In the last decades of the 20th century, California reinvented a brash new capitalism that created new, more innovative archetypes. Today, some of those companies – Apple, Google and Facebook – are among the largest in the world, with assets greater than those of all but a few countries.
California is a beacon for smart people. Yet we seem to excel in producing policies that hurt ourselves.
This is particularly clear in the present energy crisis. The showdown in the Strait of Hormuz has raised oil prices worldwide, but it is also unmasking the sheer idiocy of California’s current energy regime. Read more
The fall of Eric Swalwell following accusations of sexual misconduct has turned the California governor’s race on its head. To pick up Swalwell’s scraps of support and funding, each contender is now scrambling to appear more progressive than their rivals. A hard-Left candidate winning the Democratic nomination seems increasingly likely, and the result could have a devastating impact on the state economy — especially Silicon Valley. Read more
The migration of people, money, and companies out of California has evolved into a clear challenge to the economic future of the Golden State. Terrified by the loss of so much revenue — an estimated $91 billion between 2019-23 — the state, as well as other blue outposts, is looking at ways of forcing people to stay. California lawmakers have proposed further targeting of the ultra-rich, but the upper-middle classes are also at heightened risk; like the billionaires, they are seeking to move away to escape the taxman’s grip. Read more
Gavin Newsom is hiring a New York PR firm to sell California — ahead of his likely presidential bid — at a cost to taxpayers of $19 million. Read more
Gavin Newsom complains of “faux outrage” over his comments to a largely black audience in Atlanta about his SAT scores, in which he implied a shared lack of ability. No state makes more of its “enlightened” stance on racial justice than California. But few states do worse.
Long seen as the bastion of youth and ambition, California is now getting old. The state’s aging population reflects an economy that—saddled with extremely high house prices—serves most residents poorly and is spurring younger people, particularly those with children, to head for the exits.
Progressives have long branded President Trump as a stooge for Russia. Yet the more important story may be who President Xi Jinping of China wants in office. Unlike Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Xi has the financial muscle, ties to business elites, and technical skill to promote his agenda.
And California’s Gavin Newsom is likely to be his favorite in 2028.
Indeed, just after Biden’s poorly-received performance in his June 2024 presidential debate with Trump, the Asia Times, South China Morning Post, Bloomberg, and Business Insider all reported that Beijing liked Newsom as the ideal replacement for the doddering president. The governor was widely seen in China as “a fresh but also positive and more sober-minded politician in the US.”
Certainly Beijing would like to duplicate across the country the unequal relationship that it already has with California under Newsom. What the Golden State has with China resembles a classic colonial tie. China buys roughly $15 billion annually from California, but exports $122 billion to the state. The disparities in such things as electronic machinery are immense, while California dominates mainly in agricultural exports.
California does better with services, notably software and other tech licenses, but that total of $5 billion is chump change compared to the merchandise imbalance.
Historically, many Democrats —like some MAGA Republicans— might see this pattern as harmful to working people who might lose their jobs.
But Newsom is more attuned to the views of his longtime ultra-rich supporters in the Bay Area. He hears not from workers who cannot make a decent living, but from the likes of Apple’s Tim Cook, whose products are largely made in China, and who waxes enthusiastically about a “common future in cyberspace.”
One leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, even has employed the offspring of China’s Politburo members. China may pose a long-term threat to America, but it helps make Silicon Valley’s billionaires ever richer.
Newsom certainly knows how to play the dutiful vassal. In 2023, the governor and his oligarch friends were clinking glasses at an event in San Francisco hosting President Xi. The dictator’s remarks were followed by a standing ovation.
The fact that Newsom was widely criticized for attempting to clean up San Francisco for Xi’s visit, after failing to do over the past two decades, indicates the lengths he will go to please his overlord.
How about the human rights Newsom carps about in relation to President Trump? Remarkably, California progressives seem to have little trouble kowtowing to the world’s most powerful, and fascistic, authoritarian regime.
Read the rest of this piece at California Post.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Learn more at joelkotkin.com, follow him at Substack and on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Photo: California Governor’s office, via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.
As the dominant economic and social force of our time, a handful of Silicon Valley-based companies shape our politics more than we’d like to admit. These tech oligarchs are not ideological, but instead are motivated by what Lord Palmerston referred to as “permanent interests”. Controlling state power, or constraining it from undesirable intrusions, often requires flexible politics. Read more
The recent announcement that California led the nation in losing domestic migrants may seem like another nail in the Golden State’s coffin. It’s just another piece of bad news for a state that, despite having the most billionaires in the world, suffers the nation’s highest poverty rate, per recent Census data. The state’s young people are faring poorly: Among teenagers, the unemployment rate tops 21%, just short of twice the national average. And for those under 30, California’s jobless rate exceeds that of every other state except for Mississippi. Read more
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