You discount the most important bit: laborer availability, service availability and quality of life. Also productivity.
You cannot just move when you require a large amount of people and services.
There’s no shortage of people living in the American southwest. And quite a few of them are cheap to hire, even at a professional level.
But there’s also a bunch of competing American billionaires who have bought up all the real estate and political base of these remote locations. The CEO of Fidelity can’t just pick up from Boston and move to San Antonio, because her wealth and authority is predicated on her influence in Boston. Even if she were to transplant every one of her staffers down south (and Exxon hemorrhaged thousands of staffers when they tried this back in the 1980s), she still won’t have the office space or the political connections or the business relationships that make Fidelity an bedrock institution up north. FFS, half the reason Fidelity is up there is the proximity to Wall Street. Texas has been trying to lure stock brokerages down south for decades without success.
But it’s like trying to pick up a 3000 year old Redwood from California and drag it to Florida. You’ve got roots, bro. They don’t come free easily or without a price. And there’s a reason competing businesses aren’t already down there. The climate is all wrong.
You discount the most important bit: laborer availability, service availability and quality of life. Also productivity. You cannot just move when you require a large amount of people and services.
There’s no shortage of people living in the American southwest. And quite a few of them are cheap to hire, even at a professional level.
But there’s also a bunch of competing American billionaires who have bought up all the real estate and political base of these remote locations. The CEO of Fidelity can’t just pick up from Boston and move to San Antonio, because her wealth and authority is predicated on her influence in Boston. Even if she were to transplant every one of her staffers down south (and Exxon hemorrhaged thousands of staffers when they tried this back in the 1980s), she still won’t have the office space or the political connections or the business relationships that make Fidelity an bedrock institution up north. FFS, half the reason Fidelity is up there is the proximity to Wall Street. Texas has been trying to lure stock brokerages down south for decades without success.
But it’s like trying to pick up a 3000 year old Redwood from California and drag it to Florida. You’ve got roots, bro. They don’t come free easily or without a price. And there’s a reason competing businesses aren’t already down there. The climate is all wrong.