PeakTrader.com

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PeakTrader said...

Many middle class workers, including entrepreneurs, moved from California to Colorado starting around 1990.

Along with stronger U.S. disinflationary growth, that began to accelerate in 1995 and remained strong through 2007, the Colorado economy boomed.

The Denver Tech Center added and expanded about a hundred tech campuses, impressive new malls, and upper income housing tracts replaced empty fields all the way to the mountains in the west and Castle Rock in the south.

Denver, around 10 miles north, built three new pro sports stadiums, a new convention center, a huge central library, renovated the entire lower downtown (that looks like the 1920s when it was new), repaved the streets and rebuilt the sidewalks, built an international airport, a light rail system, etc.

However, the U.S. disinflationary boom from 1982-07 created many new businesses and communities throughout the country, including in new cities in California.

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Without excessive regulations, taxes, fees, fines, fares, tolls, etc., living standards would be higher, including through lower prices and higher real wages.

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http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28997633&postID=444816153130161750

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PeakTrader said...

Income inequality in California and Colorado are similar (i.e. California's Gini coefficient is 0.471 and Colorado is 0.457).

Yet, the bottom half in California live much worse than the bottom half in Colorado, in both absolute and relative terms, in part, because of higher prices in California.

Prices for almost everything in California are higher or much higher than in Colorado.

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If I had to put people in three classes in California and Colorado, in how they actually live, they'd be apportioned this way:

California - Colorado

Upper 20% - 10%
Middle 40% - 80%
Lower 40% - 10%

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Also, I may add, a large proportion of California's population receives some type of welfare, disability, unemployment benefits, social security, or workmans compensation that are easily given away and not monitored closely.

So, the people who work need to work harder to support the people who don't work.