11 ms·
The biggest danger to the flyover states is the states themselves. While investment in education remains high, the future doesn't look great. Top tier state res
by jorblumesea 9y ago
The biggest danger to the flyover states is the states themselves. While investment in education remains high, the future doesn't look great. Top tier state research universities are seeing their budgets slashed and faculty poached by the ivys. Declining tax base, reduced federal funding and sadly an anti intellectual voter base will destroy the advancement opportunity of the middle class and hurt American R&D. The coasts meanwhile continue to pour money into investment and state schools.
Excellent article on the issue: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/midwestern-public-research-universities-funding/542889/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/midwest...
- jstewartmobile 9y agoExcellent article from the same coastal thought-bubble that predicted Clinton's 99% chance of victory. Simpler explanation would be that specialties with the luxury of centralizing (ex: investment banking, tech, advertising, certain types of law, etc.) typically do--for all of the obvious reasons. edit: And I did not write this as a celebration of her loss or political flamebait. I wrote it to point out that there is a gaping blind spot in the coastal worldview, which has already had severe real-life consequences.
- make3 9y agoI mean, without addressing your empty ad hominem, are you seriously saying the fact that schools suck has nothing to do with service/intellectual jobs moving elsewhere?
- jstewartmobile 9y agoAd hominem is after the person, not the thought bubble. Most of the big places are going after IQ more than anything else. Know plenty of local students and interns who went on to take lucrative jobs at big companies with either a state diploma, or no college at all. I don't believe it is coincidental that so many of the founders in this space are college drop-outs.
- guelo 9y agoDestroy government, cut-off all public investment, destroy all institutions, ban immigrant PhDs, all academic knowledge is fake news anyway, as long as you're pissing off liberals you're doing something right, Make America Great Again by reversing everything that America has done since WW2.
- jstewartmobile 9y agoWhere did I say or endorse any of those things? Just because I think the Atlantic article was nearsighted doesn't equal Trump voter.
- sctb 9y agoCould you please stop trolling here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- QML 9y agoIs centralization of resources really needed for a thriving economy though? Germany begs to differ [1]. [1] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/secrets-german-economy-steal/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/secrets-german-economy-steal...
- jstewartmobile 9y agoWith the wild-west capitalism we worship and embrace, entropy propels us toward increasing centralization. Gates and Thiel called it clearly, a very long time ago, that most of these markets are natural monopolies (under our system). Not happy about it, and perhaps if we exercised a little sanity like the Europeans, we could reverse the trend. I'm not holding my breath.
- QML 9y ago1. It's more of a coastal thing it seems than a trend of the West (I say that jokingly). 2. Is it capitalism that leads to centralization, or the lack of it? I suppose it's how you define the term -- is it a passive accumulation of capital (like money that just sits in a bank), or is it the active use of money to attempt innovation and generate more wealth? In the latter case, I'd hope to imagine a cycle of continuous disruption and redistribution of capital that prevents centralization. 3. Are monopolies inherently bad? Or is it simply the lack of interoperability (i.e. lack of choices / cost of switching is too high for a consumer)? 4. Reverse the trend. What do you suggest then -- a break-up of tech monopolies? Or maybe forget all about the coasts, and try to emulate the German economy in the Midwest?
- jstewartmobile 9y ago#2) I'd say it's the combo: the interaction of unregulated capitalism and specific types of business that can centralize, or "scale", nicely. Most of the trades are doing quite nicely right now because geography, licensing, and the bespoke nature of their work have somewhat protected them from the tech onslaught. Taxi drivers, not so much. Of course, more/less regulation would raise/lower the bar for what would be scalable. #3) Unregulated monopolies, certainly bad, not as much from a consumer perspective as from one of raw power. I don't really care if I don't have the latest shiniest gadget for the best price. I do care that Bill Gates probably has more say on how my kids are educated than I do. Regulated monopolies are another story. Like the power company, they're subject to far more rules and due process than the tech giants. Google can shut down a paying customer with impunity. Power company has to honor a process even for customers that are late on their bill. I like that aspect, but then there's the regulatory capture, so... Even under Obama, who is supposed to be the "liberal" guy, we had the "Holder Doctrine" of let's not enforce the law too hard if it costs US megacorps any money. This will probably have to get worse before it gets better. #4) I have no silver bullets. I was just disappointed that the top comment dismissed an entire region as a victim of its own foolishness, making little mention of all the other externalities, of which there are many. Thanks for hearing me out. Do you have any silver bullets?
- heartbreak 9y ago> Excellent article from the same coastal thought-bubble that predicted Clinton's 99% chance of victory. Not wrong though, eh?
- huherto 9y ago538 predicted Trump chances of winning with 30%, which is a huge number. Clearly we are living in one of those timelines. I think people failed to interpret what that 30% meant. Edit: I am reading the rest of your comments which are very insightful.
- jstewartmobile 9y agoThanks huherto! I made bets on the outcome, but did not collect figuring that it would be ill-gotten gain and bad karma. If our city people had to hang out with their in-laws in Appalachia for a month every year, they would have seen it just as clearly.
- adventured 9y agoThat's a pretty complex financial problem that you're over simplifying. The flyover states can't very easily invest more, they don't have the growth to do it. The coastal areas do largely have the growth to invest (in some cases a lot of growth), which makes it dramatically easier to do so. They have the flowing tax base expansion, the labor expansion. It's the difference between being Facebook with 45% net income profit margins, and being a manufacturer in Ohio with 4% net income margins. If you're Facebook, you're drowning in opportunity and cash. Growth does that for you, in many cases it begets further easy growth. The manufacturer's scenario is rock and a hard place stagnation, and if they slip up even a bit, it's bankruptcy. In 77 years, Arkansas has added one million people. They might add 20k to 30k per year in a good year. West Virginia hasn't grown its population 84 years. Mississippi has added one million people in a hundred years. Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania have barely grown their populations in half a century. Some of this is down to their mistakes, some of it is shit luck of getting slammed by very large macro economic forces, huge technology changes (whereas earlier technology changes had blessed those locations). These states are perpetually trapped in a scenario where they can't afford to make the moves to attract sustained growth, and they can't grow because they can't afford to make those expensive moves. It's stagnation hell. The only likely way out, is a major technology inflection point, and being sure to catch the wave.
- ameister14 9y agoPercentage-wise, the population of Ohio has grown more than New York since 1960. edit: Another way to put it is that Mississippi has doubled in population in 100 years - roughly 1.5 million to 3 million
- muninn_ 9y agoSo I live in Ohio and wanted to comment on this. You're right that the population hasn't really been growing. What I'm interested in is why it's necessary? Overall unemployment is low, the state is slightly growing each year, and new businesses are continuing to spring up, although not on the scale of Facebook. Why do we need to be California? Growth comes with it's own problems. I feel like in this country there is this need to grow grow grow at all costs, but we also mismanage that growth (look at the California housing issues). Why do we need more people? I'd say we want fewer people and those people concentrated in cities. Let the rest of the state be used for growing crops or for nature reclamation. So what exactly is this "stagnation hell"? I live in Ohio. I mean, I miss the mountains/ocean but besides that things seem alright to me compared to everywhere else I've lived. Anyway, just my 2c.
- freetime2 9y agoEven if this were true at a macro level, I've got to imagine there are plenty of investing opportunities at the micro level. Smart people with the right skills who for various reasons don't want to live in SF, NY, etc. And because their expenses are lower, they are happy to work for a lower salary than their peers in those cities. And who knows - maybe if top talent can be enticed back to these places then the trends you describe above might start to reverse.
- thanatropism 9y agoI've heard NYC smells bad. (Seriously. Not everyone wants to do the big city thing.)
- HalcyonicStorm 9y agoIts part of the charm /s. Yes, the streets smell of garbage in the summer.
- jsjohnst 9y agoTry smelling Market street in San Francisco. ;)
- bjornlouser 9y agoIt smells like dog shit mixed with parmesan cheese... 42nd Street
- meebs 9y agoAt least in the fall/winter it smells fine. San Francisco on the other hand smells bad. I am from a "big city" not in the US, though, so maybe my idea of smelling fine is different. :)
- murph-almighty 9y agoLive in NJ!
- jstewartmobile 9y agoWhite Man's Burden, 2017 Edition: Go forth unto these poor benighted rednecks, and preach to them, that they may accept the Lord our Higher Ed, and save themselves from the certain damnation of their own iniquities.
- sctb 9y agoWould you please stop violating the guidelines, like we've asked? We ban accounts that won't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jstewartmobile 9y agoI am sorry for the mockery, and I appreciate the rules. They are good ones. Though I'm sure you see that when someone takes a dig at your home, it is very easy to forget them.
- rayiner 9y agoAnti-intellectual is an odd criticism to level at the Midwest. The Midwest has some of the highest performing (by NAEP math scores) education systems in the country (Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas). Some of the strongest growing states, like California, have among the worst. The article doesn’t support your statement either. It’s basically a comparison of funding at Midwestern public schools versus expensive coastal private schools. E.g. they compare the endowments of midwestern publics to Harvard, etc., while leaving out U Chicago and Northwestern. Your last point is also wrong. Out of the handful of 5 states that spent more on universities in 2017 than 2008, 3 are in the Midwest. Most states cut funding, with no noticible pattern of the Midwest cutting more than the costs. MN cut about the same as MA and CT, IA and MO cut about the same as NJ.
- lotsofpulp 9y agoThe anti-intellectual image is due to the voters of those states. They consistently vote against personal freedoms due to their religiousness, vote against spending money for fellow citizen’s healthcare and education and infrastructure, but are for spending on military, subsidizing stadiums for sports, and tax cuts for corporations. All while claiming they’re fiscally conservative, but actually adding to the deficit. They are anti net neutrality, anti efforts to combat climate change, and anti marijuana, but pro spending on police and pro asset forfeiture. Also, their legislators have had problems with teaching evolution and/or have wanted to introduce religion into public schools. It's really an urban vs rural/suburban divide though, but enough to paint basically the states that vote Republican as backwards, because almost every time there a political issue coming up, they seem to be on the opposite side of where most young professionals, especially in science related fields are.
- 1787 9y agoYou've shown that many midwesterners are anti-progressive, but that is not the same thing as anti-intellectual. Furthermore, the optics of where they stand relative to young professionals in the sciences are just that - optics that don't necessarily reflect anything. Consider student movements in the past that haven't gone anywhere or were really misguided in hindsight (there are enough).
- junkscience2017 9y agozero surprise that the Atlantic staff would free up time to do a hit piece on the Midwest. It's not like anyone had previously thought that UW Madison would match Yale in the endowment Dept. Atlantic loves doing cultural victory laps over the Midwest to assauge their other more obvious setbacks
- rpedela 9y agoDid you know that one of the best places in the US for biotech is Indiana? That is because both Purdue and Indiana University, state schools, are powerhouses in that field. I don't see any significant funding issues for them from a research/education perspective. More funding does not necessarily mean better outcomes nor does less funding necessarily mean worse outcomes. How the funding is spent matters much more. In my experience at Purdue, much of that funding goes toward research and education in the science and engineering departments.
- gonational 9y agoThe notion of “flyover states” as an intrinsically pejorative term is a desperate attempt by those, who have already given up their natural lives for the collective allure of cities, to drag those with more (land, peace, free time, wisdom, etc.) along with them, to satisfy the appetite of their ever-growing shadows.
- dboreham 9y agoNo...that's "filler states".
- PatientTrades 9y ago> anti intellectual voter base will destroy the advancement opportunity of the middle class Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, etc. Most of the failing inner cities with bad schools and high crime rates have been run by democrats for decades. If anything, it is the far left that should realize that their policies to do not work long term.
- ashark 9y ago> Most of the failing inner cities with bad schools and high crime rates have been run by democrats for decades. So have the successful, thriving cities.
- supplied_demand 9y agoDid you notice how all of your examples happen to be Rust Belt cities? Also note that you didn't mention San Francisco, Seattle, New York or Los Angeles which have all been run by Democrats for decades. Is it possible that the economics have more of an impact than the politics? Meanwhile, according to this analysis, 3 of the 6 best public high schools in the country are Chicago Public Schools. https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-public-high-schools/ https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-public-high-schools/
- sedtrader 9y ago> didn't mention San Francisco, Seattle, New York or Los Angeles which have all been run by Democrats for decades. Are you really citing SF, New York, and Los Angeles as success stories. Those areas have some of the highest rates of homelessness in the US. In addition to the run away costs of living in those cities, they are certainly not models for success. Those examples don't help your argument...
- beager 9y agoPlenty of CA and plenty of NY is not "coastal". IMO VC is leaving a ton on the table by not leveraging the excellent state universities and low cost of living relative to SF/NY