Gun Laws= well yes that is fucked up.

High Cost of Living = The salaries offered offset that.
High Taxes = Not really. Not as high as say NYC its all relative.
Uncontrollable Crime rate = I live(d) in So Orange County, Rancho Santa Margarita. You can leave you car unlocked parked in the street and no one would steal it. Have done it many times. My buddy leave his Porche on the driveway with the top down. Depends on where you live. I would not do that in South Central Los Angeles.
Over Crowded = Again a relative term. I grew up in a big city S.F., there are wide open space in CA that you can get away from. Traffic is bitch though. Out of all the places I have lived. Only DC will hold a candle to SoCal traffic.

SoCal is the only place in the country that has beaches, ski resorts in the same state and be able to take advantage of both on the same day. I have done. Gone to Snow Summit during that day to ski and Newport Beach to hangout in the afternoon.

Food is awesome!!!

Melting pot of Cultures. If you are open minded to other races and learning about them. CA is it.

Jobs, yes we have jobs. Unfortunately nothing for my silly ass, I have to go to New Orleans for mine. But I plan on coming back ASAP!!! Resume is being updated as we speak.

I don't care what anyone says, I will always be a Californian no matter where I end up.

Quoted: So, I have been looking for another job, and I can't help but notice that there are more jobs for what I do in California then there are in the rest of the country combined.

You're in the porn industry?

If you can avoid the Bay Area and LA county you'll find things are much better. San Diego runs fairly conservative for a city getting 1000 illegal aliens a week added to it's voting roles. The crime rate outside the drug areas isn't bad.

The pay is higher here for most people. I draw a 35% bonus pay for working here compared to any other city (except Houston and San Francisco).

You forgot the loose women from the rest of the country that all come here.

Quoted: I pay $895 for a 1 bedroom apartment w/o washer & dryer hookups.

And I pay 41 dollars a month less buying a four bedroom, two and a half bath, three car garage house 2315 square feet small worth $325,000. My old apartment was $1500 for a 1400 square foot three bedroom place a couple mile down the road.

Quoted: gun control, outragous cost of living, astronomical taxes, uncontrolable crime rate, and it being completely overcrowded.

No, I'd say that --aside from the above-- California is just about perfect.

Quoted: Quoted: Gun Laws= well yes that is fucked up. High Cost of Living = The salaries offered offset that. High Taxes = Not really. Not as high as say NYC its all relative. Uncontrollable Crime rate = I live(d) in So Orange County, Rancho Santa Margarita. You can leave you car unlocked parked in the street and no one would steal it. Have done it many times. My buddy leave his Porche on the driveway with the top down. Depends on where you live. I would not do that in South Central Los Angeles. Over Crowded = Again a relative term. I grew up in a big city S.F., there are wide open space in CA that you can get away from. Traffic is bitch though. Out of all the places I have lived. Only DC will hold a candle to SoCal traffic. SoCal is the only place in the country that has beaches, ski resorts in the same state and be able to take advantage of both on the same day. I have done. Gone to Snow Summit during that day to ski and Newport Beach to hangout in the afternoon. Food is awesome!!! Melting pot of Cultures. If you are open minded to other races and learning about them. CA is it. Jobs, yes we have jobs. Unfortunately nothing for my silly ass, I have to go to New Orleans for mine. But I plan on coming back ASAP!!! Resume is being updated as we speak. I don't care what anyone says, I will always be a Californian no matter where I end up. you gotta be fucking kidding me, ok for you fuckers that dont have a clue.... the median home price in the california gay area according to most recent numbers is about $527,000 this is not the price of a nice house in a decent neighborhood in a nice city!! this is a POS have you ever wanted to have the median of anything? NO! you better be getting a serious fucking pay raise to go out there, Im on my way out .... check out a cost of living calculator http://www.homefair.com/homefair/servlet/ActionServlet?pid=200&tool=salarycalculator&previousPage=116&cid=homefair&fromState=CA&toState=NV&salary=50000&fromCity=0633000&toCity=3240000&ownrent=own

Yes cost of living is higher in CA, but like I said the salaries offset that.

I can only use my industry and the semi conductor industry as an example as that is what I have knowledge off.

My best friend worked for Texas Instrument here in TX and tfrd to Applied Materials there in Santa Clara.

TX he earned around $80K+ bonuses as an engineer. In Santa Clara, same job earning $150K+ bonus.

In CA I earned close to $90K salary + bonus. In TX I earned $45K for that same exact job.

See how salaries vary to offset cost of living.

Here's where you get hosed.

Property taxes can be higher in TX depending on your county. Insurance was much higher. Both health and car. I had the same car I had in CA. I paid $85mo in CA. As soon as I switched my address to TX it jumped to $135 a month and kept going up to right around $185. Clean driving record. Also certain perishable groceries are taxed in TX. My renters insurance also went up from $85 a yr in CA to $110 a yr in TX.

Bay Area is very expensive. So is Manhattan. But if you look at the average income earned in those areas, it will be higher than most parts of the country. Thereby warranting the higher cost for housing. Simple econimics really.

I grew up in Pennsylvania, but moved to California after I EAS'd from the Marine Corps, having married a California girl. I gave it four and a half years but was thrilled when I got an offer to be transferred to Texas.

The cost of living in CA is brutal. My friends there tell me that they're paying over $2/gal for regular unleaded. California dairies have gotten sweetheart legislation passed that raises the protein and calcium levels of milk allowed to be sold in CA to levels above that found in milk straight out of the udder. In other words, milk has to be adulterated to be legally sold in CA. No other states have that requirement, so CA dairies essentially have a monopoly on sales to CA because of the added expense of packing milk for sale in CA. Surprise, surprise: milk in CA is nearly twice as expensive as in Texas.

Taxes. I lived in Orange County, and paid pretty high property and sales taxes. Okay, no problem, I also pay significant property and sales taxes in Texas. The difference is in the details, though, as always. Every year when you register a car in California, the 'fee' is a percentage of the value of the car. Wait, that sort of thing sounds vaguely familiar...oh yeah, it's called a TAX! A couple of months before I moved to Texas, I had reregistered my five year old Toyota 4Runner, and was taxed $880 for the privilege of driving in California. Upon moving to Texas I had to register there to be able to get plates and a driver's license. The fee in Texas is a straight $55, regardless of the value of your car.

I also paid a fat 9-10% state income tax in California, and watched Grayout Davis piss it all away into the abyss. Texas has no state income tax at all, while it has an even greater exposure to expensive problems like illegal immigrants.

Overregulated. There is a law or regulation interfering in every aspect of life in Southern California. Like milk, gasoline is more expensive there because of additives required by the state assembly. Would you like the ability to defend yourself when you leave your home? No problem: California law allows for concealed handgun licensing. Of course, you have beg permission from the sheriff of your county to legally carry concealed in California. Most sheriffs are very anti-self defense/concealed carry, and require a 'reason' for you to carry, and self defense is not an adequate reason. In other words, you don't have the right to live your life in California unmolested by the government, so why should you expect to be able to defend yourself against any others who would like to take what you worked for? I lived in Orange County and the sheriff who was in office when I lived there was Mike Carona. He was elected, in part, on a platform to ease up on the requirements for a concealed handgun license and to liberalize the process. That never happened. A couple thousand more licenses were issued in the three years or so that I lived there after Carona was elected and, while that might seem like a lot in California, it pales compared to the numbers issued in Texas in the first couple of years after the CHL law was passed there.

Representation. Barbara Boxer. Dianne Feinstein. Don Perata. Antonio Villaraigosa. Any questions?

Overpopulated. I lived right off the 91 Freeway in Orange County, and it was a mess all the time. By 'all the time,' I don't mean 'every weekday from 7-9AM and from 4-6PM.' I mean at any time of the day or night, any day of the week it was jammed and brake lights stretched from horizon to horizon. The 5 and 405 were not much better.

Disasters. In Texas we have thunderstorms and an occasional tornado. California is blighted with every disaster, natural and manmade, that you can name. Tornados, floods, mudslides, sinkholes, wildfires, earthquakes, droughts, riots, OJ Simpson, Michael Jackson, and on and on.

As a wiser man than I am once said:

"You all can go to hell. I'm going to Texas."
- Davy Crockett

I think you did a pretty good job of listing the why nots on your own.

The only one you missed is if you ever decide to have children, the odds of them growing up liberal will be much higher there or at least harder on your part to prevent it.  

I've often said California is one the nicest places I have ever been if you could just do something about the wierd people.  Lot's of great people there surrounded by nuts which is depressing.

Tj

Quoted: and what does texas have to do with moving from Michigan to Cali?

It serves as a contrast to everything I hated about living in California. Of course, you'd know that if you had continued to read my post.

California has a lot of things going for it, but none of them outweigh the drawbacks.