You need to scroll down about half way to "neo-con intrigue".

http://www.maxspeak.org/gm/index.htm

"THE CALIFORNIA ECONOMY. Before all the stupidity about the travails of the California economy reach too high a level, we might consider some actual facts. Below are plotted annual growth rates of the U.S. and California economies in terms of Gross State Product. To keep things as simple as possible, I've not deflated the numbers. For my point it is not necessary. The red line is the U.S. growth rate, the blue for California. You can see that California grew faster than the U.S. until 1991. Then it grew somewhat slower for about four years, then notably faster for another four, then it joined the U.S. in taking a dive. The national economic slowdown is not a creature of California's state budget.

So the notion that business firms have been leaving California forever because of a rapacious public sector is simple nonsense. Like what you'd expect to hear from a professional muscleman. Or a pint-sized retread child actor. Or a porn star. Or a porn publisher. Or Kobe Bryan's publicist. Or . . . Oh shoot. I still wish I lived there.

At any rate, the California economy usually does better than the U.S. as a whole. There is no negative, long-term secular trend of business decay. You can count business firms all you like. GSP reflects total earnings and output. The number of firms don't mean squat.

I'll be beck . . ."