Conversation

Reflecting on Marshall Plan, it strikes me that distasteful as it might seem to both sides, Blue America needs to craft a Marshall unPlan for Red America to avert a Cold War. It’s an 1830-project Jacksonian honor society that feels humiliatingly dependent on blue tax dollars.
Quote Tweet
Next pandemic live read. The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War by Benn Steil amazon.com/Marshall-Plan-
Show this thread
9
61
Replying to
I've read that analysis of relative government payouts, but it seems to rely on government payouts to retirees, which really doesn't speak to that dependence or the economies of the red/blue states. For one, it ignores private transfers of wealth, as happens continuously w/food
1
Replying to
The biggest bit is things like ag subsidies that indirectly sustain the region not personal welfare state. In fact Red rhetoric is based on larping individualism one degree removed from direct welfare.
1
5
Replying to
Very indirectly; ag subsidies keep the market even; it doesn't pay for farmers to larp as individualists, it pays to keep their production in reserve as the market demands; just like power production. Respectfully, I think you speak from the same ignorance you project on them.
1
1
Replying to and
For example, would Silicon Valley be the tech epicenter it is without Northrup Grumman parking there or DARPA funding an internet? Government contracts continue to fund the private technical advancements in California, Maryland, NoVa and Texas...
2
Replying to
We’re talking about 1985-2020, not 1945-70. At least I am. If you think red and blue are economically equal partners today there is no real conversation here.
1
1
Replying to
Look at the map of military production. Look at the fraction of the economies is accounts for in blue cities and red regions today, not in 1960. After World War 2, most of the US enjoyed a 30-year boom with state support. After 1980, some regions declined, others prospered.
Replying to
Military investment (including its secondary economies) has indeed become biased to blue cities, particularly as manufacturing went to cheaper and less environmentally reg'd labor abroad; that what is left has become relatively large in red states compared blue seems axiomatic.