Why buy the cow when its way of life is so reliant upon you that it can't leave, despite the fact that you rob it blind? That's apparently the abusive husband-like thinking of the city of Los Angeles, which continues to watch shows formerly filmed in its borders – Ugly Betty, In Treatment – head east after failing to offer film and television productions tax breaks comparable to those of New York City.

LA has always sucked, but it's going to suck even more if visitors driving around and looking at it can't every 20 minutes go, "Hey, that's that building from that one movie." According to the numbers, that's happening quite frequently these days. The mayor's office estimates that in just five months since the city of New York enacted their massive tax breaks, city-based shoots have contributed $505 million more in spending than they did during the same time last year.

And New York's not the only city wising up to how profitable playing nice with the movie stars is:

Some states exempt film and TV productions from child labor laws; some are nonunion "right to work" states. Each touts its natural wonders and the city streets they will be only too happy to block off for your production. Soundstages are going up all over, and there's no reason that a three-camera sitcom set in Los Angeles couldn't be shot as "accurately" in Wilmington, N.C., as in Hollywood. Even as the [LA native] in me cries that it would be wrong, I'm forced to admit that it's only what we've been doing here for years

Can you believe it? LA's slowly losing Hollywood! You knew they had to find a way to screw it up.