Life in these Untidy States: Silver Linings!

[athelind]

This was originally tacked on as a footnote to my last post, but I think it needs to stand on its own.

For the record, the "Divided States of America" is only a "worst-case scenario" if the Balkanization is violent. That's not unlikely, because we're all pretty pissed at each other right now, and we do like our guns

Comments

[thoughtsdriftby]

Jobs and money have been funneled out of California for some years. Federal highway taxes were taken unless California reduced it's maximum highway speed to 55mph. When they did the funds remained diverted, so it was moved back to 70.

Preferentially the majority of large base closures occurred in California: 93,546 DoD jobs were cut in California and 80,373 cut in the remainder of the US (Brack rounds 1-4 1988-1995). New defense contracts would be awarded only if companies would locate plants outside of California (usually to some senor finance committee member's home state).

A proposed super collider (almost triple the energy of the Large Hadron Collider) the PEP ring was about finished (later upgraded to PEP- II) 2.2km and the new one would be 87.1km. Spiff, everyone at SLAC was very excited, only they wouldn't let it be built in California and SLAC would not be involved. Basically all the digging, concrete, and steel that Texas could do was mostly completed and then the program was canceled. Net was a huge amount of funds diverted to Texas and no science.

California is down to the 8th largest world economy now, but still the world's 5th largest producer of food.