re: Louisiana comes in dead last in new 'Best States' ranking

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and isn't able to attract anyone out of state to move in

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this board must not know many engineers b/c La is full of engineers from the midwest

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this board must not know many engineers b/c La is full of engineers from the midwest

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Yes, but my point is.. If you want to have a career and live in Louisiana you can only go into the following three:

Engineering
Law
Medical

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If you want to have a career and live in Louisiana you can only go into the following three:

Engineering
Law
Medical

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yea thats complete bullshite

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They take their Ivy League degrees and live at home with their parents complaining about transgender and minority plights and shame those that white man. Am I doing it right?

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Don't forget, they all majored in gender studies.

Oh I completely forgot that fact, you're right. My fault.

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One of the biggest reasons humans were so successful in evolution was our nearly unique (or at least very uncommon) capacity for altruism and ethical cooperation to advance mutual interests. The "me first" or "me only" approach worked far less well for many other species, and still does. Whenever we revert to it, it works far less well for us, too. We seem to be headed that way and, like you, many are apparently already there.

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A better question might be "why is he there?". LA has been promoted ad infinitum as a backwards culture and state. Reference Huey Long and before. Money has not been the problem other than poor fiscal policies by state elected officials and bureaucrats. Anytime a decent leader has come along, he's been attacked like mad dogs.

All of this and much more has led to a state that simply doesn't have the innate ability to look in the mirror to see itself for what it is and no one to provide leadership to even begin to turn it around.

Miss my LA, but I lived through it's continued downgrade from the 1950's through the 2000's. I have a sneaking suspicion that climate (not climate change) has some baring on all of this as well.

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There two obvious problems are the lack of industries available and education, with education needing to be first priority.

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I agree with you 100% on education. As for lack of industries, I think that's less of a fundamental issue than it is a symptom of other fundamental issues, aforementioned lack of a decent educational system being one of the biggest.

Perhaps the most basic problem is that Louisiana has very poor governance, partially because so many public officials are corrupt but also because the people of Louisiana are not rational in their voting decisions. They're more fixated on hot button wedge issues like abortion, LGBT rights, religion, gun control, etc. which mean a lot emotionally to the people involved but really aren't that big of a deal in relation to how the state works. For instance, Louisiana is a pretty solid red state even though Republican policies on a national level usually work against Louisiana's interests and Democratic policies on the national level generally favor them (the one notable exception being the O&G industry, which admittedly is a big deal). Things like cutting welfare simply take money out of the Louisiana economy and put it (or leave it) in other states' economies. Low environmental standards at the national level only exacerbate Louisiana's already severe environmental problems. Lack of federal investment in infrastructure severely affects states like Louisiana that don't, or can't, invest much of their own money into it. Losing federal guidance and funding on education is a disaster for a state like Louisiana that simply cannot seem to manage an educational system on its own. Lack of national health care policy that insures coverage to everyone compounds Louisiana's glaringly bad health care problems. Jindal's idiotic refusal to extend Medicaid coverage in conjuction with Obamacare needlessly put hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana in the coverage gap, which could have been avoided at practically no cost to the state. But irrational voters elected an irrational leader who wanted to reject any part of Obamacare he could, regardless of how much that part would help the state or how affordable it would be.

Irrational. Emotional. That's how we got here. And it's why we'll stay.

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There's very few companies that can keep college grads in the state, especially when so many other states offer more opportunities, higher paying jobs, less taxes, better education, and better infrastructure.

Louisiana is in a bad place and I don't see how to stop the brain drain to make it any better

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One way would be to lower the out of state tuition at LSU to attract more talent from all over the country. Mine wants to go to LSU so bad but we live in Florida and the opportunities for great scholarships at UF and FSU and even Bama are astronomically better, and all of those schools are ranked higher.

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You can make choices.

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That isn't an endorsement of the state.

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This approach may very well be the fundamental and potentially fatal flaw of America and maybe even human civilization itself. Too many people think they are the only one that matters and the suffering of others is irrelevant. No society can function for very long with that as the prevailing mentality.

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Holy shite. This is about "Best State". How are you jumping to this conclusion? All I'm saying is, I enjoy living in La. The supposed crime rate doesn't affect me. Would I like it to be better? Sure, but that would not have one thing to do with my enjoyment of living here.

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One of the biggest reasons humans were so successful in evolution was our nearly unique (or at least very uncommon) capacity for altruism and ethical cooperation to advance mutual interests.

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Altruism doesn't exist in an evolutionary sense.

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The "me first" or "me only" approach worked far less well for many other species, and still does. Whenever we revert to it, it works far less well for us, too. We seem to be headed that way and, like you, many are apparently already there.

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This has nothing to do with anything I posted.