Is Life Better in America’s Red States? - NYTimes.com:
This is an article that everyone ought to read and think about. Rarely does TP (The Party-D) let this much honesty out. For those that merely want the punchline, the article admits (in it's own foggy out of touch way) that Red States are winning economically, socially and politically -- their populations are growing, they have less income inequality, their people enjoy a better lifestyle, etc, so like the Grinch, the Blue States have to find a way to stop this from happening! They don't really say how, but one wonders if putting up a wall to prevent Blue State serfs from leaving might be on their minds!
Well worth reading it top to bottom for full effect, but here are some segments and analysis.
Blue states, like California, New York and Illinois, whose economies turn on finance, trade and knowledge, are generally richer than red states. But red states, like Texas, Georgia and Utah, have done a better job over all of offering a higher standard of living relative to housing costs. That basic economic fact not only helps explain why the nation’s electoral map got so much redder in the November midterm elections, but also why America’s prosperity is in jeopardy.
"Finance, Trade and Knowledge". Hmm. Basically they move piles of increasingly other countries and a smaller and smaller percentage of peoples money and stuff around and charge fees. They believe that the universities on the coasts are "better", but based on actual results, that is getting more and more questionable. However, the fact that Red States are doing a better job is increasingly not questionable -- and the people migrating from the failing Blue States to the Red States is getting impossible for them to ignore no matter what they want to "believe" about it.
But why does this jeopardize prosperity? What it jeopardizes is BLUE STATE / TP Prosperity! They KNOW that TP political and economic policies are "right" and Red State political policies are "wrong", that is "settled science", but horror of horrors, the RESULTS (as in climate) just don't show that! In fact, they show the opposite! So "something is wrong", or it must not be "sustainable", because (as in "The Princess Bride"), it is INCONCEIVABLE that TP could possibly in any way be wrong!! (one doesn't look at evidence when your positions are settled!)
Red state economies based on energy extraction, agriculture and suburban sprawl may have lower wages, higher poverty rates and lower levels of education on average than those of blue states — but their residents also benefit from much lower costs of living.
Hmm, "Energy extraction" -- Fracking, horizontal drilling. No "innovation or knowledge there, right?" I'd really like to see MIT genius Jonathan Gruber, BO, or the brilliant author of this column for that matter try to set up a successful oil extraction operation.
"Agriculture" they said ... Lots more applied science and engineering in agriculture today than in moving piles of money and stuff around and charging fees, or even in lying about what BOcare is accomplishing. What's more, you grow the stuff in agriculture -- in NY the piles of money and stuff are mostly created and owned by other folks, increasingly non-US folks, and a tiny percentage of people (hmm, I wonder if that has anything to do with the increasing Blue State inequality? Nah, never mind)
So the residents "benefit from much lower costs of living" --- wow, why is that? Well, because they aren't saddled with as much massive TP mismanagement, bonehead regulations, gigantic inefficient unionized costs, carrying as many people on welfare, public transportation boondoggles, etc, etc, but don't expect TP to mention that.
I'm not exactly sure how someone considers "urban sprawl" a product. There is a lot of land in fly over country as the coasties are wont to call it -- seems reasonable to put up some houses on some of it as long as it is there! What the article fails to mention is that a lot of manufacturing is going on in the heartland as well -- non-union, small shops, lots of innovation. There are a good number of very high ranking universities in Red States, not to mention a number of medical centers and other important parts of the economy that don't meet the TP elites idea of "sophisticated" I guess. Maybe because they are in the "wrong states"?
For blue state urbanites who toil in low-paying retail, food preparation and service jobs, for the journeyman tradespeople who once formed the heart of the middle class, for teachers, civil servants, students and young families, the American dream of homeownership — or even an affordable rental apartment — is increasingly out of reach. Adding insult to injury, rapid gentrification in these larger knowledge hubs brings the constant threat of displacement of creative workers. For even the much better paid techies, engineers, financiers and managers who are displacing them, the metropolitan version of the American dream is a cramped condo or a small house and a long commute. Many are opting to move to cheaper red states instead, further driving their growth.
Blue state knowledge economies are also extremely expensive to operate. Their innovative edge turns on a high-cost infrastructure of research universities and knowledge institutions — a portion of which demand public subsidy. Their size and density require expensive subway and transit systems to move people around. Blue state cities like New York and San Francisco are booming, but they are hampered by potholes and crumbling infrastructure, troubled public school systems, growing inequality and housing unaffordability, and entrenched poor populations, all of which mean higher public costs and higher tax burdens.
Here we have the basic admission that TP politics don't work slathered over with the air of inevitability and mistaken cause and effect. Yes, it is extremely expensive to live in highly zoned, regulated, unionized, taxed, rent controlled, corrupt, high energy cost, high crime, etc urban centers like NYC, Chicago, DC, LA, SF, etc. There is no reason it really has to be, any more than Des Moines, Dallas, Salt Lake City or Oklahoma City, but the TP politics engender a lot of high costs, and lets face it, TP isn't about to recognize that!
We are given the article of faith that "research and knowledge institutions" demand public subsidy. Really? Other than as a TP pronouncement, why is that? They "demand" subways??? Other than TP having a fetish for public transportation, it is difficult to see why this is so. Yes, yes, the poorly managed TP cities, schools and general infrastructure are always "failing", but that is because graft, featherbedding, incompetent leadership and counterproductive policies administered and carried out by vastly overpriced and entrenched public and private unions are guaranteed to fail in the most expensive manner possible.
The system that TP created causes a lot of entrenched poverty, troubled school systems, huge expense in housing, etc, so they do a lot MORE taxing, regulating, subsidization of problem groups, so they get more of all of it and thus add yet more taxes and TP mismanagement in a vicious cycle! And DAMN! The serfs are deserting the sinking Blue State TP ship!
These expenses and failures aren't due to natural forces, they are due to mistaken TP ideas that tend to produce the exact opposite outcome from what was promised. The article does point out that the more Blue states have INCREASING income inequality -- not surprisingly, the OPPOSITE result from what TP constantly harps on as a problem they are going to FIX, when in fact by their own admission in the areas that they have the most control they are MAKING IT WORSE!
And yet for all that, they are pioneering the new economic order that will determine our future — one that turns on innovation and knowledge rather than the raw production of goods.
Despite their longstanding divisions, red state and blue state economies depend crucially on one another. Just as Alexander Hamilton’s merchant cities ate and exported the harvests of Thomas Jefferson’s yeomen farmers, and New England textile mills wove slave-harvested cotton, blue state knowledge economies run on red state energy. Red state energy economies in their turn depend on dense coastal cities and metro areas, not just as markets and sources of migrants, but for the technology and talent they supply.
Wow. Even in '12, Michelle Bachman was completely derided as a fool for suggesting that $2 gas was a real possibility -- by the super intelligent kinds of folks that write articles like this. Hydraulic fracking and lateral drilling are very much knowledge driven and they were not produced in these highly expensive supposedly impossible to live without centers of TP political brilliance. The idea that all, or even most of our innovation and knowledge is coming from Blue States is just plain old wishful thinking from our self appointed elites like the almost always close to bankrupt NYT.
Who really needs who the most? If there is no energy or food for NYC, Chicago, DC, SF, etc and all the police turn their backs on the confident and brilliant TP elites, how is that going to go for them? Perhaps they may suddenly turn just a wee bit less confident in their superiority and irreplaceability?
But here comes the punchline!
The allure of cheap growth has handed the red states a distinct political advantage. Their economic system may be outmoded and obsolete, but it is strong enough to blight the future. The Democrats may be able to draw on the country’s growing demographic diversity and the liberal leanings of younger voters to win the presidency from time to time, but the real power dynamic is red.
As long as the highly gerrymandered red states concerted federal action on transportation, infrastructure, sustainability, education, a rational immigration policy and a strengthened social safety net will remain out of reach.These are investments that the future prosperity of the nation, in red states and blue states alike, requires.
Heightened partisan rancor is the least of our problems. The red state-blue state divide threatens to kill the real American dream.
Ah, the working Red State model that is showing results while the TP managed Blue States are sinking into debt and losing people. Therefore, the WORKING model must be "outmoded and obsolete"! I guess it is obvious if you are a TP true believer at the NYTs.
The TP model is essentially "Nazi Germany / USSR Lite", but there certainly isn't anything "outmoded and obsolete" about those models, right? Again, maybe the best thing for TP to do is to put up a wall around their states -- or perhaps militarily attack the Red States (how well do Financiers, Global Traders and University PHDs shoot?).
Those are classic leftist ideas of "reasonable things to do" when it becomes clear that others are not only successful but your serfs are voting with their feet!
I love their ideas of "what is needed" -- "transportation, infrastructure, sustainability, education, more immigrants (read TP voters) and more "safety net"" ... EXACTLY the policies that they push more heavily in the current Blue States causing exactly the problem that the article points out.
Again, we see the TP / Socialist / Communist way -- our polices WORK! Agree with us or we will lock you up or shoot you! Got it?
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