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Since California is not a sovereign state, this whole line of reasoning seems disingenuous. It's really an arbitrary boundary when we have free interstate comm
by jp57 4y ago
Since California is not a sovereign state, this whole line of reasoning seems disingenuous. It's really an arbitrary boundary when we have free interstate commerce, and a highly interdependent economy. Where would California's economy be without the water they get from the other western states?
Here are some other arbitrary subsets of the USA that would be interesting viewed as separate economies.
- The original thirteen states.
- The Amtrak electrified rail corridor from DC to Boston
- The Mississippi watershed
- The great lakes watershed (include the relevant parts of Canada, why not?)
- modeless 4y agoNorthern California gets its water from within the state. Both for the cities and the agriculture.
- jeffbee 4y agoI can't think of any water system in California that imports significant amounts of water. I guess people are trying to count Colorado River water as imported? Perhaps they are unaware that river passes through California.
- njarboe 4y agoUnless you count the Colorado River itself as a water system. :) I would guess that almost none of the water that California gets from the Colorado falls in California. Coloradans sure feel that the down river states don't have the natural right to water that falls on their land.
- jeffbee 4y agoSure, the headwaters of this system are indisputably outside California. Still the Colorado aqueduct has a capacity of just 1.2MAF, which is less than 2% of the state water consumption. The idea that California depends largely on imported water makes little sense.
- frumper 4y agoMexico also has rights to some of that water. It is undeniably a sovereign state.
- bilbo0s 4y agoI think most people are largely unaware of the geography of the Colorado. There is a general lack of understanding of the fundamentals of the water crisis out west. Most don't have a clear picture even of how different states draw from the Colorado for instance. And how those different methods impact watersheds and downstream infrastructure. The lack of information actually exacerbates the entire problem out west, as people give undue concern to, say, Los Angeles. While, say, Scottsdale sits oblivious to the precarious nature of it's situation vis-a-vis water.
- jedberg 4y agoWhile you make a really good point, California contributes roughly the same as it takes from the Federal government. So if it were a sovereign state, it would be paying out basically the same thing to the rest of the US as it takes in from selling them things. In other words, in this particular case, it's a wash.
- heavenlyblue 4y agoWhat makes you think the prices would be the same?
- jedberg 4y agoI assume in the grand scheme of things that some prices would go up and some down on both the buy and sell side and ultimate work out in the end. For example the water could only get so expensive before desalinization becomes cost effective. Also all the things California grows and sells to the rest of the country would include the price of water.
- n8cpdx 4y agoDoesn’t most of that apply to Germany and the EU? I think that people forget that US States are States in a Union. The Federal Government is there to regulate commerce and provide for common defense, even if it gained some extra responsibilities post-New Deal. US states have their own laws, executive, market policies, constitutions, and all; they are not just departments of the federal government. So California<->Germany seems like the only fair comparison, just as it wouldn’t make sense to compare the United States to Germany, but the EU as a whole.
- cabirum 4y agoIs there a team for California in the Olympics?
- dragontamer 4y agoIs there a team for Russia in the Olympics? This sounds like a rather arbitrary measurement.
- lesuorac 4y ago> Is there a team for Russia in the Olympics? Wasn't there? Or were athletes called "Russian Olympic Committee" not the Russian team?
- dragontamer 4y agoThe Russian team was banned in 2018 and 2021 due to the doping scandals. ROC was an independent organization that didn't technically represent Russia.
- lesuorac 4y agoWho else would they represent? Ethnic Russians instead of National Russians? Pretending that Russia actually faced punishment for doping is asine. Russia the country had total control over what athletes were sent by ROC as well as said athletes still had to be Russians and they wore the national colors of Russia and the athletes often (always?) sang the Russian anthem for their medal (regardless of w/e music was actually being played)
- kjkjadksj 4y agoYou could argue the same for countries in eu
- sva_ 4y agoThe EU is not a sovereign state.
- GuB-42 4y agoDoubly so because in their ranking, the US is #1. Either count US states as independent entities or don't, but not both.