In-N-Out. Waaay Out!

Perhaps nothing is as emblematic of the rapid devolution of California as In-N-Out's recent decision to move their HQ's out of State.    

They started in Baldwin Park in 1948 and have grown like Topsy ever since.  But they expanded using their own money, not franchisees.'  So they can control every aspect of their operations, a rarity in fast food.  And now, nearly 70 years later, they have 418 stores.  272 in California and the others just built in Utah, Nevada, Oregon, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas.  They've stopped trying to grow in CA.  

And it's CA's fault.  

Their new HQ will be in Nashville, TN.  The home of the Volunteers.  A freedom-loving State.  Unlike California.  It was, but it is no longer.  It has hamstrung its businesses with a flurry of regulations and laws and dictats.  The new $20 an hour wage demand by BoyGuv Newsom and his cohorts has driven in the last nail.  CA has killed the Golden Goose.

In-N-Outs fate was set the day Rich Snyder and four others died in a Lear Jet.  It was on final to Santa Ana Airport and got upset by the wake from a 767 landing ahead.  It smashed into a building a mile short of the airport, killing all on board.  This is important is because Lindsey Snyder, Rich's daughter, now owns the company.  One of the youngest $Billionairesses in America.  And she's discovered that California is no longer an easy place to work and live and grow a family.  Her words.  And also that it's no longer safe.  Her words.  So she's decided to pick up and move; Tennessee's gain, Taxifornia's loss. 

Lindsey's company is the 198th to leave California in the past 5 years.  Including 15 Fortune 500 companies.  Like Tesla.  And Toyota.  And SpaceX.  And Occidental Petroleum.  Just to name a few.  They've taken 509,000 jobs out of our State.  They've bolted for greener pastures.  And almost any other pastures are greener.

When I got here CA was the pinnacle of places to live or visit.  Ronnie Reagan has just finished two terms.  We dithered with Jerry Brown, but then voted in Deukmajian for 8 years.  And then two lovely terms with Pete Wilson.  Then Ahhhhnuld Schwartenhoozits for 8 years.  (The first two weren't bad, but then wife Maria Shriver told him no more nookie if he didn't start guverning like a Democrat.  He then knocked up the housemaid).  

Everything's gone to Hell since then.  Somebody elected BoyGuv, J. Paul Getty's Godson.  And Auntie San Fran Nan Pelosi's nephew.  He was gifted a winery on his 21st birthday, fergoddsake!  So he knows squat about our problems, and has guverned like it.  We have the highest taxes in the Nation, the highest gasoline prices, the highest housing prices, the most homeless, the highest unemployment and the dirtiest cities.  Pluuuus, crime that shockingly out of control.

If I didn't have 4 daughters within 60 miles in every direction, I'd join Lindsey on her move to TN.  Clean air, no income taxes, low sales taxes, low housing costs, Constitutional Carry firearm laws, low property taxes, and gas selling for $2.49 a gallon.  What's not to like?

It seems that whenever you vote in a would-be socialist, you get disastrous policies and awful results.  Remember Argentina ("Don't cry for me, etc.)?  4th most oil on the planet.  Top Ten of richest countries on Earth 80 years ago.  It's now a socialist "paradise."  With 50% inflation.  Where dissidents get dropped from a helicopter into the nearest ocean.  I'm not predicting that for CA.  I am, however, hoping it's gotten so bad that we vote in another Republican next time.  

I know, I know.  But one can always hope...