California Poised to Overtake Germany as World’s No. 4 Economy

[mrnyc]

^ cali? tell that to texas.

i see ohio is solidly in the $800M gdp range this year. its a record, but you know inflation, so ok.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

^ cali? tell that to texas.

i see ohio is solidly in the $800M gdp range this year. its a record, but you know inflation, so ok.

I hope you mean 800B.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

^ cali? tell that to texas.

Definitely Texas. The 'we were a country once and we can do it again' folks never took Texas history because the Republic of Texas was a failed state and on the verge of economic collapse by the time it was annexed. Furthermore, Texas never wanted even independence in the first place. Texas does have large oil reserves and refining infrastructure though which could make them somewhat relevant.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by montréaliste

I hope you mean 800B.

bien sur

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by lio45

Interesting typo there!

(I know you meant “secede”, but it’s not automatically obvious …)

LOL...thank u, I was in a moving car and on another call while typing, it was a mess

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Yep, Texas seems more serious about the whole independence and secession than California is.

And it is just as stupid and misguided for all the same reasons that I, and almost everyone else here, has tried to explain to you…

… and it still went over your middle school thinking cap.

[wanderer34]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ i think with the growth and blue-shift of NoVa, Virginia has now left Jesusland.

CO and NM probably need to be carved out now as well.

With Youngkin at the helm in VA, it's already entered Jesusland! No surprise from the Capital of the Confederacy!

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

And it is just as stupid and misguided for all the same reasons that I, and almost everyone else here, has tried to explain to you…

… and it still went over your middle school thinking cap.

And you know exactly where you can stick your thinking cap.

I have stated several times that I don't support such a thing but the arguments you and others put forth are not strong enough to refute the fact that California has the resources to govern itself and that the only reason it would be difficult is because the US is incapable of letting go because of greed and spite.

Right?

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Racism was both the binding philosophy and the fatal flaw of the European colonial system.

? The world is eat-or-be-eaten. Europe's topography prevented the whole place from being united under one kingdom. The inability to unite the continent promoted a ton of economic competition which often turned violent. Colonies enabled the home countries to better enrich and defend themselves from their neighbors in Europe.

They were able to take control of many European colonies in Asia using that tactic.

Japan made the conscious decision to industrialize its economy and westernize significant aspects of its culture. Nobody forced them to do it - it was a recognition by Japanese leadership back in the 1860s that if they didn't modernize that they'd eventually be subjugated. The got a huge head-start over their neighbors and took advantage of the power vacuum. They of course messed up big-time by attacking the United States. If they had laid low they might still rule Korea, Taiwan, and other parts of their former empire.

[pj3000]

California is political lines on a map.

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Right, just like the entire planet. LOL.

Right and I'm not really reading anything convincing from you except doubt.

You seem to be pushing a delusional argument the federal government is some some centralized command center that bequeaths life to lowly states that wouldnt be able to tie their shoes without their unquestionable guidance. SORRY, that is BULLSHIT.It also sounds very Beijingesque. LOL.

No, not like the entire planet. Context of the conversation is important. We're talking about a state, not a sovereign nation. Talk of CA being the world's 4th or 5th or whatever largest national economy in comparison to actual nations is nonsense. Because it's not a national economy. It is a (rather arbitrary) political division of a nation on which it is co-dependent. You cannot separate the part from the whole in the real world and expect it to stand as if the situation exists in a vacuum.

Again, no. That's entirely opposite of the point! You obviously like to get stuck on the whole "states that pay more to the IRS than they receive back in federal funding" are autonomous... as if that economic flow is prime. The point is that it is not, i.e., that federal govt funding for a state's public services far from the most important. Quite ironic that you cite this as your "stand alone" argument, and then when someone calls it out as fallacy, you try to turn it around and bring in the whole "Beijingesque LOL" crap.

Better stick to your income level "studies" and quick, meaningless stats, Mr. Listicle.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by pj3000

California is political lines on a map.
No, not like the entire planet. Context of the conversation is important. We're talking about a state, not a sovereign nation. Talk of CA being the world's 4th or 5th or whatever largest national economy in comparison to actual nations is nonsense. Because it's not a national economy. It is a (rather arbitrary) political division of a nation on which it is co-dependent. You cannot separate the part from the whole in the real world and expect it to stand as if the situation exists in a vacuum.

Again, no. That's entirely opposite of the point! You obviously like to get stuck on the whole "states that pay more to the IRS than they receive back in federal funding" are autonomous... as if that economic flow is prime. The point is that it is not, i.e., that federal govt funding for a state's public services far from the most important. Quite ironic that you cite this as your "stand alone" argument, and then when someone calls it out as fallacy, you try to turn it around and bring in the whole "Beijingesque LOL" crap.

Better stick to your income level "studies" and quick, meaningless stats, Mr. Listicle.

You didnt really address what I said tho:

"You seem to be pushing a delusional argument the federal government is some some centralized command center that bequeaths life to lowly states that wouldnt be able to tie their shoes without their unquestionable guidance."

This^ is basically what youre saying, that no state would be capable of governing itself, apparently you are inferring that Americans outside of Washington DC are inferior human beings that must be ruled over and controlled by a centralized power.

I completely disagree, but to each his own.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Japan made the conscious decision to industrialize its economy and westernize significant aspects of its culture. Nobody forced them to do it - it was a recognition by Japanese leadership back in the 1860s that if they didn't modernize that they'd eventually be subjugated. The got a huge head-start over their neighbors and took advantage of the power vacuum. They of course messed up big-time by attacking the United States. If they had laid low they might still rule Korea, Taiwan, and other parts of their former empire.

The majority of the landmass of the Japanese empire at its height was made up of territories they picked off from European colonial powers. Bombing Pearl Harbor and the Philippines wasn't a mistake. It was the next logical step, as they were obviously attempting to consolidate power in the western Pacific.

[nito]

Originally Posted by muppet

Scotland leaving the UK would also leave it with all the North Sea oil and gas to split between only 5 million people, which it has been ferrying to the rest of the country for decades, and quite a bone of contention. Edinburgh is also the second largest tourist destination and finance centre after London (Glasgow third). Scotland can also rejoin the EU (the biggest selling point at the moment -it voted against Brexit), and set itself up, like Ireland as an alternative gateway to Europe (English speaking, so lingua franca to the world), now that London's largely lost that moniker. Ireland for example is increasingly taking that role, and is now the richest country in the world that's not a city state. Moreover Scotland with its own autonomy and laws very much resembles socialist Scandinavia in how progressive they are (eg free university, free drugs, civil rights, open arms to migrants etc), not to mention the culture, sparse population, similar landscape and Viking heritage, rather than the UK -even the accent is a Scandic one. Saying that England argues that independence means all the tax revenue from London that powers the rest of the country would be stopped. A border also means much less crossing of it -in business, in visitors, and varying exchange rates where Scotland becomes another small country with less spending power, if given its own currency rather than the always string, always stable £ (though recent events under Truss has of course pissed on that argument). Like a microcosm of what UK underwent in Brexit, leaving a larger whole may mean isolation and a loss in markets. What's the point of suddenly gaining back your resources, when you lose your buyers to sell it to? What's the point in gaining in GDP scores if it means the caving in of the middle and working classes? Oh and food. Scotland would have to import it. In short it can go either way, but independence means huge change will be in store for better or worse, in both short and long term, both economic and cultural.

Dissolution of the union by Scotland rehashes the same messaging used in Brexit (replace Brussels with Westminster/London); the key difference is that Scotland’s economy is far more integrated. It is also fine and well talking about free prescriptions and university education when they are paid indirectly by taxpayers south of the border who don’t receive such perks. On a side note, those national costume pictures are surely a joke; Coldstream Guard attire? The traditional Scottish kilt is a dress/robe; that image shows the modern variant which was created by an English industrialist.


California is a different situation; but it still has immense cultural, political and economic connections with the rest of the US that would have volatile outcomes for both parties in the event of a divergence. Even accounting for currency, does California truly project the image of being more wealthy/better off than Germany? It – like elsewhere in the US – is a place of extreme contrasts and doesn’t have much to demonstrate, with barely existing or dilapidated infrastructure and public services.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

You didnt really address what I said tho:

"You seem to be pushing a delusional argument the federal government is some some centralized command center that bequeaths life to lowly states that wouldnt be able to tie their shoes without their unquestionable guidance."

This^ is basically what youre saying, that no state would be capable of governing itself, apparently you are inferring that Americans outside of Washington DC are inferior human beings that must be ruled over and controlled by a centralized power.

I completely disagree, but to each his own.

No, it's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying the opposite -- that funding from the federal government is an economic flow of lesser significance in the whole scheme of things.

So, citing that California is a "donor state" as evidence of its ability to "stand alone", as you stated, is just not based in reality. California's economic position is directly derived from the fact that it is part of the US. Just like the Northeast corridor's is, just like Texas's is, etc. There is a collective economic dependence, ESPECIALLY for large, prosperous regions of our country. You cannot cut a large piece out of the economic pie and expect either that large piece or the remaining whole to be the same.

This is not about how much you get from Washington vs. how much you pay. You are the only one who has brought the IRS/federal funding, Beijing, Washington DC, centralized power/command center, inferior humans, ruled over, bequeathing life to lowly states, and all the other distraction stuff into it. All that is actually counter to my point.

The fact is, relationships between national economies are extremely difficult to disentangle, and intra-national economic relationships even more so. People naturally want to simplify complex economic relationships for simplistic rankings and agendas by acting as if state lines are impenetrable force fields isolating a state from any influence from the country of which it is a part, i.e., California being the world's 4th largest economy or its ability to become sovereign with relative ease. That's not how it works.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

And you know exactly where you can stick your thinking cap.

I have stated several times that I don't support such a thing but the arguments you and others put forth are not strong enough to refute the fact that California has the resources to govern itself and that the only reason it would be difficult is because the US is incapable of letting go because of greed and spite.

Right?

It has the resources to govern itself. Nobody is questioning that.

What the rest of us are saying, and that you clearly can’t comprehend, is that the size of California’s economy if it were its own nation would be smaller than the size of its economy as a state within this nation (the U.S.).

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

And you know exactly where you can stick your thinking cap.

I have stated several times that I don't support such a thing but the arguments you and others put forth are not strong enough to refute the fact that California has the resources to govern itself and that the only reason it would be difficult is because the US is incapable of letting go because of greed and spite.

Right?

It has the resources to govern itself. Nobody is questioning that.

What the rest of us are saying, and that you clearly can’t comprehend, is that the size of California’s economy if it were its own nation would be smaller than the size of its economy as a state within this nation (the U.S.).

I am not wasting my time here anymore arguing with people like you. Go to SkyscraperCity bro, you and other morons like you have ruined the high quality and intelligent discussions this forum was known for.

[Steely Dan]

personal insults are not tolerated at SSP.

if you can't disagree with someone without calling them a "moron" or other such language, then please go join a different web-forum.