I've certainly posted about it before, but I still doubt most people recognize how big a deal urbanization is, economically and politically, around the world but also in the U.S.
For instance, consider the complexity and difficulty of being the Governor of Nevada (pop. 3 million), Kansas (2.9 million), New Mexico (2 million), Nebraska (1.9 million), Idaho (1.7 million), North and South Dakota (1.7 million, combined), Wyoming (586,000), versus the job of being Mayor of New York City (8.6 million - 24 million in the metro area), Los Angeles (4 million - 18.7 million in the metro area), Chicago (2.7 million - 9.4 million in the metro area), Houston, (2.3 million - 6.5 million in the metro area), Philadelphia (1.6 million - 6 million metro), Phoenix (1.6 million - 4.2 million metro), San Antonio (1.5 million - 2.2 metro), or San Diego (1.4 million - 3.1 million metro).
So any one of these cities is larger than a handful of U.S. states.
The annual GDP of the New York and Los Angeles metro areas is about $1 trillion each! Compare that to VP Mike Pence's home state of Indiana, with a GDP in 2016 of $3.5 billion. There's really no comparison.
On top of that, consider that as many as 800 languages are spoken in New York City. Over 200 languages in Los Angeles.
Consider all the diverse people packed together in cities who have to find a way to get along with one another. Tolerance of multiculturalism in these cities isn't a liberal fetish -- it's a matter of survival, a fact of life.
Moreover, every major U.S. city votes Democratic in national elections. We don't have a Red/Blue state divide; we have an urban/rural divide. Even in the Red state of Texas, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio voted overwhelmingly for Hillary in 2016. It wasn't even close.
The U.S. is becoming two different countries: urban and rural. This is not what our Founding Fathers or the Federalist Papers anticipated. Even in rural/Red states, we have urban centers who vote solidly Democratic. That matters in Presidential and governors races, but not in state or federal congressional races.
Hence, the people representing the fewest and most rural have outsized, un-representative influence over our politics at the state and federal level.
I predict that liberals and Democrats will become the new Federalists, preaching the government closest to the people should have the most power, because cities are where all the people are, and the most diverse, well-educated, innovative and liberal people are. Also the wealthiest. The math and demographics are unassailable. America belongs to her cities. Or ought to.
Showing posts with label Red States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red States. Show all posts
Thursday, November 9, 2017
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
And the states with most gun violence are...
... Surprise, surprise: the pro-gun states.
This fact is nothing new but the right-wing media would lie and tell you the exact opposite. Moreover, the most violent gun states are all Red States. Finally, the most violent gun states are also among the poorest -- but if you read me often then you already know there's a strong correlation between poverty and Red States:
Gun-related homicide rates in all but three of the 10 states with the most firearm death rates were above the national rate of 3.6 homicides per 100,000 residents. Louisiana, the only state on this list where homicide accounted for more gun-related deaths than suicides, reported 9.4 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2011, more than in any other state.
So here are the top 10 most violent gun states:
10. South Carolina (also 9th poorest state)9. New Mexico (2nd poorest state)8. Alabama (7th poorest state)7. Arkansas (4th poorest state)6. Montana5. Oklahoma (15th poorest state)4. Wyoming3. Alaska2. Mississippi (the poorest U.S. state)1. Louisiana (3rd poorest state)
So Fox and talk radio would like to sell you the lie that guns are only a problem in inner cities like Chicago, DC, New York and LA, when in fact the most gun violence happens in less populated, more rural, poorer, conservative Red States. (We can just say "Red States" for short.)
By Thomas C. Frohlich
June 26, 2014 | 24/7 Wall St.
Monday, February 24, 2014
And the most miserable U.S. states are...
So here are the most miserable U.S. states, based on a Gallup-Healthways survey of "2013 health info from 176,000 Americans on 'physical and emotional health, healthy behaviors, work environment, social and community factors, financial security, and access to necessities such as food, shelter and healthcare'".
Notice the overlap of Southern states, Red States and human misery in the top 10:
1. West Virginia
2. Kentucky
3. Mississippi
4. Alabama
5. Ohio
6. Arkansas
7. Tennessee
8. Missouri
9. Oklahoma
10. Louisiana
This is what the Tea Parties are fighting to protect from the influence of godless, socialist bi-coastal liberals!
And here are the 10 least miserable states, in descending order:
40. New Hampshire
41. Iowa
42. Washington
43. Hawaii
44. Colorado
45. Vermont
46. Montana
47. Minnesota
48. Nebraska
49. South Dakota
50. North Dakota
On the one hand, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and Vermont shouldn't really count because nobody lives there. (Combined population: 5.2 million; the same as Colorado). On the other hand, if true happiness is being left alone, then....
By Adam Weinstein
February 24, 2014 | Gawker
Monday, February 17, 2014
U.S. map of income tax: Blue States walk the talk
This map shows that Blue States practice what they preach: they want government to do more, and they tax income at a higher rate in order to do it:
Using the 2012 election results to measure that, we find the average state income tax rate in states (plus D.C.) that Obama won is 6.4 percent, while the average rate in states Mitt Romney won is 4.9 percent.
By Sean Sullivan
February 16, 2014 | Washington Post
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
An annual tradition: And the poorest states are...
In 2013, I neglected one of my annual rituals: reminding everybody that the poorest U.S. states vote Republican. Nine out of 10, to be exact, and that's backed up by PolitiFact. Here it is, the Top 10 list of shame:
10. Oklahoma
9. South Carolina
8. Louisiana
7. Tennessee
6. New Mexico - The only state in the top 10 not in the South. West side represent!
5. Kentucky - Just like in neighboring Tennessee, 1/4 of children live in poverty.
4. Alabama - Median household income: $41,574, despite having the lowest property tax, and being the second most religious state.
3. West Virginia
2. Arkansas
1. Mississippi - Median household income: $37,095. Official motto: "Making other states feel better about themselves."
Next in the ritual comes the part when I remind you how Red States are also more likely to be federal welfare queens, i.e. they receive more federal money than they pay to Washington in taxes.
This year I'll offer a rebuttal to that: Granted, if you look at all elections, or number of registered Republicans, and not just how these states voted in presidential races, then defining a "Red State" gets trickier. But since Republicans and Democrats use the same Red-Blue state labels, that argument doesn't hold much water with me.
Finally, I conclude this ritual by lamenting all those poor, hypocritical reactionaries in Flyover Country who vote against their own economic interests.
Till next year!....
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Sandy Hook anniversary and America's gun sickness
Whenever FOX needs somebody to say why gun control is bad, they call on John Lott.
Here Lott is gloating that stricter gun control hasn't come to pass one year since the Newtown massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary where 26 people were shot and killed, including 20 children ages 6-7, most of them left beyond recognition even by their parents. Here is the website created by the 26 families in their memory.
As I've described before in meticulous detail, when it comes to gun violence, Lott bends and twists the truth. For instance this: "But gun control advocates aren’t giving up. They are patient, and they have money."
They are spending more money lately, but gun control advocates are still being outspent 13 to 1 by gun rights groups.
Sure, Lott can gloat about even more lax gun control laws passed since Sandy Hook in Red States such as Utah, Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, North Carolina, Indiana, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Dakota and Kansas, while only a few states such as New York and Delaware passed even more strict gun control laws.
But he can't simply lie that a clear majority of Americans opposes gun control. Over the past 10 years, the share of Americans favoring stricter gun laws has fluctuated between 44 and 60 percent, with the most recent Gallup figure at 49 percent in favor, 37 percent for the status quo, and 13 percent for even less strict gun laws.
So, about half of Americans have a sickness that's killing all of us, and they need an intervention. Indeed, since 9/11, about 364,000 Americans were killed by firearms. That's more Americans than died in combat in the Civil War.
The truth is though, fewer and fewer Americans are choosing to own guns. So how are gun makers' profits at an all-time high since Sandy Hook? Easy. They use the NRA to scare fewer people into buying more and more guns to "defend" themselves against tyrannical Big Government and hordes of non-existent criminals (usually in the guise of minorities).
It's a sickening paradox, but gun rampages like Sandy Hook are good for gun makers, because as soon as politicians make a peep about sensible measures afterwards like universal background checks, the NRA's fear machine cranks into high gear -- "They're coming to take your guns away!" -- Red States make pre-emptive attacks on existing gun laws, and sales to gun nuts go through the roof again.
By John Lott
December 13, 2013 | FoxNews
Monday, November 11, 2013
Obamacare: Another conservative-lite idea
As I've said before, Obamacare was not what real liberals and progressives wanted: single-payer. In today's op-ed, Zelizer laments that, and warns liberals against "half-baked" liberal policies that are really just conservative-lite ideas.
Obamacare is the classic example. It was first proposed by the uber-conservative Heritage Foundation in the early 90s, then supported by uber-conservative economist Milton Friedman and Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, among 25 conservative leaders, then implemented on the state level by a Republican governor.
The only problem is that the conservative party in the U.S. has gone farther to the Right since the 90s. Now its "best & brightest" like Rush Limbaugh believe that the answer is to get rid of health insurance altogether. We should return to the 19th century. Idiots!
Before Obamacare, Obama never even put the single-payer option on the table. Congress never voted on it. Obama began with closed-door negotiations with insurance companies and drug makers to see what they'd agree to. Obamacare is what we got. Now their revenues are hitting all-time highs and projected to rise in 2014 as well, so don't cry for them.
Nevertheless, there are those on the Right today who ridiculously view Obamacare as a big, elaborate socialist conspiracy to usher in single-payer health care. Talk about a disconnect! On one side, we have dissatisfied liberals lamenting that Obama missed a once-in-a-generation chance to change the healthcare game. On the other side, we have dissatisfied conservatives who say the liberals are pulling a fast one to get what they want eventually. Eventually, in some distant future.... It's as if paranoid conservatives have more faith in the inevitability of liberal ideals than liberals do!
There are two variants on this conspiracy theory, as far as I can pick up. The first variant goes: expanding Medicaid for the poor is just one more step toward single-payer, since the government already pays for more than half of all healthcare in America. The second one goes: Obamacare is intended to be such a disaster that Americans will throw up their hands, decide private insurance is a mess, and demand single-payer instead.
I'll give both versions more time than they deserve, if only because millions of talk radio/Tea Party Republicans really believe in them. As for expanding Medicaid, conservatives can breathe a partial sigh of relief, because their Republicans governors already blocked Medicaid expansion to 8 million Americans in their respective states. There is a problem here though, and it's real. GOP governors also refused to set up their own health insurance markets, thus shifting the burden to the federal Healthcare.gov website. This is delaying people getting health insurance who want it, and they might just give up entirely.
Rick Moran summed up the self-defeating idiocy of Republicans' spiteful, partisan refusal to establish state health insurance exchanges:
[W]hile conservatives think the Obamacare exchanges are overregulated and oversubsidized, they are actually closer to the right-of-center vision for health care reform than the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, which is happening no matter what transpires with Healthcare.gov. So if the exchanges fail and the Medicaid expansion takes effect (and, inevitably, becomes difficult to roll back), we’ll be left with an individual market that’s completely dysfunctional and a more socialized system over all.
The second variant on this conspiracy theory might end up being true... but only by accident, not by design. I mean, do conservatives really believe that Obama is such a secret, selfless socialist ideologue that he has intended all along for his signature piece of eponymous legislation to be a total failure -- a failure that would define his presidential legacy? Talk about taking one for the team!
Furthermore, if conservatives really believe Obamacare was designed to fail, then... why do they take such glee at every opportunity to declare it a failure? Aren't they playing right into Obama's diabolical hands? But ah, says the tinfoil hat crew, Obama didn't intend for it to fail so soon. Because he's so darn incompetent, see? He can't even screw up right. They say Obama intended for us to get good and used to Obamacare first, so that it could fail several years from now, just when we were about to... so that we would... you see then.... Oh, I can't follow this wacky line of reasoning any further.
By Julian Zelizer
November 11, 2013 | CNN
Sunday, September 22, 2013
U.S. middle class & unions fall together
Correlation ain't necessarily causation, but... check out below how those red and blue lines have fallen in sync!
Big Business and Republican politicians who have taken swings at unions as "lazy" and "corrupt" and cut private union membership have in fact kneecapped America's middle class.
With the exception of France, with its socialist welfare system and already strong labor laws, there is not a developed Western country with a lower rate of unionization than the U.S. at 11.3 percent. The OECD average is 17 percent.
Meanwhile, Red State conservatives, many of them America's economic losers, swallow the GOP-talk radio explanation for falling U.S. incomes: Obamacare (yet to be enacted) and food stamps.
Among the 254 counties where food stamp recipients doubled between 2007 and 2011, Republican Mitt Romney won 213 of them in last year’s presidential election, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data compiled by Bloomberg.
These poor suckers don't know what's best for themselves or others. There cannot be a strong U.S. middle class without unions. End of story.
By Caroline Fairchild
September 18, 2013 | Huffington Post
This week the Census Bureau reported the latest depressing decline in middle-class incomes during the so-called economic recovery. But it may have missed an important factor in this story.
A report on Wednesday from the left-leaning think tank Center For American Progress notes that as middle-class incomes have steadily fallen, so have union membership rates. The middle 60 percent of households earned 53.2 percent of national income in 1968. That number has fallen to just 45.7 percent. During that same period, nationwide union membership fell from 28.3 percent to a record-low 11.3 percent of all workers.
Put these two economic trends together, and a striking image appears:
Indeed, declining labor-union participation is not the only factor killing middle-class income growth. But increased union participation would likely mean more income for the middle class, the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute argued in a 2009 report. Unions typically increase the wages of their workers while also raising pay for nonunion workers in industries with a strong union presence.
Higher union participation rates might also reduce income inequality. The U.S. has the worst income inequality of any county in the developed world, and the nation's top earners continue to see their pay rise as median incomes fall. Union participation could counteract this trend, according to the EPI.
So why is union participation declining so rapidly? Private sector union membership reached a peak of about 35 percent of the labor force in the 1950s, The New York Times reports. Since then, labor unions have steadily become smaller as many states have rolled out new laws limiting union power.
Young millennials' disenchantment with organized labor may also be an important contributor to its decline. From 2002 to 2012, union members ages 16 to 24 fell by 26 percent. That's double the decline in union membership for all workers, according to Quartz.
That said, younger generations may have a good reason to be less than eager to join a union. Studies have discovered that during the economic recovery, non-union workers fared considerably better than union workers in fields like manufacturing and private construction. Also, during the 1982 and 1991 recessions, states with fewer union members were found to recover more quickly than states with a strong union presence.
Friday, May 10, 2013
U.S. workers and the real 'freeloaders'
Huffington Post featured three excellent articles in two days about the plight of America's workers, who struggle to work enough hours to pay their bills, while not getting any paid leave or health insurance.
This week a Republican friend was complaining to me about "freeloaders" in America who don't pay any income taxes and thus feel no responsibility for our government; they just want to take, take, take. This was his version of Mitt Romney's secretly taped complaint about the "47 percent" -- a moment of candor that likely cost Romney the 2012 U.S. presidential election. (Such complaints are bald assertion: there is no indication that a large number of our fellow citizens feel this way; and people who make such accusations don't feel any need to offer evidence for such a conclusion.)
I replied to my friend, first, that Romney's 47 percent by definition includes millions of Red State Republicans. Second, I said that nobody who works in America is a freeloader, even if they don't pay income tax. Why?
The article about KFC provides a pretty good example. A young man worked hard and was promoted by his boss and given extra hours and responsibilities, with a promise that a raise was just around the corner, but the raise never came. When he said he didn't want to be a manager anymore, it was too much stress for a poverty wage, his boss accused him of being "selfish." Meanwhile, from 2007 to 2011, KFC (part of Yum!Brands) saw its profits rise 45 percent.
This is true nationwide, where U.S. corporate profits are at an all-time high, while workers' wages are at an all-time low. Yes, companies are getting more efficient and workers are getting more productive, but the profit gains from all that increased productivity are not going to workers.
So just who is freeloading off of whom? I don't mean to sound like a Marxist, but obviously, that guy working his tail off at KFC while living in his uncle's basement is not seeing any of that 45 percent in profits; it's all going to the corporate managers and shareholders. His story has been repeated millions of times at other fast-food and retail joints around the country.
Or take the article about Amazon that, like many companies, outsources many aspects of its operations to temp agencies that don't give their workers any job security, full-time hours or benefits. Similarly, the U.S. Government's contractors often employ temp and part-time workers who earn below-poverty wages who then must rely partly on government benefits.
This is not to mention Wal-Mart, the nation's #1 employer, whose average employee earns less than $9 an hour (less than $19,000 a year, full-time), and who has the most employees receiving federal welfare benefits.
Knowing all this, I don't see how anybody can have the gall to complain about the "selfishness" of U.S. workers who don't pay income tax. Paying income tax is an elite privilege; and I'm sure these poor working Americans would love to be members of that elite club, earning enough money on salary with benefits to qualify for the "burden" of paying income taxes... while still enjoying all the other tax expenditures that middle- and upper-class Americans receive, which, according to Bloomberg, make up the largest category of government spending, $1.3 trillion:
Middle-class families get an average benefit from the mortgage interest deduction of $139, while families in the top 1 percent get $3,752.
Taken together, individual income tax expenditures are the equivalent of sending $686 each year to those in the bottom fifth of the income distribution, $3,175 to those in the middle fifth, and $30,714 to those in the upper fifth. The average member of the top 1 percent gets nearly a quarter of a million dollars a year -- a statistic that might have proved useful for the folks protesting in Zuccotti Park.
By Saki Knafo
May 7, 2013 | Huffington Post
By Jillian Berman
May 8, 2013 | Huffington Post
By Dave Jamieson
May 8, 2013 | Huffington Post
Monday, March 11, 2013
Red v. Blue states? No, Urban v. Rural counties
So here's Bernstein's Civil War what-if in a nutshell:
Suppose instead that Southern politicians had decided not to leave the Union but to stay and fight—in the halls of Congress. Suppose that they had pursued a politics of obstruction, a political counterpart of trench warfare—blocking every measure, stalling every policy, jamming the works of government to prevent even appointments of federal postmasters in Southern states. What might have happened?The result might well have been a cycle of frustration and resistance that would have made today’s brawls look like child’s play.
This is all moot because the real divide in today's America is not Red vs. Blue States, but Rural vs. Urban, as the article, Red State, Blue City: How the Urban-Rural Divide Is Splitting America, clearly shows: "Partisan lines that once fell along regional borders can increasingly be found at the county level":
The new political divide is a stark division between cities and what remains of the countryside. Not just some cities and some rural areas, either -- virtually every major city (100,000-plus population) in the United States of America has a different outlook from the less populous areas that are closest to it. The difference is no longer about where people live, it's about how people live: in spread-out, open, low-density privacy -- or amid rough-and-tumble, in-your-face population density and diverse communities that enforce a lower-common denominator of tolerance among inhabitants.The voting data suggest that people don't make cities liberal -- cities make people liberal.
Check out these voting maps from 2012 if you don't believe me. Suddenly the Red States don't look so red, do they? Even Paul Ryan admitted it in November 2012.
This truth has tremendous implications for urban development and retail politics alike. If conservative politicians realize -- and I think they do -- that they cannot win over America's cities, then their policy choices will favor rural communities and suburban sprawl over urbanization. But if conservatives try to fight the urbanization trend, either by gerrymandering or by depriving cities of the infrastructure that they need to flourish, then they'll be swimming upstream, to say the least, against global economic trends. And in the process they'll also be restraining America's economic and social dynamism. I put nothing past their selfish desire for political power.
By R.B. Berstein
March 11, 2013 | Daily Beast
By Josh Kron
November 30, 2012 | Atlantic
Saturday, December 22, 2012
The REAL gun debate is spiritual
If the gun control debate were factual and reasonable, then liberals would have won it a long time ago. There simply is no debate.
Apropos, Jill Filipovic taps into something deep and disturbing about American culture, and that is the prevailing conservative belief that we live in a "fallen world" filled with evil and dominated by bad people. Conservatives think that there is nothing we can do to make this a better world; we (meaning our nuclear families) can only try to be one of the chosen few good people defending ourselves and our values against the immoral hordes storming the gates.
By contrast, liberals believe that human civilization can and should be perfected, and that most people are fundamentally good and decent, therefore near-perfection is achievable, eventually. No issue is more emblematic of that philosophical -- I would say, spiritual, divide than the gun control debate. If you believe, like I do, that most people are kind and trustworthy, then you naturally question why everybody should need so many deadly guns to protect themselves against... whom? Other kind and decent people? It doesn't make sense.
Even in the conservative/Red State conception, the justification for possessing lots of deadly guns presents a contradiction. For they are the first ones to point out, post-Sandy Hook, how rates of violent crime in Chicago and Washington, DC are higher than in Small Town, USA; they always have been, well before recent RTC and concealed-carry laws. Yet conservatives are not quite ready to credit their small towns' relative tranquility to the abundance of their guns; nay, they truly consider themselves to be better morally. Meanwhile they see immorality and bestiality in the multicultural, multi-class structures of our growing, bustling, complicated urban areas. Pro-gun conservatives may pay lip service to "An armed society is a polite society," but indeed, the presence or absence of guns is a distant second, in their minds, in terms of what distinguishes them.
That is why these shooting rampages at schools throw conservatives -- and all of us, really, since we all go in for this nonsense to some extent -- for such a loop, because they are usually committed in suburbs and rural areas. Moreover, shooting rampages are overwhelmingly white-on-white crime. Yet statistically, we know that our chances of falling victim to a deranged, heavily armed mass murderer are tiny. For conservatives, the main thing is to stay focused on the real threat and stay armed in case they come for them: blacks, Muslims, Latinos, OWS hippies and anarchists, godless atheists, activist gays, poor people -- all the alleged marauders storming their Gates of Goodness.
And so, there are articles of faith in pro-gun conservatives' minds that no amount of statistics or facts can alter. That is why our gun debate never goes anywhere, we always start at zero, and nothing much will happen this time (after Sandy Hook) either:
As we've seen in the debates on issues from climate change to gender equality to foreign policy, facts, statistics and rational arguments don't really matter if the goal of offering them up is to improve things in the here and now. It's a deeply pessimistic view of humanity that projects a strong sense of fatalism.The point of being "good" isn't because goodness is valuable unto itself or because goodness is widely beneficial. The point of being good is to earn heaven points. Goodness, then, is defined according to a very particular set of religious and cultural values, and is highly "in-group" focused. Goodness means going to church, marrying early, submitting to a husband-in-charge family structure, having children out of obligation and upholding the social pillars that organize society to keep a particular group on top.Goodness isn't necessarily helping other people or taking steps that are proven effective at decreasing violence or working to create a more accepting and happy world for our children. Goodness is upholding the power structures that have traditionally benefited the small group of men who think they have a monopoly on defining "goodness."
[...] It is certainly true that "good" people don't walk into a classroom and shoot a group of six year-olds. It's also true that good people don't murder their wives and girlfriends – yet five times more women are killed by intimate partners every year than by strangers, and 95% of the women who are killed with a firearm are murdered by a man. If there's a gun involved, an incident of domestic violence is 12 times more likely to result in death. And while mass shootings understandably capture our national attention, the more than 30,000 American gun deaths every year (and their $37bn price tag) should spur us to action.It's easy to read those figures and conclude that conservatives are right: we are a world of awful, violent people who are going to keep on being awful and violent no matter what, so gun control serves no purpose and we'll all be better off in Heaven anyway. But as is true with almost anything that makes life on Earth brutish and miserable, we have the power to change that. Gun deaths are lower in the states with the strictest gun control laws. And the majority of US gun deaths actually comprises suicides – acts committed not generally by evil, murderous people, but by individuals who are sick and hurting and need help.
By Jill Filipovic
December 21, 2012 | Guardian
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
GOP counties eating up more food stamps
This isn't funny anymore. The hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance on the Right have reached critical mass. There is a good chance these Republicans don't even realize that the food stamps they collect are "welfare."
By Frank Bass
November 5, 2012 | Bloomberg
Saturday, October 20, 2012
'Business experience' loses on POTUS scoreboard
This post is for the reality-based community, for that sliver of the American electorate still concerned with facts, not gut feelings, blind ideology and personal anecdotes. I.e, the smarts. All you stupids, take a FoxNews break. Go check SporstCenter.
Here are the real stats (oh, wait, all you mind-numbed sports fans are supposed to be obsessed with stats, but anyway...):
The startling bottom line is that the nation’s GDP has grown more than 45 times faster under presidents with little or no business experience than it has under presidents with successful business careers. And on average, when there has been a successful businessman in the Oval Office (so, Truman is excluded), GDP growth has been negligible.On average, under presidents with successful business experience, GDP has increased 0.12 percent. And under presidents with little or no business experience, GDP has grown 5.46 percent.
That's right, sports fans, it gets even worse for the Red Team:
The most startling figures emerge when we combine party and business experience. Historically, a Democrat without business experience has been extraordinarily better for the economy and the stock market than a Republican who had a career in business. In the past 84 years, GDP has grown 7 percent per year under Democrats without business experience (FDR, JFK, LBJ, Clinton and Obama) and fallen by 0.2 percent per year under Republicans with business experience (Hoover and the two Bushes). The Dow has risen an average of 16.8 percent per year under Democrats without business experience and has fallen by 3.7 percent per year under Republicans with business experience.
I would yell "Scooorebooooard!" except Republicans don't care about the scoreboard unless it's a black or Hispanic athlete doing the scoring in a meaningless socialistic sporting event that is subsidized by taxpayers. Go figure.
By Robert S. McElvaine
October 20, 2012 | Washington Post
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
An annual ritual: And the poorest states are...
So now is the time when I point out, again, how all the poorest U.S. states are in the South and vote Republican.
Next comes the part where I remind you how 8 of the top 10 biggest welfare states -- those that take more from the federal budget than they pay in taxes -- vote Republican.
Then we argue about who is worse: those condescending, bi-coastal liberal elites who think they know what's best for everybody; or those hypocritical, poor reactionaries in Flyover Country who vote against their own economic interests.
Finally we agree to disagree and call a truce... until the next year's Census data comes out so we can do it all over again.
OK, let's get started!...
By Michael B. Sauter, Samuel Weigley, Brian Zajac and Alexander E. M. Hess
September 23, 2012 | Huffington Post
Friday, September 2, 2011
Entrepreneurship thriving... in liberal states
The latest State Entrepreneurship Index published by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is out, and guess what?
Coastal liberal Blue States are the most entrepreneur-friendly, while "freedom-loving," Southern, Tea Partying states fare the worst.
Gee, I wonder what that means?... I guess I'll have to wait for CATO to 'splain it to me.
By Janean Chun
September 1, 2011 | Huffington Post
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Washington state graphic: Who votes how?
I must point out that this super graphic from WA state is indicative of a national trend. Indeed, Red States tend to be federal welfare queens.
'Course, if you want to dig deeper, then you see that all major cities, even in Red States, tend to vote Democrat. It's the 'burbs and the vast swathes of nothing that vote Republican.
What does all this mean? I'm not quite sure. But cognitive dissonance is nothing new to conservatives and Republicans. To be charitable, let's remember that famous quote from writer F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." Red State welfare queens obviously have no problem with hating Big Gubument while collecting all kinds of federal goodies. So doggoneit, Red Staters are possessed of a first-rate intelligence!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
FOX focus group agrees: Obama is Muslim
This just goes to show that the Red State heartland of America is irrationally opposed to Obama and wants to believe the worst about him, no matter what he does.
Obama should take note. These people will always hate, fear, and distrust him. He can never win them over. He should veer hard Left to re-energize his base, and enough of the independents will follow along.
Fox News focus group in Iowa: President Obama is Muslim
By Tyler Kingkade
February 8, 2011 | Washington Independent
URL: http://washingtonindependent.com/105432/fox-news-focus-group-in-iowa-president-obama-is-muslim
Obama should take note. These people will always hate, fear, and distrust him. He can never win them over. He should veer hard Left to re-energize his base, and enough of the independents will follow along.
UPDATE (02.14.2011): One reader said I was insulting Islam to say that believing Obama was a Muslim was "to believe the worst about him." Poor phrasing on my part. Just to clarify, I meant that believing somebody would conceal his true religion with another one for political purposes is to believe the worst about somebody.
Fox News focus group in Iowa: President Obama is Muslim
By Tyler Kingkade
February 8, 2011 | Washington Independent
URL: http://washingtonindependent.com/105432/fox-news-focus-group-in-iowa-president-obama-is-muslim
Sunday, July 4, 2010
KY wins another #1 national ranking
Nothing says "Independence" like a shitload of guns.
I already knew that Kentucky was 1st in number of smoking deaths, the 6th worst state in which to start a business, the 7th fattest state in America and also the 7th poorest* (coincidence? I think not), 41st in childcare affordability, 42nd in terms of federal funds received per dollar of taxes, the 46th least-educated workforce, and 49th in terms of people's wellbeing. (*12 of Kentucky's 120 counties are among the 25 poorest counties in all of America.) And I've long suspected that Kentucky ranks up there in mullets and cutoff jeans per 100,000 residents, but I couldn't find any available statistics.
But now I find out that by a WIDE margin KY is the most heavily armed state in the union. KY blows #2 Utah away, (pardon the pun), it's not even close.
If you're a math genius, you'll notice there are more firearms background checks than people, meaning there are way more guns than people in KY, especially if we assume these numbers hold steady from year to year.
Seriously though, what's wrong with us?? Why do we poor, fat, uneducated, heavy-smoking people need so many guns? What are we doing with them all?
UPDATE 07.21.2010: To answer my rhetorical question, it later occurred to me to check the latest data on suicide rates by state. It turns out KY ranked an unhealthy 10th in 2007, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Again, an eyeballing seems to show a strong correlation between the most suicidal and the most heavily armed U.S. states.
Kind of makes me nervous about coming home....
This stat is ironic because the most armed states correlate nicely with the states that are the biggest federal welfare queens, i.e. they receive more federal spending than they contribute in federal taxes. But if Obama tried to take their guns away... it'd spark a revolution for independence! That is, until all those Kentuckians became fatigued from hunger because Obama cancelled their EBT cards.
June 28, 2010 | The Daily Beast
1. Kentucky
Population: 4,314,113
NICS background checks per 100,000 residents (Dec. 2008 – May 2010): 134,028
2. Utah
Population: 2,784,572
NICS background checks per 100,000 residents: 30,315
3. Montana
Population: 974,989
NICS background checks per 100,000 residents: 25,745
4. Wyoming
Population: 544,270
NICS background checks per 100,000 residents: 22,827
5. Alaska
Population: 698,473
NICS background checks per 100,000 residents: 22,273
6. West Virginia
Population: 1,819,777
NICS background checks per 100,000 residents: 21,455
7. South Dakota
Population: 812,383
NICS background checks per 100,000 residents: 19,062
8. North Dakota
Population: 646,844
NICS background checks per 100,000 residents: 17,829
9. Arkansas
Population: 2,889,450
NICS background checks per 100,000 residents: 17,483
10. Alabama
Population: 4,708,708
NICS background checks per 100,000 residents: 16,860
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