^{Democracy & Technology Blog} Gilder: California’s Fall Threatens All

Our Sr. Fellow George Gilder now commands the “most read” space on the Wall Street Journal opinion page today with “California’s Destructive Green Jobs Lobby”. The information adds nails to the coffin that voters in the Golden State have fashioned for themselves. It has been a familiar theme for Discovery News (discoverynews.org) for weeks.
You might think that the California calamity opens opportunities for other states, notably nearby Washington, where voters just turned down an income tax on the wealthy (e.g., entrepreneurs, small businesses, investors in new jobs) and where the next state legislative session is not about new taxes, but major surgery on spending. Washington has energy for power-hungry computer companies and it has an outstanding employee base. Texas is another state that would seem likely to benefit from the follies in California.
However, in the last analysis, we all are damaged by the bad judgement of California politicians, high tech leaders and, yes, voters. Gilder spells it out, but it’s only “Chapter 1.” There is more to come.
Romantics are in charge in the energy field in California now. They have equally romantic friends in Silicon Valley and Hollywood. They need a course in realism and they are going to have to take it. So are we all, unfortunately.