The Cannibal South - An inferiority complex-ridden region depends on eating its own.

[GoneOffShore]

From How Things Work
by Hamilton Nolan

The Cannibal South - An inferiority complex-ridden region depends on eating its own.

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-cannibal-south

“New York and California Each Lost $1 Trillion When Financial Firms Moved South” a Bloomberg headline blared this week. The headline itself was journalistic malpractice—in fact, the $1 trillion it referred to was the combined amount of assets managed by all of the financial firms who moved, a number designed to look big in a news story but that tells you little about the actual economic impact of these firms leaving. Now we are sure to get politicians waving that headline around clamoring for tax cuts, and frantic residents assuming that New York, a state with a $229 billion annual budget, has fallen $771 billion in the hole thanks to the decline in bottle service revenue from Wall Street analysts who relocated to Miami.

Still, the underlying trend is real. Since the Covid pandemic struck in 2020, more than two million people have migrated to the six fastest growing states in the South, bringing with them $100 billion in new income. This population shift is held up by Southern governors as proof of the success of their policies—and as a herald of an ongoing shift in the balance of economic power that is bound to continue due to the South’s inherent advantages. What spurred this grand relocation? Traditional wisdom will tell you that it was the more relaxed and open posture of Southern states like Florida during the Covid pandemic, along with the perpetual allures of warmer weather, lower taxes, and more affordable housing prices.

In reality, though, this current sloshing of America towards its drain is not the start of anything new at all. It is spurred not by any new economic paradigm, nor by any Texan or Floridian governor’s new ideas about unleashing the power of free enterprise under the nation’s sunniest skies. It is, instead, a normal reaction to a temporary rise in the appeal of something that the South has been offering for more than 200 years. Politicians will tell you that the South is attractive because it offers greater freedom. Actually, it offers cannibalism: it is willing to kill and eat its own to fuel a marginal improvement in your lifestyle. Don’t let this deal pass you by!

[Ocelot II]

1. Great essay!

[FakeNoose]

2. When the factories migrated southward in the 1950's, it was to avoid labor unions and taxes

Now the South has a lot of the same problems that used to be tied to the northern states. Plus the cost of living ratio has nearly balanced out in many places.

Even without the politics, I can't imagine what the attraction is anymore. The southern states have so little appeal to me, culturally or otherwise. Sorry if that offends some people, but we all have our 'druthers.

[Ocelot II]

3. Aside from anything else, the weather is enough to keep me away.

[Aristus]

4. I'm not a reflexively outraged Southerner.

Born and raised in Texas to an all-Southern family, I moved to the Pacific Northwest in my teens, and have lived here happily ever since. I visited Texas again in 1994, when my liberal politics were starting to gel, and then again once more in 2007. After which, I said "Nope. Never coming back here!"

What are the attractions?

Warmer weather = Paralyzing heat and humidity, every kind of ugly nasty flying insect under the sun, and cockroaches large enough to saddle and ride, if one was so inclined.

Friendly people = Only if you're white and they don't know you're liberal.

Job opportunities = Evidently not the kinds of jobs that make for broad-based, statewide prosperity, as nine of the ten wealthiest states in the nation are Blue.

[Simeon Salus]

5. An energy insecure region unsustainable without air conditioning

with record heat this year. My grandfather grew wheat and peanuts on land that wouldn't support it 50 years later. The aquifers are getting low.

[niyad]

6. If these states are so wonderful economically, WHY are the blue states

still needing to support them?

[scarletlib]

7. The economic benefits only accrue to the upper crust.

Southern governments don’t give a damn about any other residents. They sell low taxes, cheap labor on the backs of the poor. Money from the Blue Stares helps provide most of the minimal benefits for the poor. It goes on and on.