I gather that Mississippi has extraordinarily low taxes overall, but to my surprise they appear to have a high level of regulation and are not rated as particularly business-friendly. They have some other things going against them including a poorly educated workforce.
CNBC has a detailed ranking of best-to-worst states for business. I'm going to add Texas as a state known for its decent economy in recent years.
CNBC's "cost of business" where you're looking for low taxes, low utility costs and incentives ranks Calif. 49, Texas 15 and Miss. #1.
"Business friendliness" covers regulatory levels and litigation. Calif. ranks #50, Texas 24, Miss. 44.
Workforce has Calif. 10, Texas 1, Miss. 46.
Overall these three come in as Calif. 28, Texas 4, Miss. 48.
Mississippi would also like to send its thanks to Hawaii and West Virginia.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/11/amer...l-ranking.html
Lots of things go into starting and running a business, including other factors in that survey like quality of life and infrastructure. One point I agree with was the ridiculously tough time a Carvin had competing against Sweetwater, Musician's Friend, its brick-and-mortar cousin Guitar Center etc. They have amazing selection and outstanding return policies. I had zero trouble, online-ordering, returning and getting a refund for one guitar each from Sweetwater and Elderly simply because I didn't like the sound. Looking at it that way it's amazing Carvin lasted as long as it did.
I understand they had great return policies too, but the selection issue played out with me when I when shopping for my first Martin over a year ago. I wanted to buy from a wonderful Mom and Pop store, but they had a tiny selection. Five miles away was Guitar Center, a big one, where I spent months playing pretty much every high-end guitar they had until I bought the GPC-28E, which I didn't even know existed when I started (and which the Mom-and-Pop didn't have in stock, nor would I have known even to ask for it). I'll add I was lucky to meet an extremely knowledgeable, helpful and patient salesman at this particular GC, we all know that ain't always the case. (Indeed it wasn't the case a few months later when I walked into the exact same GC when Expert Salesman was out and the B Team I encountered fit our stereotype of big box salespeople).
I'll keep my eye out for used versions of the AG200 and 300, but I was already keeping my eye out for them on Reverb and Ebay and rarely saw anything--which to me said people were happy with them. In fact the only AG200/300s I saw in eBay were new ones being sold by Carvin.