California actually has very low property taxes.

Which according to economists is the wrong way around: it's better to have taxes on land (because it doesn't discourage land existing - land is fixed) than to have taxes on work income (which on the margin, discourages working)

Or maybe it’s just below bad enough to overcome the network effects of living in the Bay Area.

> virtue signaling

I wouldn’t call moving to another place to pay less in taxes a virtue.

They are irreplaceable assets that would probably cost north of a trillion dollars if someone tried to build them today, and the oil refining countries club is pretty exclusive. Wildly shortsighted from a big picture national capacity point of view.

I've often asked myself with regards to the rich, "Don't they have enough money"?

I've come to realize the answer is nearly always NO. They want (and believe they need) more.

Yes, because it is all about status and having more money than the other guy. That is why no amount is ever going to be enough for some of these people.

But I don't really understand why they spend it on useless baubles. If you spend £50m on a fancy London house, a yacht and a some super cars, most people (British people anyway) will think you are a wanker. But if you spent some of that money on schools and hospitals in a poor country, you would probably be treated like a minor god in that country.

Well for Norway specifically they have 1.1% wealth tax and humongous 37% capital gain tax (of course it's lower for real estate because Europeans like fighting stock investments).

If you have say 4 million USD and invest in stocks expecting say 7% per year you will pay 103k USD in cap gain tax and then 44k in wealth tax for a grand total of almost 150k/year.

That's enough to fund Switzerland lifestyle let alone life in multiple other countries that levy 0 or close to 0 cap gain tax for long term gains. It's difference between comfortable retirement and having to work.

Maybe it doesn't make much difference if you're very wealthy but for those who just managed to get financial independence it's huge.

The reason not to move to WA is the capital gains tax in WA is unpredictable. Someone else had explained that it’s actually against the state’s constitution but was upheld by the one sided state courts. And the legislators adjusted the rates upward once already even though it’s a very new tax. The state budget is in a bad shape and expected to get worse, so it’s likely they’ll keep increasing the tax every year.

In the specific case of Massachusetts, living in New Hampshire (no income tax or sales tax) instead is pretty practical for a lot of people. Doesn't help you that much if you commute to an MA employer but I know a lot of people who did commute in from NH and, these days, a lot of people who became officially remote workers in NH.

Of course, there are lots of other reasons why out-of-staters might choose to move to MA.