Dec 28

High earners are fleeing socialist California in droves, taking massive revenues with them.

Productive people and entrepreneurs have always fled high taxes and life-choking regulations. It has been widely reported that California has lost population for the past few years. But it has not been widely reported that those leaving California are starkly different from those immigrating to California.

“State budget analysts recently projected a record $68-billion deficit in the next fiscal year thanks to a 25% drop in personal income tax collection in 2023. Some city, county and other local taxing authorities, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, have also recorded revenue declines.”

According to a report in the LA Times and MSN news:

California is heavily dependent on high earners to meet government fiscal needs. Tax filers in the top 1% of income, earning around $1 million and above, have typically accounted for 40% to 45% of the state’s total personal income tax revenue, said Brian Uhler, deputy legislative analyst at California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, which estimated the $68-billion budget deficit.

But it’s not just the super rich such as Elon Musk, who moved from California to Texas in 2020 and brought his company Tesla with him a year later, or movie star Mark Wahlberg, who left Los Angeles for Vegas last year. There’s been a broader exodus of ordinary Californians in the upper-income spectrum as well.

In the tax filing years 2020 and 2021, the average gross income of taxpayers who had moved from California to another state was about $137,000. That was up from $75,000 in 2015 and 2016, according to migration and personal income data from the Internal Revenue Service.

IRS and other data show that Texas has long been, by far, the top destination for Californians. And in the years 2015-16, an individual or couple who had moved from California to Texas reported an average income of $78,000, about the same as Texans who relocated to California. But by 2020-2021, California transplants in Texas reported an average income of about $137,000, while tax returns from former Texans who moved to California showed an average income of $75,000.

The income gap between those coming into California and those going out is even bigger when it comes to Florida, which, as far away as it is, has become a top five destination for emigrating Californians. Statistics show more older Californians are likely to move there. Florida, like Texas and Nevada and Tennessee, another more recent hot spot for Californians, doesn’t have a personal income tax.

In California, the top tax rate for personal income is 12.3%.

Dec 24

Polling reveals that Americans have never had less trust in “institutions.”

Polling reveals that Americans have never had less trust in “institutions.” 

For 50 years, Gallup has routinely asked people how much they trust major media outlets.  Over time, those who say they have absolutely no trust in mainstream media went from being the smallest segment of the population to the largest segment of the population.

              A similar history can be told regarding Americans’ trust in Congress, the Presidency, all of government, academia, and medicine.  As government has taken increasing control over these institutions, peoples’ trust in the institutions has plummeted.

              Now those who call themselves “liberals” are in a state of panic.  Increasingly, they perceive “liberalism” to be nothing but an effort to save “institutions” from popular hatred.  Of course, their self-awareness

“Trust in institutions has deteriorated substantially,” said Kay Schlozman, professor of political science at Boston College. Schlozman said she believes in government and the things it provides, such as national defense and access to health care, but “I also can very much understand why the American people can be cynical about government.”

Confidence in the country’s foundational institutions has ebbed and flowed historically, though there’s been a long-term downward trend since at least the 1970s. See here.

Dec 24

New Survey: Germans’ feelings of freedom to express their political opinions is lowest in 70 years

Yellow: Germans who feel they can speak freely. Red: Germans who feel they CANNOT speak freely.      

        If anything, the grip of “political correctness” is stronger in Europe than in the U.S.  The prescribed (and sometimes mandated) ideology of socialism, equality of outcomes, anti-mobility, anti-automobility, trust in government, and the climate doomsday religion is repeated incessantly–every hour–by every official and corporate platform in Germany.

Polling shows the percentage of Germans who now feel unfree to express their opinions is higher than the percentage who feel free to speak. And for the most part, feelings of freedom exist only for leftist elites. See here.

              The online philosopher Eugyppius writes on December 22, 2023 that surveys are regularly taken of German attitudes, including Germans’ assessment of their individual freedom. The German “Freedom Index” score recently registered an abysmal -0.8.

“Since the 1950s, they have been asking Germans whether they feel they can express their political opinions freely. . . . This year, only 40% of their respondents said they felt free to express their political opinions.”

Eugyppius writes that “Surprisingly, that number – which if anything seems implausibly high to me – actually represents an all-time low.”

Not surprisingly, this feeling of being stifled is registered most prominently among the working classes.  While “[a] clear majority (75%) of Greens alone feel that they can speak their minds, and so here we learn who feels best represented by our present discourse.”

“51% of those with university degrees or an Abitur feel their political expression is unhampered, while clear majorities of everybody else say they cannot speak their minds.”

“The opinions which govern German society, as I’ve written many times before, are not those of most people, but rather of an increasingly insular, university-educated urbanite class, who are relatively affluent, who vote overwhelmingly Green and who constitute no more than 15% of the population.”

Dec 22

Socialist California loses population for 3rd straight year

Sacramento. 12/22/23. California–once the most popular destination for Americans on the move–has been under socialist rule for decades. And now residents have been fleeing the high-tax, high-regulation state continuously for three years.

See here.

The tyrannical government of California has banned gas-powered lawnmowers, locked down the population, and mandated masks and injections throughout State schools and universities.

Socialism is a curse that should be wished only upon one’s enemies.

Dec 22

Tucker Carlson announced a new podcast – and it’s already the nation’s 3rd most popular on Spotify, before it begins.

Glenn Greenwald. 12/21/2023. Carlson’s podcast–although it doesn’t even exist yet–is about to pass the NYT’s The Daily. “Roughly half of the top 50 news podcasts are independent media.” See here. “Corporate media is still in full denial about this.”

“Mainstream” information sources–meaning those that are government supporting and (secretly) government supported–simply are no longer mainstream. Readers and viewers are becoming aware that platforms such as NYT, Washington Post, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, etc. are just pro-government content. Readers and viewers simply won’t pay or invest the time to hear the same government messaging all day long, day after day.

CNN–with massive corporate support and advertising, and being shown at all times at every airport, hotel lobby and train station–only produces one show (Erin Burnett) with over 100,000 viewers in the coveted ‘under 55’ age range. (Even 5th-rate libertarian podcasts get that many viewers.) Greenwald writes that “It’s an absolutely dying medium: rapidly so.”

Dec 21

Study: Government Regulations Cause Average American to take 2 Fewer Trips per Year

WASHINGTON -. U.S. Travel Association. 12/21/2023.

Air travelers take an average of two fewer trips per year at a projected total cost of $71 billion to the U.S. economy—according to a new U.S. Travel survey from Ipsos. 

“When nearly 60% of recent air travelers find the experience the equivalent or worse than going to the DMV, it is a concerning signal that demands action,” said U.S. Travel Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman. “

The impact of traveler frustrations equates to 27 million avoided trips in total and $71 billion in losses for the U.S. economy, including $4.5 billion in lost tax revenue. (Ipsos, Longwoods International and U.S. Travel) 

Half of air travelers said they would travel more in the next six months if the experience were less of a hassle. Similarly, business travelers would take an average of two more trips per year if travel frictions improved, resulting in 18 million additional trips and $52 billion in economic impact. 

Freeman noted the numerous ways the federal government is failing travelers, such as outdated security screening technology, inconsistent waits at Customs and airport security checkpoints, and months (or years)-long delays for U.S. visitor visas. 

“The security screening experience travelers encounter today is effectively the same as it was 21 years ago when the TSA was established,” said Freeman. “While air travel is safer than ever, the process for most air travelers has not evolved. Screening processes and technologies in the United States are falling behind those in other nations. It’s time to lead the way.”

Dec 21

Socialism’s Grip Tightens Around the World

Governments across the globe are raising taxes, expanding government control.

Wall Street Journal. Dec. 18, 2023.

Tom Fairless of the Wall Street Journal writes that “The Era of Big Taxes Is Upon Us.”

“Tax revenues have risen to record levels as a share of economic output” in France, Japan and South Korea.

“In the U.S., tax receipts at all levels of government climbed to nearly 28% of GDP last year, up from 25% in 2019 and the highest level since at least 1965, aside from a brief period of budget consolidation during the Clinton administration.”

“In France and Germany, tax receipts have increased by around 1 percentage point of GDP since 2019 from already high levels, to about 46% and 39% of GDP respectively. In both countries, tax-to-GDP ratios are at the highest levels since records began in 1965.”

Ratios of taxation in Japan and South Korea are similarly approaching all-time (i.e., “European”) levels.

“Governments across advanced economies are spending about 2 percentage points more as a share of gross domestic product than they did in 2019, or around 41% of GDP compared with 39% before the pandemic, according to International Monetary Fund data.”

“Government revenue is expected to rise to around 32% of GDP in the U.S. in 2027 from 30% in 2019, according to IMF data.

“In the 20-nation eurozone, government spending will reach half of the region’s economic output this year, according to the IMF. In the U.S., state spending stands at 38% of GDP, above its prepandemic level.”

Dec 20

Shellenberger: Nearly every major media platform is seeing double-digit-percentage declines in audience.

Twitter. 12/20/2023. Journalist Michael Shellenberger writes that “Nearly every major media organization saw its digital audience decline 13% to 35% (!) over the last year.” “It’s because people lost trust in the media, which got every big story of the last few years wrong.”

For example, readership of the Washington Post is down 27%. Readership of the LA Times is down almost 30%. Readership of the New York Times is down over 28%.

The Washington Post is on track to lose $100 million in 2023, despite rapid growth in its coverage population.

Dec 20

Never has a college degree been more worthless than today.

New Study finds employers are now LESS LIKELY to hire an employee with a college degree than they are to hire one without.

Newsweek. Dec. 19, 2023.

According to the Freedom Economy Index, an overwhelming 91 percent of the 70,000 small businesses they surveyed said colleges are not “graduating students with relevant skills that today’s business community needs.”

“Indeed, many employers now see a college degree as a negative rather than a positive.”

When the survey asked employers if they were “more or less likely to consider a job-seeker with a 4-year degree from a major university or college,” employers were four times more likely to answer in the negative (41 percent) than in the affirmative (10 percent), while an additional 42 percent said it made no difference. Amazingly, almost 20 times as many employers were said they were “strongly” less likely to hire the applicant with a college degree than “strongly” more likely.

MODERN GOVERNMENT-SUPPORTED COLLEGES ARE GOVERNMENT WORSHIP CENTERS

When asked whether colleges are “fostering free speech and debate, thereby graduating students capable of debating ideas and using critical thinking,” a whopping 97 percent disagreed.

Companies such as Accenture, Bank of America, Google, IBM, and Walmart no longer require college degrees for hundreds of different positions. A report by the Burning Glass Institute last year predicted that “an additional 1.4 million jobs could open to workers without college degrees over the next five years.”

Meanwhile, 12 states no longer require a bachelor’s degree for most government jobs.

The rigid, extreme progovernment ideology pushed by government-supported universities is actually creating graduates with less value in the marketplace. See here.

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Dec 16

Obamacare and “public health” have sent life expectancy plummeting.

Los Angeles. December 16, 2023. Dr. Robert M. Califf recently wrote about the “catastrophic” drop in life expectancy since government took over control of most healthcare.

“We are facing extraordinary headwinds in our public health with a major decline in life expectancy. The major decline in the U.S. is not just a trend. I’d describe it as catastrophic.”

JAMA Internal Medicine published earlier this month that our overall life expectancy has dropped to 76 years, and remarkably, that male life expectancy in the U.S. has dropped to 73 years.

A study last year by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles shows heart attack deaths were up for all age groups in 2020 and 2021. But the largest increase was in the 25-44 age group, a 29% jump during those years.

See here.