[quote]tedro wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]tedro wrote:
DB,
Would you support a peaceful secession by the south & midwest? Would you support us if we wanted to (as varq already suggested) scrap the USC and start back with just the constitution, excluding the Bill of Rights and other ammendments? (I do agree with you on that point)[/quote]
I’m down with a peaceful secession of the South. Unfortunately for the South, all y’all would be begging to come back into the Union in no time at all. The southern states that originally seceded are for the most part the largest recipients of federal gov’t welfare in the country. The fact is that half of the southern states that would be first in line to secede are entirely dependent on federal money in order to remain solvent. Where is that massive source of southern income going to come from without the federal gov’t there to hand it out? Texas can’t support everyone. Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas and Mississippi would be completely fucked.[/quote]
You left out the midwest. Most Kansans, Missourians, and Nebraskans would gladly follow Oklahoma and Texas. I’m pretty sure the bulk of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming would as well. I’d even give a good half of Iowa the benefit of the doubt. The Dakotas very well may be best off on their own, but I’d claim them too.
You can build a bank anywhere, but good luck getting sugar, cotton, corn, beans, wheat, etc. to grow in the rest of the country. Not even considering Houston, DFW, Atlanta, or any of the other big cities; you greatly underestimate the amount of business that flows through cities like Omaha (Union Pacific, Con Agra, Kiewit, Paypal, TD Ameritrade, and numerous insurance companies), Des Moines (Second only to Hartford in Insurance), Wichita (aircraft carriers anyone?), Bentonville, AR (not even naming who). I’m pretty sure we’ll be ok.[/quote]
Perhaps the Midwest will be OK, but the South will not be OK at all. Also, I think you underestimate the amount of cotton, sugar, beans, wheat, etc. that is produced in California. Cal produces more cotton than every state in the country except for Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and Arkansas. Sugar is irrelevant since it’s barely produced anywhere in the U.S. and what is produced here is a tiny percentage of the global market. Corn is trending upward, but California doesn’t grow much of it anymore because they’ve moved on to FAR more valuable crops such as walnuts, almonds and especially olives. There isn’t any money in beans and the same goes for wheat when compared to what California grows in place of the wheat it used to grow. The fact is that while the Midwest is the largest producer of some very basic crops, California can or used to grow many of those same crops but has since moved on to more profitable and specialized crops. Shit, if weed becomes completely legal in the U.S. at some point it could represent one of the biggest potential cash crops in the country, and California is already a world-renowned producer of it as is.
If Midwestern and Southern states secede and then withhold the products they produce so that what’s left of the country has to suffice without them, that would be fine with the rest of the country. California in particular is capable of producing many of those same things and it also produces many essentials and/or luxury items that are not produced elsewhere. The Bay Area in particular could thrive all by itself as its own little country if need be. The Silicon Valley economy is probably larger than the entire Midwest or the entire South. Agriculture accounts for 1% of the entire country’s GDP. There simply isn’t any money in it, which is why a lot of agriculture in this country is on welfare/subsidized.
Real estate is the largest single industry in the U.S. in terms of percentage of the GDP, and the real estate in California is the most valuable, followed primarily by states that would not be seceding. The entertainment industry, which is also based primarily in California, is actually a larger percentage of the GDP than mining and ag combined.
Most of the states you listed rank in the lower half if we were to list each state by their contribution to the country’s GDP. California is obviously the top spot, followed by Texas. The states you listed:
Missouri-22nd
Arizona-18th
Colorado-20th
Oklahoma-29th
Iowa-30th
Kansas-31st
Utah-33rd
Nebraska-37th
South Dakota-47th
Wyoming-48th
North Dakota-49th
California represents 13% of the entire GDP; Texas is second at 8% and all of the states you listed combined are only about 22%. I think the U.S. will be just fine if those states you listed were to secede. Losing Texas would hurt, but most of the top economies by state in the country would remain in the U.S. The states that are the ones most frequently talking about seceding would still be entirely dependent upon the country from which they seceded, especially Texas since most of the states you listed also don’t use anywhere close to the amount of oil that NY and California alone use AND since many pipelines running into Texas would have to run through the U.S. The price of allowing those pipes to continue operating on U.S. soil would be sky-high for a state that just seceded from the U.S. There’s only one country Texas could realistically run its oil through but there are plenty of countries the U.S. could get its oil from.