“Cryptocurrency Billionaire” Tom Draper is trying, once again, to split California; and as of this morning, his “Cal3” initiaitve has officially earned a spot on the November 6 ballot.
This time he’s proposing 3 states; last time he pitched the idea it was 6. What we said then:
These pages have often extolled the virtues of doing business in the Southeast and Texas, the best climate for entrepreneurs and where we have focused our investment efforts for over twenty years. Along the way we may have poked gentle fun at our friends in California whenever the state’s business environment fared poorly in surveys or did something like retroactively tax entrepreneurs.
So we can try to imagine the frustration engendered when a large and diverse geographic area strains under distant and schlerotic governing institutions… Hard to see how this becomes a political reality though.
With the mood of the electorate today, anything might be possible. But whatever one thinks of the notion, he has his work cut out for him. A May 8 article in Bloomberg points out that CA’s differences run deep, making it difficult to structure the break-up in a fashion that would be politically palatable across-the-board.
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In related news…
The Orange County Register writes that California lacks a job-friendly economic policy. The letter Gov. Jerry Brown wrote to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, pleading the case for “HQ2” to be located in his state, promised a long and complicated list of incentives, breaks and assistance.
“It reads like a confession of everything California is doing to kill businesses” and “(would be) a useful list for the next governor, and for anyone who wonders why there’s no gold rush of businesses moving to California.”
