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

[Ryan Lanham]

On 12/13/09, J. Andrew Rogers <reality.miner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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.


I hope you are right, but it isn't the story I hear.  It would be great to
kill off the farm subsidy.  I've been told by Senate staffers it will be the
last pork to ever be cut.  The farm lobby owns the Senate (along with the
banking lobby).

> 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.


They are both good states in terms of political balance...which has hurt
their pork consumption...that simple table could feed several PhD
dissertations!  Both of those particular states matter in elections (the
point I was making) exactly because they are swing states....the same reason
they don't get a lot of pork.  I agree, more of those would be better.
Still, having Nevada "matter" in a national election seems, in democratic
terms, pretty backward.  It has a tiny franction of the population of
Calfiornia all settled in Los Vegas...effectively a Californian (and New
York crime family) invention.

> 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.

California is still respected though it fights to overcome Reagan-era
dysfunctions such as gridlock.  Republicans chose (and choose) to
precipitate crises to make their points.  Bad for the country, but good
politics.  Virginia is respected.  Arizona is well run and balanced...though
financially they real estate bomb has killed them.  Washington, Montana and
Oregon are well run.  Florida is pretty well run.  Poor state administration
are the usual small corrupt states (West Virginia, South Carolina) and the
big corrupt states...Texas and Illinois...Michigan is pretty well run.  New
York...not so much.

> 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.

Yest, that was the theory of it.  Never worked out that way.  They were
supposed to be quasi-presidential advisors.  The Senate is the great failure
of the US besides slavery.  It really was a nod to elitists.  Populism was
never a threat with the House...they could have lengthened the House terms
and done away with the Senate...but then we'd be something very close to
Britain...
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