Originally Posted by aceventura3

Then do you agree that some of those costs could be unreasonable, not productive, wasteful, and not serve as a benefit to society, consumers, employees, taxpayers, or anyone? These are the costs I am talking about.

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This is not true. Most companies have salary differentials based on geography and the cost of living in certain areas. In many cases it does not apply to their highest compensated people, but in order for a company to keep and retain talent in places like New York, San Francisco, LA, they have to sweeten the pot in terms of compensation and they do. When you look at the exodus of business from California the impact of the high cost of living for employees is certainly a factor among many others.