[quote=BigGovernmentIsGood][quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
And it no longer is. Not like it used to be, anyway. It has destroyed its competitive advantage, and due to not only regulation, but also due to excessive litigation and prohibitively expensive insurance that arose due to that litigation.
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The Kauffman Foundation ranks California as the 8th best state for New Economy businesses:
I suspect you are lamenting the loss of old-line businesses that polluted the hell out of the environment. While those businesses are moving out, innovative new startups are cropping up all the time.
Proposition 23 is currently polling at 45% against with only 34% for it:
It looks like it’s going to go down in flames and you can look forward to more of those businesses who make money by making the public pay for their externalities leaving the state. I say good riddance. For every pollution-based business that leaves, there will be 100 technology-based startups to take their place.[/quote]
BigGubment: Feel free to cite Kaufmann statistics to your heart’s content, but you’re missing two very salient points: (1) Nope, I ain’t lamenting “old line” businesses at all, and (2) There ain’t no “New, New Thing” in California anymore.
I remember Silicon Valley before it was Silicon Valley. I also remember when Apple fabbed their own computers (and, as expected you didn’t understand the Byte Shop reference at all), when Intel was Fairchild and I remember Western Digital in Sunnyvale. The point? There used to be significant manufacturing whip in the Bay Area, but its all gone now.
As to the “New, New Thing”, well, the boys on Sand Hill Road in Menlo (you do know about Sand Hill Road, right?) now realize that social networking isn’t going to make any money, so they’ve staked their hopes on “green”. But, green isn’t working out so well, as the experiences of Spain and Britain have made very clear. Wind and solar cannot spool up fast enough and all of those startups you’re referencing are very heavily subsidized by the very government you’re mocking for underwriting the UC system, and they couldn’t survive otherwise.
Bottom line, Giggles, is that Silicon Valley shot its bolt during the dot.bomb era and, with the exception of Google and to a lesser extent Yahoo, that massive growth and money engine that was Silicon Valley is long gone. Oh, and one last thing: You’re probably unaware of Silicon Valley’s dirty little secret. Silicon Valley was bought and paid for with government money. Whether it was DoD, or DARPA, or NASA or USAF, it was all bankrolled by Uncle Sugar. Those hundreds of companies that Stanford spun off? Where do you think the jingle came from? So before you start expostulating about “innovation” and “startups”, read your history. Of course, you ain’t from here, so why would you know the REAL story?
