California Versus Texas

Over on Twitter a bit of a name-calling contest has broken out between @AztlanConnect (who claims to live in California) and several residents and/or fans of the great state of Texas.  Texas, by the way, is soon to be the home of David Burge (@IowaHawkBlog) who is wisely relocating from Chicago.  Thus, we have California versus Texas.

The current dispute started when I posted a translation table to help Californians relocating to Texas. (As always, click the image to see a larger version.)

California to Texas Translation California Versus Texas

 

Mr. AztlanConnect took umbrage at the implied insult to California.  With rapier-like wit (s)he replied:

Aztlan12 California Versus Texas Aztlan2 California Versus Texas

So I decided to perform the usual market test of which state was more popular: the one-way rental rate for a standard U-Haul™ 10 foot truck between Oakland and Austin and vice-versa.  The results are similar to previous studies over the past few years:

Oakland To Austin California Versus Texas

and

Austin To Oakland California Versus Texas

Oakland to Austin costs $1,686.  Austin to Oakland is priced at $683. There is apparently high demand for Oakland – Austin trips and low demand for Austin – Oakland.  I offer this not as a definitive analysis but as one more data point in a long time series.

AztlanConnect has a blog, but I won’t connect to it because as far as I can tell (s)he wishes to remain anonymous.  I have to point out that, with one exception, everyone else involved in the Twitter conversation used their actual identity.  And I have to confess bias at this point.  I believe women should be allowed to remain anonymous on the internet, but men should be forced to post under their actual names.  The reason is simple: there are far more male than female stalkers out there.

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About Tony Lima

Retired after teaching economics at California State Univ., East Bay (Hayward, CA). Ph.D., economics, Stanford. Also taught MBA finance at the California University of Management and Technology. Occasionally take on a consulting project if it's interesting. Other interests include wine and technology.