[https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/wall-street-lives-libertarian-lite-dream-miami-2024-02-23/](https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/wall-street-lives-libertarian-lite-dream-miami-2024-02-23/)
MIAMI, Feb 23 (Reuters Breakingviews) – Why has so much wealth moved from places like New York and California to Florida? At a plutocrat-studded conference in Miami, one speaker had an answer. “Capital goes where it’s welcome,” Franklin Templeton Investments chief Jenny Johnson told an audience including Blackstone’s [(BX.N), opens new tab](https://www.reuters.com/markets/companies/BX.N) Steve Schwarzman, ex-Google chair Eric Schmidt, and technology mogul Michael Dell. If what makes capital welcome is low taxes and small government, Florida’s fortunes still have room to run. Making a financial hub that can really rival New York, though, may require ingredients still in shorter supply.
The FII Priority summit, taking place on Thursday and Friday and backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, typifies Florida’s financial rise, and that of its southern-most big city. The state has in recent years become home to people like Citadel’s founder Ken Griffin, activists Nelson Peltz and Carl Icahn and many of their staff, and a large cryptocurrency cohort. Individuals flocked southward as Covid-19 lockdowns in places like Chicago and New York lingered long after they were lifted in Florida, to bask in year-round warmth, lack of state income and estate taxes, and dearth of overall red tape. Amazon.com [(AMZN.O), opens new tab](https://www.reuters.com/markets/companies/AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos recently changed his domicile from Washington, thus avoiding the Evergreen State’s new capital gains levy.
While at first it was easy for New Yorkers or San Franciscans to scorn financial snowbirds as a pandemic phenomenon, the ascent of both Miami and nearby Palm Beach as Florida’s answer to Wall Street is looking more durable. The network effect and entrepreneurialism show up in U.S. Census Bureau data. New business applications per capita put Florida [third in the country, opens new tab](https://www.uschamber.com/small-business/new-business-applications-a-state-by-state-view?state=fl), after Wyoming and Delaware. The bureau expects over 32,500 businesses to open in Florida in the next year, beating New York’s total by around 10,000. Property prices have soared, even as some home insurers ditch the state because of extreme weather and a storm of litigation.
by Narrow8576
19 comments
We don’t want trash blue states and FL is amazing
It’s a race to the bottom. Florida loves oligarchs.
Cool. Miami will be at least half underwater in our lifetime.
I’d rather be in Washington state. No income tax, no capital gains tax, without the High property insurance and tax costs of Florida or Texas.
Not a fan of humidity, alligators, or tornados, either.
They should be moving to Ohio instead. Cheaper, not going to be flooded when the glaciers melt… maybe.
Companies go where operations are most advantageous.
Because people have this idea that they “did it all themselves.” They use the robust services in blue states – an educated populace, good infrastructure and social safety net – as a scaffold to to build their fortune/company. Then they run off to a red state to keep from having to give anything back in the form of taxes.
They call it being smart. I’d call it being shitty.
Musk is a perfect example of this – Tesla wouldn’t exist without California. But he took the benefits provided by that state, decided he was the great sole creator of Tesla and that he did it all himself, and parked himself in a state that wouldn’t tax his insane wealth. People are crappy, and have elevated ideas about how much of their fate they were solely responsible for to justify sitting on their Smaug pile.
Personally I’d take my money to Montana if I’m trying to avoid the bullshit. But yea I would prefer Florida over say New York or California
IDK but I now live in Florida and it’s getting expensive AF and many people are leaving due to cost. Car insurance and home owner’s insurance has shot through the roof
Florida is outpricing its lower-wage locals, so, they will run out of workers in the Miami area it seems. The middle-class cannot continue paying the exorbitant insurance rates either.
Who will service the ultra-rich when all of the others are being slowly driven out?
They have to pay a lot less taxes..and the weather is pretty good.
Small government: Unless you are a reader, or have sex.
Low taxes*: *Tolls and fees aren’t taxes. 😉🖕
The super wealthy have enclaves everywhere. They don’t have to leave them except by helicopter to the next one. If they are in public they are mobbed by reporters or paparazzi, so they avoid being in public.
The middle classes need to leave their homes to shop and work. So where they live and work matters more.
Wealth is always moving around.
Why do you think it’ll stay in Florida?
Because nazis.
Leftist policies leading to crippling prices, homing costs, and high tax rates.
Everyone’s got a lot of ideas, boomers are retiring that’s where they retire to Florida. Make your money elsewhere spend it in Florida. It’s the same ol story, just a lot more boomers than before.
People are leaving Florida because they cannot get home insurance.
Bezos moved there because there is no state income tax
I feel like articles like this are still based on the 2020-21 Census data of people moving across state lines that was released last summer. But Covid restrictions in NY and CA are largely over, and Florida has gotten more expensive, so I suspect when new data is released this summer the trend will have flattened out.