加州会熄火吗? [美国媒体]

Could California Flame Out

加州会熄火吗



High housing costs & taxes lead to this: “Once we decided we had to get our employees out of California, we went about our search systematically.”

是高昂的住房成本和税收导致了这一点:“我们一做决定让我们的员工搬离加州，我们就着手进行系统地搜寻（新地方）了。”

The phone rang early the other day. “Well, our center’s still standing,” my partner said. “The fire’s only a couple blocks from us, the whole town of Lakeport’s been evacuated. I think we’ll be ok, but it’s out of control.”

前几天电话铃早早地就响起来了。我的伙伴说：“喂，我们中心还没有倒，大火离我们只有几个街区了，整个莱克波特镇都被疏散了。我想我们会没事的，但是火失控了。”



That fire is still raging as of this writing, the town is empty, the stores are closed, our shopkeepers are suffering daily losses that, while nothing compared to the loss of life and home that California’s wildfires are claiming, will never be recovered.

截至本文撰稿之时，大火仍在肆虐，城中空无一人，商店关门，店主们每天都在遭受损失，但与加州野火造成的生命和家园损失相比，没有什么东西是不可挽回的。

Not so very long ago I thought that global warming was a tragedy of epic proportions, but that it would have at least a few winners: Southern California might become truly unbearable, but Eureka would be the next Laguna Beach. I was wrong again. Writing in the New York Times about Montana, Sara Vowell summarized it like this, “Here in the Mountain West, there are no longer four seasons, only two: winter and wildfire.”

不久前，我还以为全球变暖只是一场史诗般的悲剧，但至少会有几个赢家：南加州可能会变得难以忍受，但尤里卡将成为下一个拉古纳海滩。我又错了。萨拉·沃维尔在《纽约时报》上写了篇关于蒙大拿州的文章，他这样总结道：“在西部山区，不再有四季，只有两季：冬天和野火。”

While not that apocalyptic, California’s wildfire season has been starting earlier and ending later. In the past, the season lasted a couple months, August through early October. This year it began the first week of July and last year–the deadliest and costliest wildfire season ever–it went on forever, finally petering out in the north in November and still devastating the south as late as December. The Thomas fire in Southern California, the largest single fire ever, broke out on December 4th.

虽然不是世界末日，但加州的野火季节开始得早，结束得晚。在过去，野火季要持续几个月，从八月到十月初。今年是开始于七月的第一周，而去年——是有史以来伤亡最惨重、代价最昂贵的——一直烧个不停，终于到十一月份在北部逐渐消失了，而南部直到十二月份仍被摧残着。12月4日，南加州的托马斯爆发火灾，这是有史以来最大的一次火灾。

In California, we pay the highest taxes in America. No other state has a base sales tax as high as our 7.25% nor does any state match our top marginal income tax rate of 13.3% (Hawaii’s a distant second at 11%). One resigned pundit called it a “Shangri-La tax,” the price we must pay to live in the Golden State. And thanks to what passes for political brilliance in Congress, Shangri-La became way more expensive as of January 1st when the Republicans eliminated the deductibility of state income taxes at the federal level, smacking the high-tax Democratic states they already had no chance of winning. All things being equal (they never are), a rich liberal will pay another 6.5% or so in federal taxes for the privilege of living in California this year.

在加利福尼亚，我们缴纳的税是全美国最高的。没有任何一个州的基础销售税比我们的7.25 %还高，也没有任何一个州的边际所得税税率比我们高，我们最高达到了13.3 %（夏威夷的11 %排第二，差得比较远）。一位已离职的学者称之为“香格里拉税”，这是我们在金州生活必须付出的代价。拜国会中那帮搞政治的头头脑脑所赐，自1月1日起，“香格里拉”变得更加昂贵了，因为共和党在联邦一级取消了州所得税的扣除，打击了他们已经没有获胜机会的高税收民主党优势州。在所有条件都相同的情况下（从来都不可能），今年起，一个富有的自由主义者为了住在加州的特权，将需要另外支付大约6.5 %的联邦税。



I asked Ken Fisher about his decision to relocate his company Fisher Investments, a financial advisory firm with a $100-billion portfolio, out of California.

我问过肯·费舍尔，为什么他决定将其公司费舍尔投资公司——一家拥有1000亿美元投资组合资金的金融咨询公司——迁出加州。

“How did you happen to choose Camas, Washington for your new headquarters?”

“你是怎么恰好就选择华盛顿的卡马斯作为你的新总部呢？”

“Once we decided we had to get our employees out of California, we went about our search systematically. We wanted them to get the maximum value from their income and, at the same time, live in a pleasant town with good schools. We chose Washington because it has no state income tax. Then we focused on Camas because it is a small, affordable town with a terrific school system; its graduating seniors are at the top nationwide with their SAT scores. And the town is just across the Columbia River from Portland. This was important because we need close proximity to a first-rate airport and Portland International is among the best in the country. There’s another benefit to Camas. Oregon has no sales tax which means Camas residents can hop across the river to do their major shopping at a significant discount.”

“我们一做出决定必须让我们的员工搬离加州，我们就开始系统地进行搜寻（新总部驻地）了。我们希望他们能在自己的收入上获得最大的价值，与此同时还能在一个拥有好学校的城镇愉快地生活。我们选择华盛顿是因为这里没有州所得税。其后我们将注意力聚焦在了卡马斯，因为它是一个经济实惠的小镇，又拥有极好的学校系统；其应届毕业生的SAT分数在全美名列前茅。而且这个小镇隔着哥伦比亚河的对面就是波特兰。这很重要，因为我们还是需要靠近一个一流的机场，波特兰国际正好是这个国家最好的机场之一。卡马斯还有另一个好处，就是俄勒冈州没有销售税，这就意味着卡马斯居民可以跨河去剁手采购大减价商品。”

I came away thinking Fisher is not on the Forbes 400 list by accident and wondering whether Fisher Investments would prove another outlier in what thus far has been a trickle of corporate departures from California or become the lead steer in a growing exodus. To that point, I noted that Fisher’s latest book (he’s written 11) is Beat the Crowd: How You Can Out-Invest the Herd by Thinking Differently. He certainly beat the herd out of California.

到目前为止加州的企业在一点点地慢慢流失，或者说越来越多的公司离开成为了主流趋势，我离开时就在想费舍尔公司不在福布斯400强名单上并是偶然的，而且不知道费舍尔投资公司是不是也会成为另一个加州的局外者。在这一点上，我注意到费舍尔的最新着作（他已经写了11本书）《击败大众：如何不同地思考来实现出众的投资》。他确实是击败了加州的那群“羊”。



California isn’t going to solve global warming, but if it wants to retain its affluent and educated, it just might consider lowering taxes, putting its infrastructure dollars into something other than a bullet train to nowhere, and seriously attempting to make its housing more affordable. More specifically, California and its municipalities need to allow far greater residential density near transportation centers and encourage multi-family housing everywhere in the state.

加州并不会解决全球变暖的问题，但是如果想保持其富裕和人口受教育程度，它可能会考虑降低税收，将基础设施资金投入到除子弹头列车之外的其他各种项目中，并且切实采取措施使其住房更实惠。更具体地说，加州及其市政当局需要大幅提升交通中心附近的居住密度，并在该州各地鼓励建设多户式住宅。

By John E. McNellis, author of Making It in Real Estate: Starting Out as a Developer.

作者：约翰·麦克埃利斯，着有《房地产开发:从开发商开始》一书。

Ron
Aug 5, 2018 at 3:15 pm
Building a vast network of homes and. business in the heavy forest areas of the State is the problem and has been creating fire issues for some time. The idea that these homes and business structures can be protected has become more and more expensive as wild fires easily move into various home tracts that were built primarily to serve as white flight neighborhoods. Most of these areas cater to long commuters many spending hours on the road as they leave early for work and come home late. They purchased these homes and property to escape the high cost of homes within the urban belt but its a bet that is not working out. Business that operates in such communities is mostly tourist driven such as Lakeport and are high undesirable locations. The entire stretch of Northern Calif from Sac North and most of the Sierra area is overly populated with endless subdivisions approved by Counties searching for property tax but they are fire traps and will always be so. This has nothing to do with high state taxes rather extremely poor choices made by people thinking they could live in once remote areas and have a better life.

建有一个庞大的住宅网络，另外该州森林茂密地区的商业是问题所在，而且一段时间以来一直在制造火灾事故。想要保护好这些住宅和商业结构代价已经变得越来越贵，因为野火很容易进入各种住宅区，这些住宅区主要是为白人居住而建造的。大部分这些地区为长途通勤者提供服务，因为他们上班早，回家晚，很多时间都在路上度过。他们买这些房子和财产是为了逃避城市带内那些高成本的房子，但这是一个没法赌赢的赌局。在这样的社区里经营的商业主要是由游客驱动的，如莱克波特，是非常不受欢迎的地方。加州北部从萨克拉门托北到谢拉大部分地区都人口过多，有无数的分区被寻求征收房产税的各县所批准，但它们就是火灾陷阱，而且永远如此。这与高额的州税无关，因为人们认为他们可以住在曾经偏远的地区，过上更好的生活，所以做出了非常糟糕的选择。

Govinda
Aug 5, 2018 at 3:36 pm
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Redding isn’t heavily forested. Neither is any place in SoCal that burns regularly. It’s too many people competing for an ever dwindling resource base, particularly water but everything else as well. And beyond corrupt, idiotic leaders at every turn. So glad I left years ago. Taking a vacation in a few days and NOT going there, tired of the perpetual crises. Heading north.

你都不知道你在说什么。雷丁的森林并不多。南加州也没有定期燃烧的地方。有太多的人在争夺越来越少的基础资源，尤其是水资源，但其他的东西也是一样。除了腐败、那些笨蛋领导人之外，每次都是如此。很高兴我几年前离开了。几天后我就要休假了，不去那里，厌倦了一直不停的危机。我要一路向北。



Suzie Alcatrez
Aug 5, 2018 at 7:03 pm
Can’t someone invent a fireproof house?

难道就没有人能发明一种防火的房子吗？

They seem to have them in Manhattan.

他们好像在曼哈顿是有。

Bobber
Aug 5, 2018 at 3:37 pm
California is the land of opportunity for anybody in the tech business with significant equity. Everybody else is overworked and underpaid in California relative to the cost of living. I get recruiters from California calling me all the time. It’s a quick conversation that starts and ends with “not interested”.

加州是那些拥有科技企业大量股权的人的机会之地。相对于生活成本，加州人工作都老是加班，工资还低。我经常接到加州招聘人员打来的电话。一接到这种电话我都说“不感兴趣”，然后快速挂断电话。

illumined
Aug 5, 2018 at 7:43 pm
Ah, but the tech industry is in a giant bubble right now. In fact California’s economy largely seems to just be two things, a tech bubble and a real estate bubble. Both of which are bigger than anything we’ve ever seen in this country. The real question is what happens when those bubbles finally burst?

啊，但是科技产业现在正处于巨大的泡沫之中。事实上，加州的经济在很大程度上似乎就是只有两件事，一个是科技泡沫，一个是房地产泡沫。这两者都比我们在这个国家见过的任何泡沫都大。真正的问题是当这些泡沫最终破裂时会发生什么？

Anthony Aluknavich
Aug 5, 2018 at 3:41 pm
Please don’t tell people leaving California about Texas. We like it just the way it is with no state income tax and affordable housing.

请不要告诉离开加州的人关于德克萨斯州的事。我们喜欢那里，那里没有州所得税，而且那里的房子也负担得起。