My area of expertise is the molecular biology behind plaque deposition – the genetics and particle analysis that helps us understand the arterial disease that leads to heart attacks and strokes. For a while, I was doing a lot of consulting. When Berkeley Heart Lab figured out the difference between LDL and HDL in the ’80s, that was a big deal in my little world. I worked with many of the labs that studied atherosclerotic plaque deposition, back in the old days – from the 1990s up through maybe 2010 or so. Lots of exciting work was done in that era. Sort of the wild west of subendothelial pathophysiology, if you will. It was an exciting time. Exciting to people like me, at least. And exciting to those who were trying not to die of our number one cause of death, whether they realized it or not.
There were maybe 15 or 20 specialty labs that were doing really cool work in those days, and all of them were in California. Today, they’re all in Texas. The best lab in the world that studies cardiovascular genetics now is in Waco, Texas. There are several other examples of this phenomenon. This seems odd, to me. But whatever, right? So I was in San Francisco, around the year 2000 or so, working with one of the leaders in this field, who is a personal friend, so I will keep his identity discreet at this point. He was trying to figure out how to earn a living financially, while pursuing cutting-edge technology in this growing field. And he finally realized that he would have to leave California.
At the time, he employed about 60 people, most of whom were Asian-American Ph.D.s in various fields. He went to them, and said, “We’re moving to the Dallas, Texas area. If you choose not to go, I will provide you a very generous severance package, to reward you for your contributions to my research. If you choose to stay with me, your salary in Texas will stay the same. Although the cost of living might make this look like a pay raise. Let me know next week if you’d like to stay on, and I’ll help with your moving expenses. Your call.” He figured 10-20% would stay with him. All 60 of them stayed on. And his experience was fascinating:
He planned to build a four-story building in the Grapevine area and bought a corner lot. He would lease out the bottom two floors to shops and local businesses, while he put all his lab equipment on the top two floors. The Dallas airport was nearby, so his blood samples could be shipped in efficiently. A sound business model.
He submitted his plans to the Grapevine City Council, who approved everything, pending his signature upon arrival. He shows up on the worksite, and the grading company is already there, along with the guys who were to lay out the plumbing and wiring for his new building. He talks to the workers, discusses the plans they had received, and tells them he needs to go down to city hall to sign the final plans. He’ll be off-site for maybe an hour or two, and then they can get to work.
The grading contractor says that while he’s gone, they’ll lay out the access road for equipment, etc., and by the time he gets back, they’ll be ready to go. He says fine.
As he’s getting into his rental car to drive to city hall, he hears a commotion behind him. He walks back over, and finds that the backhoe guy had dug down to start the access road, and hit a sewer main. A holy mess. He immediately tells them to go get whatever they need to fix the sewer main, and that he would try to have everything worked out with the city before they realize that anything is wrong. As he turns around to go back to his car, he sees a pickup pull up to the site, with the city of Grapevine labeled on the side. It’s the city inspector.
“Oh my God. I’m going to jail. I’ve been here for 15 minutes…”
He trots over to the inspector as he’s getting out of his truck, and says, “Hey, my guys were just getting started, and they hit a sewer main. They will have it fixed in one hour, tops. We’ll take care of it, no problem. I will have my papers signed by then, and we can work all this out. We’ll work it out. Whatever it takes, we’ll make this work, ok?”
The inspector looks at the horrible mess in the hole, frowns, and says, “I’m so sorry that we didn’t have the plans for you guys ahead of time. This never should have happened. I’ll have my guys fix this problem for you. Don’t waste your time on a sewer line, that we didn’t even tell you about. You get to work building your site. Don’t waste your time on this. And if there’s anything I can do to help you along the way, I hope you’ll let me know. We are happy to have you here, and we want to make this work. Sign the papers later, when you have time. No problem.”
So the inspector is just a nice guy, right?
No. He understands that when this lab builds a new business in his city, all of those employees will be paying local taxes every time they order a pizza. So he wants new businesses there, and repairing a sewer line is a minor inconvenience.
There’s no state income tax in Texas, but there are plenty of other taxes. It all works out, as long as the economy is growing.
This makes sense. To anyone who is not from California. My friend was astonished.
There is a reason that so many Californians are leaving. Including Asian-American Ph.D.s whose families are still in San Francisco. They want out, too.
A lot of this is perfectly predictable. But I wonder what happens in 10-20 years? Will California become the next great hotbed of business, after it hits rock bottom? Once Texas, Florida, and Tennessee welcome maybe half of its industry, will California finally realize that perhaps intentionally destroying its source of wealth is not a great plan to build wealth?
I go back and forth on this. I used to think that federalism would fix problems like this.
But the “Biden administration” has made clear its efforts to redistribute the wealth from places like Texas to places like California. So we intend to reward socialism by stealing the profits of capitalism. There is no end to this ride. Marx would understand. I think Engels might wonder about this a bit. But not Marx. And certainly not the “Biden administration,” whoever is running things there.
Part of me thinks that 85% of the counties in the United States should start a new country, using The United States Constitution as their founding document.
And then, part of me thinks that if we just wait, this will all work itself out. There’s no need to confront the difficulty and messiness along the way. Just wait for the socialist states to crash. Which they will, obviously. Heck, they already have.
Unless…
Unless the “Biden administration” and the Democrat party are successful in trying to conceal the problems inherent in such a system by moving money around. Money that they didn’t earn, and money that they shouldn’t control.
I wonder how this will work out?
What do you think?
Should we be trying to encourage California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, etc., to simply destroy themselves as quickly as possible? They’re doing it for us, really, right? Just let it happen. Or is it too late for that?
Perhaps we should we be trying to create a separate state based on capitalism. Starting now. Perhaps we should we simply acknowledge that we have lost this game, and attempt to start another game. Just start all over? My goodness…
I’m not sure which option is less messy, and less difficult.
What do you think?
Both options seem difficult and messy to me. I don’t see an easy way out. No matter how we approach this, this is going to be difficult and messy. So perhaps, rather than avoiding ‘difficult and messy,’ we should choose the path which is most likely to lead to a favorable outcome for the most people. Perhaps. Regardless of how ‘difficult and messy’ this is likely to be.
This is going to be unpleasant. We might as well try to get a good outcome. Regardless of how we need to do it, right?
Or perhaps not. Perhaps it’s already over, and those of use with money should be checking out real estate in Costa Rica.
Or perhaps not.
There are a lot of people, all over the world, who are depending on our choice right now. I think we may have passed the point at which we could have avoided ‘difficult and messy.’
So perhaps we may have to deal with this head-on. Which nobody wants. But perhaps it’s now necessary. Lord help us.
May God continue to bless The United States of America.
Despite our apparent lack of interest up to this point.
Maybe Grapevine, Texas will work. For a while.
Right?
Published in General"difficult" - Google News
August 08, 2021 at 03:45AM
https://ift.tt/3jypaod
The Inevitability of 'Difficult and Messy' – Ricochet - Ricochet.com
"difficult" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2VWzYBO
https://ift.tt/3d5eskc
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "The Inevitability of 'Difficult and Messy' – Ricochet - Ricochet.com"
Post a Comment