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Manufacturing activity as a share of U.S. GDP has been in steady decline for several decades. However, over the past two years there have been signs that this downward trend is abating. Evidence of the shifting tide is most apparent in durable goods output, especially in computer and electronics, motor vehicles and machinery, passing their pre-recession peak in the third quarter of 2011.

. . . Because manufacturing processes are often very energy intensive, favorable energy prices in the U.S. have proved particularly important to the re-shoring theme. Industries set to benefit most from these lower energy prices include organic chemicals, resins, agricultural chemicals, petroleum refining, metals (i.e. iron and steel) and machinery.

. . . Tax policy is another factor that can influence decisions as to where a company will locate various business activities. The individual tax rate is also very important to manufacturers as two-thirds of manufacturers are flow-through entities and pay taxes at individual tax rates.

San Francisco often comes up short when major companies decide where to locate their headquarters and it’s happened again: Union Bank’s parent is moving its headquarters to New York from San Francisco as it pursues its national banking ambitions.

The Bay State, which some boosters call “Hollywood East,” has become a fast-growing hub for film and TV production, joining dozens of states that have cut into a business once concentrated in the Golden State.

“By Autor’s calculations, if you’d taken all the income gains that flowed to the 1 percent over the last 35 years and redistributed them evenly to everyone else in the economy, that would have delivered an extra $7,100 a year to every household in the bottom 99 percent. That’s a lot of money. But it’s not as much as the growing pay differential between workers who went to college and those who didn’t.

In the last 35 years, he calculates, the so-called college premium – the boost in your paycheck from earning a diploma – increased by $28,000, adjusted for inflation. So if you took that entire increase and redistributed it to non-college workers, you’d be giving them a raise four times the size of the 1 percent redistribution.”

But the Toyota relocation is just an anecdote and does not paint a full picture of what is happening economically in the state – thus, it is unlikely to point to a cure for what ails California. The real solutions to the state’s problems are actually quite simple, but unfortunately don’t appeal to politicians, pundits or lobbyists. Unless something changes in that calculus, the state will continue to legislate largely by anecdote rather than analysis, ultimately failing to help California grow.

The defense contractor announced Thursday that over the next two years it will close its facility on Ruffin Road, which employs 530 people. The facility is the base for the company’s division that manufactures airline auxiliary power units.

The move is part of a sea change in American manufacturing: After three decades of an exodus of production to China and other low-wage countries, companies have sharply curtailed moves abroad. Some, like Generac, have begun to return manufacturing to U.S. shores.

Globo, a Greek company that makes enterprise mobility products, is reversing the normal migration pattern of Silicon Valley technology companies.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration is rolling out a new $750-million program that offers some modest financial incentives to encourage California employers to stay put and help persuade out-of-state companies to move here.

The AFL-CIO originally supported the tax but reversed course after a study determined that it would seriously undermine the state’s competitiveness as a business location, and some firms that had targeted the state as a relocation site said they would reconsider if the tax passed.  The AFL-CIO, which helped collect signatures to put the measure on the ballot also balked when the teachers’ union got greedy and raised the proposed rate on the tax to 2 percent, up from 0.8 percent.

Musk said the automaker is working through a number of issues with Gov. Jerry Brown’s staff but fears the company would not get the various environmental and other permits in time to get the factory built and running quickly . . . “We can’t afford to wait a year or more for permits to proceed,” Musk said. “If we don’t have the gigafactory online when we have the vehicle capacity online we would be in deep trouble.”

What’s happening on the red carpet mirrors what’s happening on film sets and TV soundstages. New York had a record number of film and TV projects last year and is on track to do the same in 2014, state officials say. Credit goes to generous financial incentives, experienced crews that rival Hollywood’s best and friendly (some might say star-struck) politicians.

Governor Jerry Brown’s California comeback tour was rudely interrupted this week by news that Torrance-based Toyota is moving to Plano, Texas. The runaway car maker shines a headlight on how the South is overtaking California as a commercial and industrial power.

Texas struck again Monday, luring Toyota Motor Corp.’s headquarters away from Torrance and forcing California officials to defend the state’s business climate anew.

Toyota Motor Corp. plans to move large numbers of jobs from its sales and marketing headquarters in Torrance to suburban Dallas, according to a person familiar with the automaker’s plans.