California is a beautiful state. As a teenager I remember being enthralled by the Beach Boys and the lifestyle they talked about–beautiful beaches and surfing most of the year. At that point I was not smart enough to realize what the water temperature is along most of the California coast. At any rate, for a long time California was a very desirable place to live. Now–not so much. Taxes, the high cost of living, the homeless problem, crime issues, and generally poor leadership by the state politicians have taken a toll on the desirability of making California your home.

Yesterday Fox Business reported the following:

The smart money may be sticking together and sticking it to California.

Oracle is joining Tesla and Hewlett Packard Enterprise in moving some operations to Texas, detailing the move in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Friday.

“Oracle is implementing a more flexible employee work location policy and has changed its Corporate Headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas. We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work. Depending on their role, this means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part-time or all of the time. In addition, we will continue to support major hubs for Oracle around the world, including those in the United States such as redwood City, Austin, Santa Monica, Seattle, Denver, Orlando and Burlington, among others, and we expect to add other locations over time. By implementing a more modern approach to work, we expect to further improve our employees’ quality of life and quality of output” the SEC filing noted.

While the move signals working remotely is here to stay, it also signals more corporations could be becoming disillusioned with California.

The article notes that earlier this month, Hewlett Packard Enterprise also announced it was moving its headquarters to Houston. Tesla is also moving. The high taxes and bad government in California are driving businesses out of the state. This will result in a loss of tax revenue, tax increases for people and businesses who remain in the state, and eventual bankruptcy for the state. Unfortunately, depending on who controls Congress, the rest of the country may be asked to pay for the mistakes of California.