 Let's, uh, let's talk a little bit about California. Um, you know, California is probably, I don't know, from my perspective, maybe the nicest place to live on planet earth. It has almost perfect weather. It gets a little too cold in the winter. It's pretty funny. Um, but it gets a little bit cold in the winter. It's compared to, let's say, Puerto Rico, but, or Florida, but it does, but it's, it's, I mean, San Diego, I don't think there's a better place to be. It's, it's, it's, uh, warm weather, but it never gets super hot. Uh, winters are very mild. It almost never rains. It never rains in the summer in Southern California. Uh, Northern California is beautiful, walling hills. For the north you go, you get forests. You could, it, from where I lived in California, you could be at the beach in 30 minutes. You could be skiing in 40 minutes in the winter. Uh, you can go to the desert. You can, you can get to snow. You can get to beach. It, it, there's just a variety of scenery, the possibilities that you have, uh, just stunning. It's, it's just a beautiful place. It's also, um, new. So, uh, you know, the infrastructure's new. The infrastructure's easy to manage. Uh, the shopping malls, the, the, the streets. They are, they're good toll roads that get you places. The only downside in California is traffic. And as we'll see that might be, there might be some, uh, pressures taking care of that. It's also an incredibly productive place, right? So California's a place in which incredibly productive individuals live. Whether it is in Los Angeles, which used to be, uh, in Arch County, which used to be home to, uh, to kind of a lot of the, uh, uh, what do you call them, uh, um, you know, military hardware, uh, manufacturers, uh, you know, people who built, uh, planes and, and all kind of military technology, that kind of went away during the nineties after the bulletin wall came down, but a lot of high tech, of course, Hollywood, uh, and, uh, you know, and a lot of show business in LA. But then if you go down to San Diego, you've got a lot of biotech, uh, core, calm is, is in Orange County. You've got a lot of tech and biotech in that area. And then you go to North. And of course you've got maybe the most productive area in the whole country, which is, uh, the Bay Area where you've got the most incredible companies in the world, the envy of the entire world, every country in the world wants its own Silicon Valley. Uh, and you've got one of the most beautiful cities in the world, San Francisco. So if you overall take, take California, uh, generally California is, uh, you know, an amazing place. Dave says California superficial and phony in New York is much better. No, it's not. That's just not true, particularly not the Bay Area. There's nothing phony about the Bay Area when I was there in the nineties and you know, you could drive around at two o'clock in the morning and at the high tech companies, there were lights on because people were working. Uh, it was, it, I, there is no place more productive even today, uh, than Silicon Valley. And, uh, it's where innovation happens. It's where people work hard. They, they, they produce, uh, they create, they build, uh, the leading companies in the country, the highest growth companies in the country, uh, and all of the innovations of products of Silicon Valley. So you might prefer New York. I, you know, I prefer New York or I'm not sure I want to live in New York but to visit. But in terms of if you're ambitious, if you're young, ambitious, technology minded and, uh, you know, entrepreneurial, there is literally no better place, no better place than, uh, than California. And, uh, if you add to that, uh, the weather, it is the perfect place to live, except for the fact that the politicians of California and really the residents, because they vote for the politicians and they support the politicians and basically destroy the state. They have taken a state that is unbelievably productive that, uh, which is the fountain head of innovation in the United States, a place that has amazing scenery, amazing weather and amazing people. And they basically, slowly, systematically created disincentives to live there. Whether it's difficulties in opening a business, uh, if you're not in tech, they give all kinds of special car valves for tech companies, uh, employ, whether it's the fact that it's impossible, almost impossible to fire somebody in Texas, in Texas again, in California, almost impossible to fire somebody in California. It's, um, whether it's the fact that, uh, there are, uh, you know, I'll give an example. It's very, very difficult to get permission to do, um, you know, very, very difficult to get permission to do, uh, outdoor dining in California during the pandemic, the, uh, the regulators loosened the regulations and there's this amazing amount of outdoor dining in California during the pandemic. And of course, what better place, what better place, um, to have outdoor dining in California where it's not only is it warm, but it's also not humid. It's dry. So in that sense, it's, it's perfect weather, much better than let's say Austin, Texas. It's, Austin is colder in the winter, uh, rainier in the summer and way, way more humid than California. Otherwise California has, has it by a long shot over a place like Austin. So outdoor dining suddenly became popular, but now that the pandemic is quote over, I wish regulations are coming back and basically regulators are going out and they're shutting down all the outdoor dining that was created during the pandemic. Same thing happening by the way in New York City, New York City, which was very accommodating to restaurants during the pandemic. Now they're trying to shut down all these amazing, you know, outdoor seating that restaurants have that, that in New York, you can only do it, um, you know, when the weather's nice, which is not that often in California, you can do it year round. So regulations over the top and then of course taxes over the top. And the more you make, the more you pay. And of course, during COVID, some of the, uh, some of the most stringent restrictions, masks, there's no mask mandates all over California, although I don't think they'll be enforced in Orange County. There's, uh, there's mask mandates all over California. So the most stringent requirements, status requirements were in California. So what has happened over the last probably 30 years is slowly and systematically the, uh, the state is becoming less and less habitable. Uh, the price of electricity is through the roof. It's only going to get worse as California shuts down. It's one last, uh, nuclear reactor and, uh, mandates a shift to so-called, um, so called, uh, what do you call them, um, sustainable energy, you know, or, or as Alex Epstein likes to call them unsist, unreliable, uh, energy sources. So you're going to have unreliable. We got rolling blackouts in California because of fires, which are a result of at least the sum extent of not clearing the forest floor because of environmentalists. You've just got this layering of regulations, controls, taxes, more regulations, more controls, taxes, a more environmentalist BS nonsense. And it just grows and grows and grows and grows. And over the last two years, people have had enough. Now at the same time, and maybe the thing that makes California most unlivable for most people is the fact that at the same time as people have wanted to move in because of all the pluses I mentioned, all the good things about California, all the upside that is involved in California. At the same time as that's happened, no houses have been built. Not in my backyard. It dominates places like San Francisco and the Bay Area and all over the place. Green, uh, green is, is, is king in California. So traffic is horrific because they don't build enough highways. They don't build double deckers. They don't build tunnels and they don't build enough homes. So real estate prices have been going through the roof. So California is just basically unaffordable to people. So now combine all that. And what you're seeing is the last several years, really last decade or so, California net has been losing people. Now it's interesting to ask the question, who primarily is leaving California? Because the high end of the real estate market keeps going up. And that means there's constant demand among relatively wealthy people, middle class, upper middle class people for more and more. So what is going on? Well, what's happening is that it's the lower middle class. It's the working class. It's the poor that are leaving California because they can't afford to live there. To be able to afford a house if you're low middle class in California, you have to live two hours away from your work. You have to commute for two hours in and out. And even then your house is going to cost a lot of money. So people have been moving and it turns out that during the pandemic, I think partially because of the restrictive nature of the pandemic, partially because people discovered they can walk far, partially because people just get fed up and they use the pandemic as a time to reevaluate their lives and to reevaluate where they want to live and they just moved. Right. So since the beginning of the pandemic, California has lost population mostly because fewer people moved into California. While at the same time, more people were leaving California. So net California lost more people during the pandemic than they were losing before the pandemic. But primarily the main driver was fewer people moving in. So for years and years and years in spite of the fact that people were leaving California, more people are moving in. Now fewer people are moving in all regions of California, every single county. So steep declines and out of state entrance since the pandemic began, ranging from 25% to 45% fewer people coming in during the pandemic than before. Now part of that is pandemic, part of that is taxes. Yes, some rich people have left Ben Shapiro, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, but the majority of people, they're not that many rich people in the world, the majority of people, the thing that drives statistics are low income people who can't afford to live in California anymore. It's it's middle class, lower middle class people working class people. It's not the rich. There are plenty of billionaires still in California. There are plenty and plenty of rich people still in California. One of the reasons you have massive labor shortages in California is really all of the country but certainly in California is because the people who take those jobs are moving out. Yeah, it's not true that productive people are moving out and illiduit peasants are moving in. None of that is up actually true. It's all BS, right? productive people are moving in. ambitious people who wanted jobs in Silicon Valley, you want to start companies who want want to go to Hollywood, they're moving in. The people are moving out are also productive people, but they tend to be productive people at the lower end. And you can you can make statements but the stats are just not on your side guys. The fact is that it's the upper end that is moving in. It's it's people getting high salaries that are moving in. It's Apple employees moving in its new startup employees moving in and they can afford the million, two million, three million, four million, five million dollar homes in California and drive up the prices upwards. So no, I mean, you guys, the idea that there are lots of uneducated illiduitable peasants in California is I think the technical term is bullshit. The area where we've seen the most damage, if you will, the biggest decline in number of people moving in, and the biggest increase in number of people moving out is the Bay Area. The Bay Area, Santa Clara, San Mateiro and San Francisco counties. These are the counties of Silicon Valley. These are the counties of the tech industry. And you're seeing these people people can't afford to live there anymore. Prices are unbelievably high. Low middle class people are moving out in droves. They're moving way out of the San Francisco area, but also a lot of tech people. It's true that Austin is becoming a tech hub, other places that are zoners becoming a tech hub. And people are looking for cheaper, better alternatives and towards the quality of life. And they are moving out of these areas. Also, we'll talk about homelessness in a minute. These also areas, particularly San Francisco plagued by homelessness. Again, a feature of the fact that people low income people cannot afford homes. So they become homeless. Whereas somebody mentioned that they don't see any homeless people in Florida. Yeah, you don't see homeless people in Florida, partially because there was a lot of low income housing in Florida. There's cheap housing in Florida. Housing prices are way, way lower than they are in California and because in Florida, people who people who are poor do not get coddled like they do in California. In California, for example, your best way to get cheap housing is to be homeless per period of time and then wait until they may have and go to Los Angeles and wait for the program that they may have Los Angeles is initiated to get housing for homeless people to get that into gear. And there you go, you get housing. So it's somebody who's lived in California for many years, many years, Northern California and Southern California. You know, I'm being accused that I don't see the masses. Oh, I see the masses. And the masses in California are unbelievably productive. California generally is an incredibly productive place. And then there's homeless people who cannot afford the housing. So again, the people leaving the state or people who can't afford housing, some of them are leaving the state. Some of them staying as homeless people. You don't get that in Florida, partially because Florida does give massive benefits. San Francisco and LA are on the get in. They're not in the get in. They're unpleasant if you're homeless. Then pleasant because of all the homeless people. But I wouldn't call them on the get in. There's still places where a lot of people, a lot of people love to live. All right. It is sad, though, to see what's happening in San Francisco and LA and to see how many productive people are leaving, how many people who are working and workers are leaving. And San Francisco may be one of the most beautiful, if not one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Just to see the do it, the homelessness, the just everywhere. I mean, the homeless people always in San Francisco is always a problem, but it's become much, much, much worse in the last 10 to 5 to 10 years. And it's truly tragic given how beautiful the city is. LA or San Francisco, being San Francisco. Well, San Francisco is a much, much more beautiful city than LA. It's not even close. LA is a pretty boring city. San Francisco is a gorgeous city. Unfortunately, they both being so badly managed. They won't be so taken over by the left and their entire agenda that, you know, that it's a sad place. It should be an amazing place and unfortunately, it is a sad place. Alright, let's see more stuff on California here. Let's see, we'll get to that in a minute. Yeah, Adam says, where would we move from California to Texas? If that abortion was upheld, all limits on the accuracy are off, all the better, all the way to a prohibition against teaching evolution of minors. Anyone at the 10 year bet, I have not seen any biotech labs moving out of Torrance. Yeah, I mean, I doubt biotech is moving to Texas. I doubt biotech is going to leave kind of Boston and California. I doubt science heavy industries, including some of the technology science heavy places are leaving the Bay Area, leaving Stanford, Berkeley, or leaving or you see San Diego, or leaving Boston with Harvard and MIT there. So, you know, I agree with Adam. I agree, Texas is an ideal place at all. And it's a sad state where you have to choose between a leftist California or a theocratic Texas. That is truly, truly, it's truly sad. Derek asked, didn't Ironman hate California? Pre-Silicon Valley, though pre-Silicon I don't know if she hated California, but she was in New York. She loved New York. I mean, that was the kind of thing she loved. I don't think the Texas law is going to be upheld. I do think abortion is finished. That is, in Texas because I think what will happen is that the Supreme Court will either, you know, weaken Roe versus Wade or eliminate it completely and Texas will just pass a plain vanilla ban on abortion. But this law that, law that Texas passed, I think is going to go down in defeat. I don't think there's any way even the Supreme Court will approve it. I've already seen now, California wants to pass an anti-gun law that is similar to the Texas anti-abortion law, which basically gives individuals the right to sue people if they violate the law and instead of the state enforcing the law. And that's a way to get around the constitutional protection of the Second Amendment, just like Texas was hoping to get around the constitutional protection of Roe versus Wade. So it's going to be the whole thing how this plays out with this court is going to be super interesting. But I think we can assume that in the next few years, Roe versus Wade is out. I think, I don't think Texas law will stand. That whole mechanism that Texas came up with for individuals to sue participants in an abortion. I think that's out, but abortion will be banned in Texas. And yeah, I mean it'll be very hard to recommend going to live in Texas, particularly if you're a young single woman. But that's the state of the world. There is no good out there. There's just different versions of evil. And we all kind of find, hopefully, if you're open-minded and if you think about it and if you consider the possibilities, we're all kind of trying to figure out what is optimal for us individually based on our values. And for some, it makes sense to go to Austin, Texas. For others, it makes sense to go to Puerto Rico. And for others, it makes complete sense to stay in California. And I completely understand people who stay in California. All right, let's thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show. 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