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California Ranks Last in ‘Business Friendliness,’ #1 in Electricity Cost – and Another Company Flees the State
Smithfield Foods, Inc. is joining the ever-going ranks of businesses fleeing California due to the exorbitant cost of business – and, especially, of energy – in the Golden State.
On Friday, Smithfield announced that it will cease all harvest and processing operations in its Vernon, California plant in early 2023 and begin planning to close all of its farms in the state.
“Smithfield is taking these steps due to the escalating cost of doing business in California,” the company said in a press release.
Fully 272 corporate headquarters left California between January 1, 2018 and June 30, 2021, a Hoover Institute study finds, with the rate of exit doubling in the first six months of 2021 from its full-year 2020 rate.
While California ranks as one of the worst states in terms of overall business cost, “business friendliness,” and business tax climate - the high cost of utilities is a major factor fueling the exodus, as California businesses have the highest average cost of electricity:
Highest average electricity price (17.74 cents per kWh) of 48 lower states and D.C. (Approve.com 2021 Business Cost Index)
48th in overall business costs (WalletHub)
Worst (50th) in terms of state “business friendliness” (CNBC study)
48th in 2022 State Business Tax Climate Index (The Tax Foundation)In California, the cost of utilities is 3.5 times higher per head to produce pork compared to the 45 other U.S. plants Smithfield operates, a company spokesman told The Wall Street Journal.
In addition to the high “fixed” costs of California’s electrical system, public programs like CARE and wildfire mitigation, are also driving up the price of electricity in the state, a UC Berkeley study concluded, Cal Matters reports.
“When households adopt solar, they’re not paying their fair share,” the study’ co-author Meredith Fowlie told Cal Matters. While solar users generate power that decreases their bills, they still rely on the state’s electric grid for much of their power consumption — without paying for its fixed costs like others do, Fowlie explained.
That's a new twist - blaming solar power for your high energy costs. Whatever - if the exodus continues, California's huge economy may come crashing down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 16 2022, @07:21PM (3 children)
What is that thing!?!? It looks like it started as a big AI experiment a few years ago, reduced to talking points, then to click-bait headlines, then run through some other AI thing to try to make it sound like continuous sentences. It mentions Musk, so the database is being updated with current targets.
It looks like English-as-a-second-language click-bait. Wouldn't it be cool if it could respond to questions?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @12:44AM (2 children)
I agree, I think.
It feels like an AI troll trained on semi-plausible phrases. "It was a hard 6 months or so, dove into alcohol, could not wrap my head around having believed the Fox lineup and how badly corrupted my country actually is." -- really? What kind of damaged human being would end up boozing despondent about the lies of politicians? (Said lies unspecified, of course.)
"It has been a wild ride, but I feel like I have a better perspective on our actual problems instead of a vague but intense anger that democrats are somehow destroying our country. Rich vs. Poor, same as its always been. In case it helps, Elon Musk's increasingly scammy behavior with crypto really helped me get over the Tony Stark exceptionalism we're taught to believe in. " -- word salad. We dance from a sort of weird (unspecified) introspective moment to some kind of reflection on class conflict, to a vague smear on Elon Musk?
Even assuming (and it's a pretty big leap) that a real human being wrote that, meaning every word, I'm more inclined to think that this person needs serious, professional help than that they somehow received any kind of clarity on the nation.
You see, if they had, they might have shared it with us. With details. Specifics. References.
But no.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:18AM (1 child)
It's attempting to be a classic morality play. If you make the wrong decisions in life, you will slip into depression, alcoholism, and guaranteed death. Those were common, over 100 years ago, and even into the silent movie era.
Maybe they're coming back as internet videos. God, I hope we're more sophisticated than that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2022, @04:37AM
Ah! Should've thought a little longer. It does have that Chinese ring to it. A search for "Chinese Morality Play" and there you go!