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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 sh

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
  >I didn't make any arguments in support of anything Republican. The article you linked is written by a prominent Republican blogger. You have to be pretty right wing to think its a good piece. >GDP is distributed, this is why PPP is a much more reasonable metric. Your original claim was that Republican run states "have Higher economic growth" among other things, which is just not true, because economic growth by definition implies more money being traded, which is GDP. Now that you realize you are wrong, you start running to derivative metrics like PPP, without doing the due diligence of proving how PPP is actually economic growth. You also mentioned higher population growth, which is a false narrative (see below), lower state debt, which you have to go in depth to prove how thats actually good, and lower unemployment, which is not only not generally true, but again, you have to prove that unemployment is bad (as opposed to having people between jobs relying on social safety nets due to higher GDP, which creates favorable conditions for economy as history shows) > 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 If you are actually going to respond, please take the time to a) read what I wrote previously, and b) think what you are typing. The population of Cali is currently growing. It can't grow without all sectors down to the lower income service workers also willing to stay in Cali. The people that move are a) firstly in a financial position to move, which requires funds, and b) moving to optimize salary vs cost of living. But they are also not moving to deep red areas. >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 Funny you mention strong thinking skills, but equivocating what Trump is doing now to anything the Democrats ever did in the past decade is quite funny. Mentally this is pretty much the Republican cope, you can never admit that your side is horrible, you basically have to say "Democrats are just as bad" and point to some obscure things and make up fantastical projections to try to match what Republicans are doing. >You clearly didn't read and understand what I wrote You don't understand it either. You first posted an article that has horrible stats, then you use PPP to prove your point because GDP doesn't fit the narrative. I doubt you understand what PPP is. Because if you did, you realize that PPP is a very derivative measure, and its used to compare economies across countries, not states that often have very intertwined economies with lots of market forces (i.e same companies in every state controlling prices nation wide). >You somehow bucketed me into the "Republican" bucket You are not fooling anyone anymore. Centrist or libertarian = republican.

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
>I didn't make any arguments in support of anything Republican. The article you linked is written by a prominent Republican blogger. You have to be pretty right wing to think its a good piece. >GDP is distributed, this is why PPP is a much more reasonable metric. Your original claim was that Republican run states "have Higher economic growth" among other things, which is just not true, because economic growth by definition implies more money being traded, which is GDP. Now that you realize you are wrong, you start running to derivative metrics like PPP, without doing the due diligence of proving how PPP is actually economic growth. You also mentioned higher population growth, which is a false narrative (see below), lower state debt, which you have to go in depth to prove how thats actually good, and lower unemployment, which is not only not generally true, but again, you have to prove that unemployment is bad (as opposed to having people between jobs relying on social safety nets due to higher GDP, which creates favorable conditions for economy as history shows) > 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 If you are actually going to respond, please take the time to a) read what I wrote previously, and b) think what you are typing. The population of Cali is currently growing. It can't grow without all sectors down to the lower income service workers also willing to stay in Cali. The people that move are a) firstly in a financial position to move, which requires funds, and b) moving to optimize salary vs cost of living. But they are also not moving to deep red areas. >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 Funny you mention strong thinking skills, but equivocating what Trump is doing now to anything the Democrats ever did in the past decade is quite funny. Mentally this is pretty much the Republican cope, you can never admit that your side is horrible, you basically have to say "Democrats are just as bad" and point to some obscure things and make up fantastical projections to try to match what Republicans are doing. >You clearly didn't read and understand what I wrote You don't understand it either. You first posted an article that has horrible stats, then you use PPP to prove your point because GDP doesn't fit the narrative. I doubt you understand what PPP is. Because if you did, you realize that PPP is a very derivative measure, and its used to compare economies across countries, not states that often have very intertwined economies with lots of market forces (i.e same companies in every state controlling prices nation wide). >You somehow bucketed me into the "Republican" bucket You are not fooling anyone anymore. Centrist or libertarian = republican.