From: steiny@steiny.com (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: ca.general
Subject: Re: Jumping the Good Ship California
Date: 7 Sep 92 16:28:08 GMT
Distribution: ca
Organization: Don Steiny Software

kehres@ima.com (Tim Kehres) writes:


>BTW, one of the local radio stations in the San Francisco area today said
>that a new report out indicates that people are leaving the state now at a
>rate of 3 to 1.

	That's great!   Maybe they should try the Boston MA area.   You
can pick up a nice home on Cape Cod for less than $70,000!  Of course there
are no jobs.    That might be hard from someone from the Bay Area, where
unemployment is more than 1% below the national average.

	Later today I am going to Omaha Nebraska to teach a class for a few 
days.  I will let you know what it's like.    One thing I do know from 
checking my latest issue of Sales and Marketing Management is that the
median income is about $15,000 per year less than San Jose.   Houses
must be pretty cheap there.   Also corn.

	I guess I should not spill the beans, but California is so big
that looking at statistics for the whole state is like trying to spot
a flea on an elephant by using a wide angle lens.   Unemployment is
the Bay Area is 5% lower than in Southern California, and lower than
the national average.    Of course, that just means that people who are
hear are not loosing their jobs as fast (so you can put your suitcase
back in the closet).  

	According to "The Economist" California is exporting all of their
taxes and regulations on businesses to the rest of the country, so the 
advantage is rapidly waining.   After all, politicians are always trying to 
figure out ways to get our money for own good so we don't piss it away 
enjoying life or something like that.  As soon as a politician somewhere
else in the country hears about some new successful scam to shake down the
people, they pick it up.  Sort of like the Carnival circut.   Besides,
everyone knows, ALL the fads start in California :-).

	This thread has an enormous amount of what I would call, forgive me
for being perhaps a little rough . . . whining.

	Silicon Valley is still the center of the computer industry.   The
pay is high, the risks are high, the rewards can be monumental.   I work on
the cutting edge of technology, and decisions I make often affect people 
and society for years to come.    It is a big responsibility, I have to
keep learning, I can't just stop and figure I have arrived.   But, hey,
I LIKE that.    I feel like I am alive.   I look back at the last year or
the year before that and I feel like I have really held on to life with 
both hands.  

	On the flip side, I live in a beautiful place (Santa Cruz), since
I am my own business, I generally work at home.   I take at least one month
off per year and part of my job is reading and learning new things, like
being in school.    Where else could I have a job like this?    The proximity
of countless computer companies gives me a marketplace for my services.

	IMHO, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.  Each
individual has a great deal of responsibility for how his or her life turns
out.   Geography can be important.   For instance, if a person has his or
her heart set on being a lobster fisherperson, then California is not the
place to be.   But to say that California is not a good place to have a small
business flys in the face of the fact that small businesses are created in
California faster than anywhere in the world, and many of them are suceeding.

	California is still the center of the world, the place where trends
are started, the locus of the entertainment business, the center of the
computer industry, unbelievably rich agriculture, the most beautiful and
popular city (SF), and on and on and on.    As free trade with Mexico 
and Latin America expands, as our trade with our Asian neighbors expands
California will get richer, both financially and culturally.   The reports
of our death are greatly exaggurated.

-don
-- 
Don Steiny
Don Steiny Software
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(408) 425-0382