Courtesy of Larry Lambert at Virtual Mirage, we find this graphic illustration of the Gross Domestic Product of the USA, divided 50/50.
Click over to Larry's place for a larger version, if you wish.
That's a pretty sobering image, isn't it? Couple it with a visual representation of which areas vote for which political parties, and it becomes even more sobering. We're growing less united as a nation, not more.
Peter
25 comments:
What this fails to illustrate is how dependent the orange areas are on the blue areas for their existence, livability, and defense.
It would be interesting to see how the GDP distribution changes when you look at specific sectors. If you look at manufacturing most of the Baltimore-NYC corridor would probably be blue as an example.
Those just look like the largest population centers in the US
The orange spots are our largest cities. What in the world do these cities produce that could make up 50% of our GDP? Paperwork? Bank derivatives? Fiat currency? It verily boggles ye mind.
Barky did a great job disuniting this country
Honestly... no. It does not instigate any thoughts at all. It's not attributed that I can see. Who's version of GDP? Where did the data come from? How was it calculated and what factors were included, and excluded? Is this anything like inflation numbers where the math is massaged constantly to benefit someone who is NOT me?
I find I'm being lied to daily. If I'm reading news, I'm being lied to almost constantly. At this point, it's only prudent for me to assume everything I read is some form of lie till proven differently.
Pretty much everything high-tech, most factories, most defense production, most retail, most hospitality.... The urban areas are dependent on rural areas for food and raw materials, but I don't see anything surprising about that map.
All the orange where it is bothered me. Then I stopped to think what else was on those orange spots besides democratic controlled cities.
The orange areas have Banks. They have the big banks and the sort of companies that controls money, what that money does is measured as the GDP.
Aside from some tech companies I'd like to SEE what this GDP is really?
Spending debt created Gov.com money for studies of lesbian rodents in NYC isn't business (or other such crap), it's theft from us and our children as the piper always gets paid.
Try getting lumber, food. Gas and oil from the those orange areas. Itr a lot more complicated than a simple map would have you believe.
Maybe the DC area isn't real GDP. Extorting $$ from real wealth producers is not building an economy. Similar to have a tapeworm
what percentage of this "GDP" is government entities moving money from one pocket to another while producing little (and frequently slowing down non-government work)
Looks very doubtful to me as to the stats that prompted this graphic. I would not draw any conclusion about, well, anything from this.
I'm sure that by some measure this map is accurate - whether that is a good measure is a different question.
I would argue that local costs need to be taken into account. Many of these places have high housing costs, taxes, etc that push up salaries there so going just by numbers they look more valuable than they are.
As far as the comment above about manufacturing, more and more is moving from cities to suburban areas or smaller cities. With a few exceptions, these cities are shrinking for good reasons.
Jonathan
Often the location of a unit of GDP is where the headquarters of a company is, even if the activity is elsewhere. Likewise, ports are often listed as the location of economic activity rather than a mere transshipment point. Thus, the Port of Long Beach and Honda HQ a few miles away would appear on this map in a way much more impressive than it should.
BTW, the San Pedro/Long Beach port is the 3rd largest port in the world, and the largest destination port (as opposed to transshipment). They often appear ranked lower when they are separated by the imaginary line between them.
I agree with the second Anon comment. In 2021 Govt spending was 44% of GDP. Almost half our spending is via government????? This is why GDP has been going up and has been the metric of choice on how good our economy is doing. I.e., it has been manipulated!
Manufactured goods is only 10% The output of American farms was 0.8% of GDP. Entertainment 4.5% and healthcare is 20% (There is overlap on the healthcare and govt spending.) The remainder is nontangible. This is admittedly a simple look, but complexity hides many things. As an approximation, half our GDP is spent on government and healthcare. In other words, every other activity we do does nothing but support government and healthcare. We as a society are the least healthy we have ever been.
I live a rural, blue area. We have farms. The local town has a factory that makes socks, a facility that repairs power plant equipment, one that makes breakers, one that makes water tanks, one that manufactures paint dyes, Feed mills, etc.
The map indicates a significant level of disconnect as others are pointing out. This is even made worse when you consider how much stuff we are importing. All points to ponder.
It's government spending folks - that's where the "sinks" are.
absolutely correct.
Pretty picture that meets the Confirmation Bias, but with no explanation it is just a pretty picture
That tells me just how bogus our current official measure of GDP is, because it's heavily weight toward financialization of stupid ways. Wall St and DC borrowing $2T and spending it would increase our GDP by that much. As Hamsterman said, too, the GDP is accounted for at the headquarters, and a great deal of our agri-biz and mining and all the basic essential producers will be scattered all over the land but will headquartered in a major metro area. Soooo... yeah, very distorted impression of reality from that map.
-Rolf
Good points.
I doubt the math holds up, that looks like where the companies HQ resides IE where the money is managed, not where it is made. The blue region holds all of the natural resources that underpin the capital, the locations of the manufacturing plants, NYC does not make anything but trash and trades, so the money is managed but not "made" there.
Consider also that in the orange blights there are large numbers of rethuglicans and indies who cannot abide the thugs or rats. California was still electing rethuglican governors back when we lived there. It's just that we are slightly overwhelmed by the forces of darkness. It's largely those people who are the industrious ones although most of the money sticks to the lawyers and public servants.
Neither this blog nor the link says anything about how this data is compiled. Is it from taxes? Because that would naturally concentrate the apparent income in places with wealthy individuals and companies, even if their wealth comes from properties or even factories in the blue areas. The absence of manufacturing centers in Ohio, upstate NY, Connecticut, Louisiana, Indiana, and Colorado tends to support this.
Orange takes the products of blue then adds their value. then pat themselves on their back in congratulations for doing the hard work. half would parish if the other quit playing the game.
Talking about the GDP right? It's manipulated like all the govt statistics are, unemployment numbers, inflation....
Throwing the B.S. flag, hard.
20 yard penalty, and loss of possession.
But if someone wants to tell me how oil & gas production, food crops, ranching, mineral mining, timber production, and rail and river transportation, which is probably a wee bit more than 50% of GDP, is focused in 21 tiny orange blobs, feel free to explain it below. Show all work. (And the location of anyone's corporate HQs therein counts for bupkus).
[Hint: It's not. So that graphic is nothing but the southbound product of a northbound cow. It's mainly a graphic showing where all the digital 1s and 0s reside. You can't eat them, burn them for power, or build a house out of them. Anyone who ignores that is an ignoramus, and trying to Lie With Statistics. Put me in a world without bankers, and put yourself in a world without farms, and see which one of us lives longer. QED.]
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