Krugman: America's Red State Death Trip

[CousinIT]

Why does falling life expectancy track political orientation?

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/20191204/paul-krugman-americas-red-state-death-trip

Americans living in blue-voting counties are living healthier, longer lives than those in red counties, writes economist and columnist Paul Krugman. And the difference is widening.

“E pluribus unum” — out of many, one — is one of America’s traditional mottos. And you might think it would be reflected in reality. We aren’t, after all, just united politically. We share a common language; the unrestricted movement of goods, services and people is guaranteed by the Constitution. Shouldn’t this lead to convergence in the way we live and think?

In fact, however, the past few decades have been marked by growing divergence among regions along several dimensions, all closely correlated. In particular, the political divide is also, increasingly, an economic divide. As The New York Times’ Tom Edsall put it in a recent article, “red and blue voters live in different economies.”

What Edsall didn’t point out is that red and blue voters don’t just live differently, they also die differently.

About the living part: Democratic-leaning areas used to look similar to Republican-leaning areas in terms of productivity, income and education. But they have been rapidly diverging, with blue areas getting more productive, richer and better educated. . . .

[SWBTATTReg]

1. You kind of get what you put into a process, including governance, the whole 9 yards, etc.

People seek the best of shelter, food, air, health care, and the good paying jobs that provide all of these things.

Anyone without even a basic economics degree knows this. These areas tend to become more and more populated and attract more and more like-minded people, and before you know it, you have large areas of similarly minded people all shooting for a common goal. The current urban areas of the US are a good example of this. Most major urban areas of the US started initially with just one or two economic engines of growth, e.g., transportation in STLMO and Chicago, etc., and then later expanded into other areas of economic growth, manufacturing, services industry, etc.

This is what rural areas of the country need to able to do, in order to simulate growth within their regions, and get the same quality of life, that those well off (as described above) are. Expanding the number of economic activities within an area will attract more of a diversified population, which in turn attracts more and more of the same (a diversified population, all seeking better jobs, food, air, health care, etc.). A good example of this is credit card payments/processing done in North Dakota (quite a few credit card companies have opened operations in the state), which is good besides the agricultural industry which dominates the state's economy so much.

This is probably the most damaging aspect of the US economy, in that certain industries have been allowed to establish themselves within certain regions of the country, and thus pass legislation to lock themselves into perpetual governance (seems like it). Thus, this legislation actually instead of benefiting the community as a whole, holds back all kinds of economic development, costing everyone, while only benefiting only a very few. Sound familiar? Kind of like the 1%ers we have in place today?