disagreement there - but again, my question is: does The Public get what its paying for? - my observation has been that in the.. ummm... 'blue' states (vs the 'red' states) - they dont, as the poltical class/buracracy/unions/corruption sucks up far too much of the revenue stream - and then, soon as the inevitable economic hiccup occurs, there's suddenly 'no money to fix the roads' - even tho hundreds of millions have been collected, but got blown on everything _but_ what the revenues were generated for in the first place.

i think most voters/citizens dont mind paying taxes when they think the revenues are being spent/used wisely (vs spread like so much 'fertilizer' on keeping the usual suspects 'well-fed', voting for a certain group's 'interests' that arent usually in the majority of the public's best interest)

Same goes for transporting costs to get crap to the middle of nowhere.

exactly - again, esp when a big - and i'm saying a HUGE chunk - of these costs are nothing more than keeping certain special interests happy - who vote a certain way, no matter what it costs The Rest Of US

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The bigger question in my mind is how taxes are levied, who bears the brunt of them, and what that does to incentives.

exactly - and every time we hear about 'new/bigger/better' programs - from the political class - with its usual refrain of it all being "...for the schools/children/poor/uninsured..." with the inevitable "increase taxes on 'the rich'..." ???
we know all too well who actually gets stuck paying for it - just ask em in states like California how that usually works out... (read: jobs flee east/north, as northbound mex/cross-border traffic increases)

I've talked before about how NH is one of the best states for the middle class, among the most equal states in the country (far more equal than VT or ME), and has no income or sales tax, but among the highest property and corporate taxes in the country. I think there is something to be said about rethinking how states get revenue.

and - as Mr C1ue has noted on a few occasions - 'low property taxes' tend to workout the best for the million-dollar/up club -
while NH's property taxes might not be all that 'cheap' they do have the effect of keeping the residents focused with laser-like intensity on the local/municipal budgets - with its 'town meeting' form of local gov, whereby if the townsfolk desire to have that shiny new firetruck or a big new school, more cops on the beat etc?

then they have to come to town meeting, pay _attention_ and RAISE THEIR HANDS TO RAISE THEIR PROPERTY TAXES TO PAY FOR IT = keeps the political class on a tight leash (not to mention keeping some of the town meetings 'colorful' and exciting ;)

vs again, the typical 'blue' states with their typically all-powerful (and overpaid) political class in charge of keeping the crony class/unions as well as the welfare class happy - while perhaps (and thats a BIG maybe) having 'low property taxes' - that then bury the true costs of their favorite constituencies pet projects under the guise of that black hole known as 'general funding' - where nothing/nobody is held accountable for anything and every time theres a shortfall, need to jack up tax rates again to 'solve a revenue problem' - never mind what the fraudulently calculated CPI has done to krank up revenues over the decades - but its always 'insufficient revenues' and never out of control SPENDING - mostly to curry favour for certain special interests, to keep them voting a certain way...

But the pop-media tripe line about low Texas taxes driving economic growth and high Michigan taxes killing business is mostly myth. Free trade deals with Mexico, Canada, and China along with an expanding auto producer market in Japan and Korea killed Detroit. A huge run up in ag and oil prices are what fueled the economic success of America's energy and breadbasket plains. The property bubble shaded/shades everything. Estate, property, sales, and personal income taxes matter, but they had comparatively little to do with it.

agreed - and how some states manage their affairs = all the difference - and after having had the experience of living in all the VERY contrasty places i have???

theres no doubt in my mind whatsoever, that the differences in politix tween them, MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE in the outcome.

[LazyBoy]

Re: Best States For Business

... sucks up far too much of the revenue stream - and then, soon as the inevitable economic hiccup occurs, there's suddenly 'no money to fix the roads' - even tho hundreds of millions have been collected, but got blown on everything _but_ what the revenues were generated for in the first place.

Economics as my parents understood it. Nobody's saving for a rainy day. Citizens and government alike, taking on debt during the good times! This culture of debt and finance is evil.

while NH's property taxes might not be all that 'cheap' they do have the effect of keeping the residents focused with laser-like intensity on the local/municipal budgets - with its 'town meeting' form of local gov, whereby if the townsfolk desire to have that shiny new firetruck or a big new school, more cops on the beat etc?

then they have to come to town meeting, pay _attention_ and RAISE THEIR HANDS TO RAISE THEIR PROPERTY TAXES TO PAY FOR IT = keeps the political class on a tight leash (not to mention keeping some of the town meetings 'colorful' and exciting ;)

Sounds great. I assume it's been done this way for a while and that property taxes became high because the people decided they needed specific services from the government? Are they as careful with bond issues as with tax increases?

[lektrode]

Re: Best States For Business

Economics as my parents understood it. Nobody's saving for a rainy day. Citizens and government alike, taking on debt during the good times! This culture of debt and finance is evil.

+1
as did mine.

Sounds great. I assume it's been done this way for a while and that property taxes became high because the people decided they needed specific services from the government? Are they as careful with bond issues as with tax increases?

yep - along with a relatively recent surge of new arrivals from south of the border, who - when confronted with stuff like having to take ones own trash to the dump, volunteer fire depts, and NOT having a lot of the rest of the 'nice to have' things like fabulous new schools/firetrucks, like what that they had back where they came from in 'the big cities' and started getting all 'activated' and clamoring for all sorts of NEW stuff - along with bringing the politix of the places most of em came from - seemingly intent on re-creating precisely what motivated em to leave where they were in the first place?

dunno about the bond issues, other than when there's no 'broad based revenue stream' it tends to keep the political class from over-promising (never mind under-delivering, since there isnt quite the same unionized public-sector/seniority-driven-deadwood overhead that typically results in BORROWING to pay for current operating expenses, read: economic suicide)

but dcarrigg might just know the answer to that question (a commendation/compliment - as methinks he might be considering a relocation at some point, as we did back in the 70's, when we became 'economic refugees of taxachusettes' after their politix drove my ole man outa biz/outa state, to the weekend place, in an 'involuntary retirement' - kinda like whats happened to me, in another place, over the past few years...)