[p2p-research] Abundance Destroys Profit [was: Tick, tock, tick, tock… BING]

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The Great Plains has been depopulating for decades. I don't know about
>> impoverished though, the demand for agricultural products hasn't been
>> waning and they produce a lot of export goods.
>>
>
> The Midwest and the South rely heavily on Federal flows and transfers.
> Always have.  Take away the Federal money flows and poverty ensues.  See...
>
> http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html


I think you are significantly misinterpreting those figures.  The
flyover plains states in the Midwest now have the lowest populations
of any other region and huge farm subsidies. The US penchant for
putting giant research labs and large military installations in states
with populations asymptotically approaching zero doesn't help either.
Sure, there is some pork but there are also big chunks of money that
are inherently distributed to low population states which biases the
result. And while the very top states on that list are strongly
correlated with having senators that are well-known masters of pork,
it is not obvious that pork contributes significantly to those
economies in such a way as be forestalling poverty. Federal outflows
to things that could be construed as pork are not a big percentage of
the budget and therefore a tiny percentage of the overall economy.

Given that there is little evidence that agriculture requires
subsidies to be profitable (and indeed has been generating huge
profits in recent years), I don't see how removing those subsidies
would impoverish anyone.


> Hence states like Nevada and New Hampshire matter.


Note that while these two states "matter", they are at the very bottom
of the list for Federal outflows, #49 and #47 respectively. Their
mattering hasn't translated into Federal money, quite the opposite.
Whatever they are doing, I'd say we need more of it.

States like Nevada and New Hampshire matter because they are famously
not beholden to either political party and tend to have a disdain for
both. The States that don't matter are those that are effectively
"owned" by a political party, like California and New York. It
moderates the influence of party politics a bit.


> States are tolerated by the Feds...truth is, they are hated and
> thought to be backward and slovenly.  Very few are respected as
> administrations.  California was one that was respected.  Mostly the states
> are seen as headaches to Washington.


That is a pretty good summation. At one time, California actually was
an exemplar state as such things go, but I don't see that happening
again without a reboot.


> The whole purpose of the modern Senate is to
> distribute pork.   Really, what else does it do?  Think about it...what else
> would it do?


The Senate deals with international matters, executive oversight, and
is supposed to be a firewall against populist foolishness in the
House.  I think the only part of US Federal governance that has not
obviously inserted themselves in the money process is the Judicial
branch.


-- 
J. Andrew Rogers
realityminer.blogspot.com