re: Breakdown of how Alabama became so much richer than Canada

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Remember when AOC didnt want Amazon move to NY state because she wanted to repurpose the roughly $3 billion in state and city tax incentives the state was offering?

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Just read an article about the Amazon Headquarters that went to Virginia instead and so far failing to come anywhere close to meeting proposed/promised jobs to the area.

Amazon and a Mercedes factory are two very different examples.

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If 10–15% of GDP is coming from net inflows, that’s a structural advantage baked into the number before you even start comparing. That alone is enough to distort a comparison.

Then add: access to a unified U.S. market, federal defense and infrastructure spending, and no responsibility for running a currency or national system. Canada carries those burdens itself.

Look at how many of your own examples only work because Alabama is tied into the larger U.S. system.

The manufacturing base depends on access to a national market and federal infrastructure. Defense spending is federal money. Transfers and subsidies are federal. Even the stability behind investment is coming from U.S. monetary and fiscal policy.

You're pointing to outputs that are downstream of that integration, then treating them like they’re self-contained. They’re not. That’s exactly why the comparison is useless.

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Comparing states by inflows and outflows is also deeply flawed. A huge portion of CA's fed tax dollars come from capital gains, up to 40% in boom years, and that wealth comes from a tiny fraction of the CA population (which is now moving out as fast as it can). Cali and NY also artificially pump their numbers by being financial centers. If you live in AL and bank with Citi, Chase, Sofi, or the like, you generate tax dollars in those states, not AL, with your hard earned dollars.

In short, CA and NY effectively tax the rest of the nation. Some aspects of the "tax" are positive, like building companies, but it's not like CA could generate those cap gains and the taxes on them without AL and every other state buying iPhones and NVIDIA graphics cards.

AL also has a disproportionate amount relative to population of military and NASA work and personnel. That is a very different inflow than federal entitlements payments.

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Cali and NY also artificially pump their numbers by being financial centers.

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The don't artificially pump anything up. They are literal financial centers. And it isn't like they don't produce 'things' in terms of economic output.

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Some aspects of the "tax" are positive, like building companies, but it's not like CA could generate those cap gains and the taxes on them without AL and every other state buying iPhones and NVIDIA graphics cards.

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Yes, homegrown California companies need to compete in a market like everyone else.

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Sounds like Canada is following the Chinese model of investment and storing all of their wealth in residential real estate. Not a winning recipe for long term economic success.

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This plus the ever-growing government bureaucracy that absorbs an huge chunk of the GDP and creates a bureaucrat class that keeps voting in politicians who perpetuate the bureaucracy, like a dystopian feedback loop.
Check out Pierre Polievre's interview on Rogan, the dude hits so many nails on the head in that interview. It made me think that we should try to make him president of the US!

Canada is fricked and it's already too late. They are the West Atlantic - Western Europe. They've completely embraced socialism. America will too, eventually.

They aren’t a bunch of **** self loathing count.

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Then add: access to a unified U.S. market, federal defense and infrastructure spending, and no responsibility for running a currency or national system. Canada carries those burdens itself.

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So you're telling me that a historically poor and abject region can become highly successful and desirable by making strategically good economic decisions within the U.S. system? And that the U.S. system can support and promote such economic development and prosperity?

What exactly is the counter argument here?

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So you're telling me that a historically poor and abject region can become highly successful and desirable by making strategically good economic decisions within the U.S. system? And that the U.S. system can support and promote such economic development and prosperity?

What exactly is the counter argument here?

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That’s what you got from that? Good lord.

No one is saying Alabama didn’t grow or make good decisions. The point is simple: you’re treating Alabama like it’s operating on its own when it isn’t.

Alabama’s economy is built inside a larger system that pays for and provides a lot of what you’re pointing to. Federal spending, defense, infrastructure, contracts, a single national market, a shared currency, national stability. Alabama benefits from all of that without having to fund or manage it by itself.

Canada as an entity does have to fund it itself.

So when you compare Alabama’s output directly to Canada’s, you’re comparing a supported region to a fully self-contained country.

It’s like comparing a man living at home with his parents to a guy running his own household and calling the man “richer.”

The man might have a nice room, good food, and extra spending money. But a lot of that is being covered behind the scenes, housing, utilities, stability, the basics.

The other guy has to pay for everything himself.

Then you look at their bank accounts and say the man living at home is doing better. That only works if you ignore who’s covering the bills.

Get it now?

So you're telling me that a historically poor and abject region can become highly successful and desirable by making strategically good economic decisions within the U.S. system? And that the U.S. system can support and promote such economic development and prosperity?

Do you think Alabama would be able to accomplish this in Canada?

I don't think the argument here is that Alabama in and of itself is a testament to economic prosperity. The overlying point is that under the U.S. system, everyone has the opportunity to prosper if you make the right strategic decisions. Can the same be said about Canada?