Thursday, March 31, 2011

"Mass Migration of America's Golden Geese"


That's the title of an article by Thomas Sowell in Investors Business Daily. He opines:

The latest published data from the 2010 census show how people are moving from place to place within the United States.

In general, people are voting with their feet against places where the liberal, welfare-state policies favored by the intelligentsia are most deeply entrenched.

When you break it down by race and ethnicity, it is all too painfully clear what is happening. Both whites and blacks are leaving California, the poster state for the liberal, welfare-state and nanny-state philosophy.

Whites are also fleeing the big Northeastern liberal, welfare states like Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as the same kinds of states in the Midwest, such as Michigan, Ohio and Illinois.

Although California has long been a prime destination of Asian immigrants and the homes of their descendants, the 2010 census shows a striking increase in the Asian American population of Nevada, more so than any other state. Nevada is adjacent to California but has no income tax or the hostile climate for business that California maintains.

The movement of the black population - especially educated young blacks - is the most striking of all.

. . .

In short ... those with better prospects are leaving the states that are repelling their most productive citizens in general with liberal policies.

. . .

Treating businesses and affluent people as prey, rather than assets, often pays off politically in the short run - and elections are held in the short run. Killing the goose that lays the golden egg is a viable political strategy.

As whites were the first to start leaving Detroit, then-mayor Coleman Young saw this only as an exodus of people who were likely to vote against him, enhancing his re-election prospects. But what was good for Mayor Young was disastrous for Detroit.

There is a lesson here somewhere, but it is very doubtful if either the intelligentsia or the politicians will learn it.


There's more at the link. He makes a telling case.

The more I read Thomas Sowell, the more I regard him as one of the most clear-headed thinkers of our generation. I note that the late, great Jeff Cooper believed him to be "the most perceptive of current commentators". I wouldn't put Mr. Sowell on that pedestal alone, but he's certainly right up there.

Peter

4 comments:

Old NFO said...

Great point, and he didn't even get into all the ones leaving the US period...

Nebris said...

Funny how guys like this fail to mention how CA had a $2 billion budget surplus up until Enron and Duke started rigging power outages back in Dec 2000. Then the drove the price up and there went the surplus.

Then Darell Issa funded a recall based upon Gray Davis 'failed economic policy'. Laugh was on him though. Ah-Nuld stole his thunder. I still sneer when I remember Issa weeping like a schoolgirl about that.

Meantime, Corporations play a shell game with the commercial provisions of Prop 13, which itself is a disaster. I pay $500 a year in property taxes on a $57,000 mobile home in the boondocks because it was bought in 2006. My parents pay $1700 a year on a $3 million house in Beverly hills because they bought it in 1973.

Oh, yeah our housing market crashed through the floor, just like everywhere else. Maybe that's why some many folks are leaving 'the welfare states'. The Banking Sector screwed them right cross the state line.

And the folks in the Red States are just too damn poor to move.

Chris said...

I very strongly recommend reading Sowell's book "A Vision of the Anointed". It is a devastating analysis of why the leftists believe the things they do. Then read "A Conflict of Visions", which explores the differences between what Sowell describes as the constrained and unconstrained visions of mankind, and their implications for social and political interactions.

Nebris said...

RE: Sowell. The very instant you compare Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler your intellectual credibility goes out the window. Period. It reveals one to be either an idiot or an ideological lackey.

Here's the deal. Both parties are in thrall to Corporate Money. Given how insanely expensive elections have become, such is inevitable.

The Dems pander to their base; Candidate Obama was a Raging Socialist. But in office he's a Corporatist mouse, more Neville Chamberlain than anything else, totally punking out on almost every single one of his campaign promises.

Even the Health Care bill was a 'bait an' switch'. No Single Payer as faithfully promised. Just 30 million new 'mandated customers' for the private insurance industry. That's what the Tea Party was really about, an AstroTurf hammer to provide political cover to kill Single Payer.

The Repubs pander to their base; “Small Gov! Small Gov!” and “The Others [gays, Liberals, atheists, brown people, George Tiller, etc] are coming to get you!” And then they run up massive deficits, established the largest Federal agency since 1947 [Homeland Security] and give away a couple trillion bucks to Wall Street while creating a permanent tax holiday for the rich.

And all us pro-gun types should remember that under the Bush White House, one of the first things the National Guard and police did in NOLA right after Katrina was go house to house disarming law abiding citizens in their own homes.

Meanwhile The Republic steadily transforms into a Third World country: http://nebris.livejournal.com/6094038.html