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They have better outcomes actually. Higher economic growth, higher population growth, lower state debt, lower unemployment. Of course, exceptions apply but the

They have better outcomes actually. Higher economic growth, higher population growth, lower state debt, lower unemployment. Of course, exceptions apply but the overall data is pretty clear. https://www.richardhanania.com/p/forty-years-of-economic-freedom-winning https://www.richardhanania.com/p/forty-years-of-economic-fre...

ActorNightly 1y ago
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- tristor 1y ago
  > If you want proof, look at the state with the highest GDP. And your response is "left-wing" (we don't actually have a left wing in the US) propaganda. Raw GDP is irrelevant for 99.99% of people, because the gains are /very/ unevenly distributed. Reducing cost of living and cost of housing has a much bigger impact on the daily lives of people than increasing GDP, because most people don't benefit from increased GDP, in fact increased GDP is largely tied to increased cost, as it's determined by money flows. GDP is a very flawed metric that doesn't in any way reflect the quality of life of the people who live in the region the metric applies to. Some sort of PPP based metric is more reasonable and is a much more balanced look at life across different US states and is not nearly as rosy a picture for blue states, all of which are some of the most expensive places to live, in part due to political policies. For a high earning person (say a software engineer), California has a higher effective all-in tax rate on income than most European countries but delivers /far less/. The fact it has such a high GDP is because the headquarters of some of the world's largest companies are there and it's /expensive/ which means there's significant money flows in California. That doesn't prove that California's policies are superior to say Texas. It's an entirely flawed comparison that does nothing to account for actual quality of life. I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that someone earning a median tech income in California has a better quality of life than someone earning a median tech income in France, and yet California's effective tax rate is higher (combining state, local, and federal).
  - ActorNightly 1y ago
    Ill generally start off by saying that it should be pretty clear that when Republicans are given free reign of all 3 branches of Government, US goes down the shitter. So there isn't even a real argument you could ever make in support of anything Republican, other than saying that you don't mean "those" Republicans. And this argument will hold until the entire party uniformly denounces Trump, Musk and their cronies. But in the spirit of conversation, you are fully wrong. GDP is an indicator of economic activity. Its not irrelevant. It ties in things like jobs and COL (because you need people to actually be able to live normal lives to contribute to the economies). Likewise, higher taxation rates with high GDP also means that in general a lot of money is moving hands. If you look at population growth of Cali, the only time it dipped was during Covid, specifically because WFH. I.e you are still making California money, but now you don't have to pay taxes. And since then, its on its way up. This effect also applies in general. You can't claim that Texas economy is growing because Republicans, when the economic powerhouses of the 4 major cities all uniformly vote blue, and start hiring for companies that started in very left leaning areas on the west coast. There is a reason why silicon valley started in Cali and not any other Republican states - Cali left leaning environment attracted more educated people, and the concentration of those people is what allowed tech companies to flourish. If Musk started Tesla in Texas, and asked the state for subsidies and grants, he would have gotten laughed at and Tesla would not be a thing. The author conveniently ignores this, and Im not even going to mention the horrible statistical analysis of the plots. Here is a good article comparing economies of Texas and California. https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/tale-two-states-contrasting-economic-policy-california-and-texas https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/tale-tw... So no its not "leftist" propaganda - its reality. Whether or not you value that more than your ideological alignment, I don't know. Republicans generally don't have the critical thinking skills to parse reality from ideology - if they did they would be Democrats.
    - tristor 1y ago
      > So there isn't even a real argument you could ever make in support of anything Republican I didn't make any arguments in support of anything Republican. The fact I put "left-wing" in quotes and pointed out that there is no left wing in US politics should have been an indication that I'm not supporting Republicans. > But in the spirit of conversation, you are fully wrong. GDP is an indicator of economic activity. Yes, it's what I described, it's economic activity in the frame of movement of money, it says nothing about the quality of life of any individual or how that GDP is distributed, this is why PPP is a much more reasonable metric. I am very much correct in my statements, you are intentionally misunderstanding or you don't understand how PPP vs GDP differ when making comparisons between regions/economies. > You can't claim that Texas economy is growing because Republicans, I don't think the Texas economy is growing due to Republicans. The Texas economy is growing because it's cheap to live there at the same quality of life that it's expensive to live in other states, so people move to Texas because they can't afford to live in other states due to the growing wealth disparity in this country, something that GDP conveniently ignores but that PPP doesn't. > Republicans generally don't have the critical thinking skills to parse reality from ideology - if they did they would be Democrats. If people in the US had strong critical thinking skills we wouldn't be stuck with first past the post elections causing us a false dichotomy between two shitty right-wing parties that are both run for the benefit of wealthy elites, but sure, we'd all vote Democrat, whatever floats your boat, given you've displayed a really sore lack of critical thinking in your response. I'd nitpick the rest of your comment, but since you clearly didn't read and understand what I wrote, it's a wasted effort. You somehow bucketed me into the "Republican" bucket and replied to a strawman instead of acknowledging that GDP doesn't account for wealth disparity, which is why PPP (especially as a per capita metric) is superior for understand QoL differences vs GDP. Last I checked Republicans aren't lamenting the lack of a real left-wing party in the US and talking about the impact of wealth disparity, but go off I guess.

ActorNightly 1y ago

[flagged]

tristor 1y ago
> If you want proof, look at the state with the highest GDP. And your response is "left-wing" (we don't actually have a left wing in the US) propaganda. Raw GDP is irrelevant for 99.99% of people, because the gains are /very/ unevenly distributed. Reducing cost of living and cost of housing has a much bigger impact on the daily lives of people than increasing GDP, because most people don't benefit from increased GDP, in fact increased GDP is largely tied to increased cost, as it's determined by money flows. GDP is a very flawed metric that doesn't in any way reflect the quality of life of the people who live in the region the metric applies to. Some sort of PPP based metric is more reasonable and is a much more balanced look at life across different US states and is not nearly as rosy a picture for blue states, all of which are some of the most expensive places to live, in part due to political policies. For a high earning person (say a software engineer), California has a higher effective all-in tax rate on income than most European countries but delivers /far less/. The fact it has such a high GDP is because the headquarters of some of the world's largest companies are there and it's /expensive/ which means there's significant money flows in California. That doesn't prove that California's policies are superior to say Texas. It's an entirely flawed comparison that does nothing to account for actual quality of life. I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that someone earning a median tech income in California has a better quality of life than someone earning a median tech income in France, and yet California's effective tax rate is higher (combining state, local, and federal).
- ActorNightly 1y ago
  Ill generally start off by saying that it should be pretty clear that when Republicans are given free reign of all 3 branches of Government, US goes down the shitter. So there isn't even a real argument you could ever make in support of anything Republican, other than saying that you don't mean "those" Republicans. And this argument will hold until the entire party uniformly denounces Trump, Musk and their cronies. But in the spirit of conversation, you are fully wrong. GDP is an indicator of economic activity. Its not irrelevant. It ties in things like jobs and COL (because you need people to actually be able to live normal lives to contribute to the economies). Likewise, higher taxation rates with high GDP also means that in general a lot of money is moving hands. If you look at population growth of Cali, the only time it dipped was during Covid, specifically because WFH. I.e you are still making California money, but now you don't have to pay taxes. And since then, its on its way up. This effect also applies in general. You can't claim that Texas economy is growing because Republicans, when the economic powerhouses of the 4 major cities all uniformly vote blue, and start hiring for companies that started in very left leaning areas on the west coast. There is a reason why silicon valley started in Cali and not any other Republican states - Cali left leaning environment attracted more educated people, and the concentration of those people is what allowed tech companies to flourish. If Musk started Tesla in Texas, and asked the state for subsidies and grants, he would have gotten laughed at and Tesla would not be a thing. The author conveniently ignores this, and Im not even going to mention the horrible statistical analysis of the plots. Here is a good article comparing economies of Texas and California. https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/tale-two-states-contrasting-economic-policy-california-and-texas https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/tale-tw... So no its not "leftist" propaganda - its reality. Whether or not you value that more than your ideological alignment, I don't know. Republicans generally don't have the critical thinking skills to parse reality from ideology - if they did they would be Democrats.
  - tristor 1y ago
    > So there isn't even a real argument you could ever make in support of anything Republican I didn't make any arguments in support of anything Republican. The fact I put "left-wing" in quotes and pointed out that there is no left wing in US politics should have been an indication that I'm not supporting Republicans. > But in the spirit of conversation, you are fully wrong. GDP is an indicator of economic activity. Yes, it's what I described, it's economic activity in the frame of movement of money, it says nothing about the quality of life of any individual or how that GDP is distributed, this is why PPP is a much more reasonable metric. I am very much correct in my statements, you are intentionally misunderstanding or you don't understand how PPP vs GDP differ when making comparisons between regions/economies. > You can't claim that Texas economy is growing because Republicans, I don't think the Texas economy is growing due to Republicans. The Texas economy is growing because it's cheap to live there at the same quality of life that it's expensive to live in other states, so people move to Texas because they can't afford to live in other states due to the growing wealth disparity in this country, something that GDP conveniently ignores but that PPP doesn't. > Republicans generally don't have the critical thinking skills to parse reality from ideology - if they did they would be Democrats. If people in the US had strong critical thinking skills we wouldn't be stuck with first past the post elections causing us a false dichotomy between two shitty right-wing parties that are both run for the benefit of wealthy elites, but sure, we'd all vote Democrat, whatever floats your boat, given you've displayed a really sore lack of critical thinking in your response. I'd nitpick the rest of your comment, but since you clearly didn't read and understand what I wrote, it's a wasted effort. You somehow bucketed me into the "Republican" bucket and replied to a strawman instead of acknowledging that GDP doesn't account for wealth disparity, which is why PPP (especially as a per capita metric) is superior for understand QoL differences vs GDP. Last I checked Republicans aren't lamenting the lack of a real left-wing party in the US and talking about the impact of wealth disparity, but go off I guess.