Venture Capital with a Southeastern heading
The Tax Foundation has issued its 2012 State Business Tax Climate Index, which once again confirms that the love of taxes is the root of unhappiness. We remain… happy. And happy to report that’s true for our region as well. When confronted with the argument that higher taxes = unhappiness, we wonder, even while remaining [...]
Our region took 9 out of the 10 top spots in Forbes’ list of The Next Big Boom Towns in the U.S. The rankings were done in conjunction with Mark Schill at the Praxis Strategy Group, and are based on job growth, attractive lifestyle, ease of starting a business, and a broad range of demographic [...]
For the seventh straight year, Texas has been voted the best state for business by Chief Exectuive magazine. 2011′s edition of their annual survey of CEOs includes an excellent interactive map. The Top 10 looks familiar to us, as it constitutes most of the geography in which we have focused our investment efforts for over [...]
Wells Fargo has released a study entitled “Employment Dynamics and State Competitiveness“ which predicts 25 industries will drive employment growth in the next few years, and ranks states according to their likely ability to capitalize on those trends. As with previous related studies – see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here – our region performs very well: The team of [...]
Joel Kotkin – blogging at Forbes New Geographer – puts a humorous title to a theme that has been well covered here and elsewhere: “California suggests suicide; Texas offers the knife.“ Kotkin suggests 2010 will be used by future historians to mark the end of the California era and the beginning of the Texas one, [...]
The Austin Business Journal reports (subscription required) on proposed federal legislation to provide small tax credits for equity investments made in companies which have already qualified for federal grants. In July we blogged about Rhys Williams’ testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee – Subcommittee on Competitiveness, Innovation, and Export Promotion, during which he made several [...]
We’ve often written of the many reasons we prefer to live, work, and invest in the Southeast and Texas. To cite additional evidence in support of our position might have us justifiably accused of “selling past the close,” but this one we like because we found it off the beaten path, in The Weekly Standard. [...]
Forbes analyzed IRS data to determine future “hot spots” for real estate and concluded what we already knew: Americans prefer the good weather, low taxes, and favorable business climate offered by the Southeast. The dominance of the list by Florida and Texas–the former has eight of the top 20 counties, the latter four– makes sense [...]
The Chicago Tribune urges Illinois not to become a “New Michigan” or “New California” but instead mimic states such as FL, GA, VA, TN, TX, and NC. In an April 11 op-ed entitled The Illinois Spiral they reference the third edition of Rich States, Poor States (from the American Legislative Exchange Council) in which our region scores [...]
The New York Times confirms another reason for the Southeast’s attractive growth potential and why increasing numbers of entrepreneurs are deciding to build their businesses in the region: lower state debt burdens. As the attached graph shows, the problem worsens dramatically when one considers many states’ unfunded pension liabilities. (Click thumbnail for “top” 25 states for debt-to-GDP, “Overloaded with Debts Unseen”.) [...]
