A new study
by Fed economists Neil Bhutta, Jane Dokko, and Hui Shan concludes that the median borrower does not strategically default until equity falls to -62 percent of their home’s value.
Karl Smith is not impressed by the USDA’s claims about the effects of a soda tax on childhood obesity.
Political Calculations compares the attractiveness to businesses of locating in California versus Texas.
Some analysts have claimed that basketball star LeBron James saved himself $12 million in taxes by choosing to play in Florida rather than New York, though Aaron Merchak, David Henderson, and
Frank Stephenson refine the calculation.
And some UCLA scientists found that brain scans can predict what you’re going to decide better than you can.
From Bhutta et al:
“We study borrowers from Arizona, California, Florida, and Nevada who purchased homes
in 2006 using non-prime mortgages with 100 percent financing. Almost 80 percent
of these borrowers default by the end of the observation period in September 2009.
And the Fed can’t spot a bubble?
TX vs CA
Why is Silicon Valley in CA and not TX? TI was first off the mark but did not end up a big player. Same with Boston. Why? Was it taxes or regulations?
A CEO is interested in the next quarters results and his bonus not in how well his company will do after he is gone. Therefor I think asking him about the business climate is asking a someone to talk his book. I was thinking of using the idea of comparing it to asking your dog to “SPEAK!” Arf Arf Arf but that is too crude so I won’t.
California is a huge market and if you don’t like to do business here go somewhere else and don’t let the door hit your A$$ on the way out.
Of course,these are CEO’s opinions and may or may not reflect the actual facts on the ground. For example, CEOs somewhat strangely perceive Texas workers as having a higher general education level. One measure of “general education” is high school rankings. Here’s what US News had to say in their ranking of high schools:
Of the 21,786 public high schools examined by U.S. News and its partner in the project, School Evaluation Services, 1,750 were recognized for considerably outperforming their state’s standards. In that group, there were 561 schools that also were found to be doing an excellent job of preparing students for college-level coursework. California leads the nation this year with 110 high schools that earned recognition, followed by New York (53 schools), Texas (50 schools), Illinois (37 schools), Florida (24 schools), and Massachusetts (21 schools).
http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2009/12/09/virginia-high-school-is-best-in-the-nation.html
Looks like a lot of blue states to me.
And their opinions on crime look kind of off the wall as well. CEOs score Texas much higher than California in terms of crime, but according to the Statistical Abstract of the US, the two states are virtually identical (California ranks 14th worst and Texas ranks 15th worst. Doesn’t exactly agree with the big gap in the mind of clueless CEOs.
http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank21.html
And the real kicker is CEO’s misperceptions of health care rankings. CEOs believe that Texas ranks MUCH higher than California, but this ranking puts California at #23 and Texas at #39.
http://www.americashealthrankings.org/measure/2009/overall.aspx
I did live in Texas back when I was young and stupid, and they did have a zero income tax. And that was my first lesson in understanding that you get what you pay for.
This tells me that CEOs are out of touch with reality.
“A CEO is interested in the next quarters results and his bonus not in how well his company will do after he is gone.” I didn’t know CEOs only worked a year before moving on.
2slugbaits-
A lot more of the small people are also migrating to Texas.
…when equity falls to -62%. Our government does a good job of teaching people immorality, teaching them to walk out on their commitments.