Otherwise, with tax base shrinking what are average Californians to do? They, for sure, are going to have to raise taxes even more next time. I mean, who can blame them. A decade or two ago, the average Californian was in the top five percent of worldwide income. Now it has slid to the top six or even, horrific, seven percent. The average Californian is stressed out! It is finally high time they institute some of the redistribution that is so prevalent in ninety five percent of the world.”

Recently, at my California company, we failed to recruit the top candidates for two positions. We had to settle for good, but second to top tier candidates. When it comes to innovation, the difference between very good and excellent can be astronomical. An anecdote again, but a pattern that has been evolving in the last decade or so. Many candidates choosing to stay in their home states — in Asia. These are now countless superior brains that will compete with California, and America, from outside US borders, using foreign capital — to the myopic delight of protectionists who fail to see the monumental shifts taking place in the world, as three billion people are beginning to emulate traditional American attitudes. Attitudes that Americans themselves are abandoning.

Unfortunately, failure to recruit these highly productive individuals will not show up in next year’s California budget, or even the next. These are young people whose peak productivity and contribution is five, ten, fifteen years down the line. The fact that California continues to be a high tech hub, means that the productivity process has too much inertia built into it for voter lemmings to notice. A Laffer curve hysteresis, if you will. But inertia means that by the time you decide to change you behavior at the polling booth, it is already too late. Way too late. Just ask France, whoose BTW decline is still debatable amongst American progressive forces. In any case, american interstate migration is a modest phenomenon. The much bigger overall tectonic shift of American demise is happening on the international scene: as I said above, Americans are abandoning the very values that propelled them to success, while three billion people are beginning to emulate them. By historical timeframe, the pace of convergence is precipitous. The American lemming ninety nine percent, once in the top ten percent of world prosperity, will keep converging towards the true worldwide ninety nine percent, at fast speed. No, it is no longer your children’s problem. It will be here much sooner than you think. It is happening as we speak, under your European emulating nose, dear HopNChanger.