If the NE is the wealthiest region in America, why would they be for policies that are financially against their interests? Seeing that most people on this forum are right wing libertarians from the north maybe you guys can share some insight.
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Its called champagne socialism, its easier to be wealthy and a 'man of the people' then it is to be wealthy and a libertarian. A lot of it is strategic, the wealthy want to be left alone and so they pay lip service to equality and left wing views whilst quietly going about the business of accumulating wealth for themselves. They then cleverly turn the attention on the well paid professionals (doctors, lawyers, accountants) who make a few 100k and are salted with 50% tax rates and argue for higher taxes on this group to take the attention off their own dealings.
I think you have to look at the history of conservatism in the U.S. to understand why what the Republicans are pushing nowadays is antithetical to much of Northeastern political tradition.
The Republicans who did well in Boston/NY during the past century were in the Alexander Hamilton/Teddy Roosevelt/Nelson Rockefeller mold. That is they believed in capitalism being the best solution but saw it in a pragmatic light and understood that inequality sapped the long-term viability in the system.
Voting for the Democrats nowadays is not antithetical to your financial interests no matter how wealthy you are. Since the Barry Goldwater days, the Republicans have been the antithesis of small government and fiscal conservatism no matter what they actually claimed. Seriously, take a look at the historical record. Not since Ike have we seen a Republican administration that could in any way be characterized as long-term greedy (long-term financial well-being should be in everyone's interest).
Think about it. If your tax rates go up, you're still richer than the guy who was making less in the first place. Happiness derived from wealth is a relative thing. And if taxes going up makes it difficult to meet your liabilities, you've been acting like an idiot.
The Republicans have drifted far, far away from true capitalism into some bizzaro austerity for the people (which they would bait-and-switch for more spending the moment they take the White House), socialism for corporations ideal. The Democrats, while trying to make wealth accumulation a little more difficult in the short-run, are still pretty constrained considering how important their donors in the financial sector are. A lot of the rich in the NE realize that and would rather vote for the devil they know than buy into something that has so utterly lost touch with economic reality.
I don't care how rich or poor my neighbors are as long as they are happy and not starving. Not everyone is motivated primarily by money. Aristotle pointed out in Nicomachean Ethics that somethings are good for their own sake. Of course there are other explanations of what things are good for their own sake apart from means to an end such as money. In the end, all the things people strive for are subjective. Thus we cannot compare an artist to a banker solely based on their net worth. Would you be happy knowing you were the richest guy on the block even if you worked 100+ hours a week?
The short version is: Maybe people in a state like Texas are more likely to buy supercars to dive them fast, whilst Massachusetts residents buy then to flaunt their wealth.
And let's be real, the speed limit in Texas isn't high enough for people to buy supercars solely for the purpose of driving them fast.
http://video.pbs.org/video/2296684923
Here's my question: Why is every major population center in the country (with few exceptions) extremely liberal?
Something we have to put up with for a job in finance I guess. All I know is when you get a lot of people in one area, you also get a lot less freedom. (More restrictions from both parties)
Population hubs means there are ghettos and poor minorities. Those minorities live off of welfare, unemployment, and food stamps and they need to vote liberal or their days of leaching of the government are over. For every wealthy person there has to be at least 3 to cut his lawn.
I'm about to spew off some elitist bullshit so please excuse me. I also realize I'm generalizing and there are exceptions to every rule.
A question in response to your original question: Why would a married couple of factory workers in Alabama who have a combined income of 40k a year and 3 kids vote republican?
Because at this day in the age, people care just as much or more about social values than economic values. It makes absolutely zero sense for 90% of the people in red states to vote Republican from an economic perspective. The country has vilified the wealthy and well-educated, and to prove this point all you have to do is look at how Romney was given shit for being successful. His commercials should be saying "This guy has a JD/MBA from Harvard." But that's not what the average American wants to hear these days. They care more that he's pro-life, pro-gun and shares their values. They really aren't smart enough to figure out his policies are going to fuck them financially.
Another point of discussion is urban vs. suburban/rural lifestyle. People in suburbs tend to be more conservative, less intellectual and generally more paranoid that cities are dangerous. I've been a city-dweller my whole life and I find this ridiculous. Urban areas (a predominant portion of the Northeast) are more open-minded and well-educated. That means that their social values drift toward the left. Combine the intellectuals with inner-city minorities who want to vote for someone like them and don't really like rich white guys, and you have exactly why Obama won this election. Single women were really just the icing on the cake. In the South and more rural areas, you'll see women married at ages 22-26. In big cities you'll see more single women who are closer to 30 because they are career-oriented or just want to experiment in several different relationships before choosing an eventual husband. Due to the abortion topic, single women in their late 20s and early 30s will always vote liberal. If you're a single woman who's 30 in rural Georgia, there's something wrong with you, so you rarely see that. Married women care way less about abortion than unmarried women.
The end.
How do you know that people in the south are not polyamorous? This is a grossly unfair stereotype. I went to a school in the south and it made PlayBoy's list of top party schools. GOD BLESS THE USA!
They're smarter.
preach
A combination of religious differences that started around the 1850s (interpreting the bible as gods words interpreted by man compared with the word of god, divinely inspired), which lead to strikingly different ways of dealing with culture and religion between the more open to interpretation, imperfect human understanding of gods will religious thought of the north and the evangelicals of the south, the fact that people in the NE have to live closer together and have a barter based economy that started in the colonial days because of the resources available compared with the agrarian south, which has lead to a stronger urban focus in both culture and of the economic elite (this being relevant because of the urban focus of democrat constituencies and their political objectives), and the academia, which is overwhelmingly liberal because of infiltration by communists, keynesians, and other liberals who pretty much changed the way the game was played after the 1968 chicago DNC/riots, because of their ways of sympathizing with the violent anti war protestors, which never really went away in their ideology.
http://www.fpri.org/articles/2012/12/crisis-american-conservatism-inher…
Because with wealth and riches comes the desire to control those who are thought to be not as smart or deserving. Liberalism is a nice mask for control and theft.
Bullshit.
Actual answer: because we're socially liberal. Not that hard, folks! Don't over-think it.
If it was only social liberalism you wouldn't have the outrageous taxes that you find in most liberal enclaves.
The Northeast definitely isn't as liberal as people make it out to be. NH and Maine certainly aren't, and the rest of New England/New York isn't either with the exception of the cities that are liberal in almost every state. However, much of the population in these states live in diverse cities and so the state goes for the Dem despite there being 40% of the vote for the republican. The repubs do best in rural areas with dumb people (no offense) in places like WV, KY, TN, SC, AL, MS and the dems do best in liberal/desirable cities like LA, SF, Chicago, Boston and NYC.
You are, of course, aware that the constituents that comprise the repubs are skewed to older, middle class + people and the married, and the dems skew towards uneducated groups in ghettoes, as well as the academia?
I'd agree with NestoGrande - most people vote according to social values. It is much easier to grasp "abortion" or "gay marriage" than it is "labor laws" or "tax policy". And the better educated tend to hold more liberal social values.
I believe that most liberals would be considerably more libertarian if economics was more widely taught. If you are not familiar with basic economics, then it just seems like conservatives hate the poor for wanting to shrink entitlements. But it is easy to go through college without ever taking economics (many avoid it because it is perceived as math intensive).
I agree with you. Most liberals know nothing about economics.
You think? I've taken a ton of econ classes in college and I've never felt that they lend credence to libertarian or even conservative principles. It's not like you just draw deadweight loss triangles all day. Maybe in intro to micro.
Many upper level econ classes (environmental econ, natural resources econ, health econ, labor econ, etc) talk about market failures and how the government can tax/subsidize/regulate to fix problems like externalities, asymmetric information, path dependence, monopoly, imperfect information, etc. The default is always to leave markets alone in mainstream economics but there is a large amount of literature and classes devoted to analyzing government intervention when markets don't work the way they should.
Also, the intro to macro and intermediate macro classes at almost every university spend a lot of time with Y=C+I+G+NX, IS/LM, AD/AS, and Keynesian ideas. The exact opposite of what conservatives politicians talk about.
If anything, I would say that Republican economic doctrine is completely antithetical to the mainstream Economics taught in most universities. They're more in line with the Austrian view, which is taught at colleges like George Mason University. There are some professors at UChicago and Martin Feldstein at Harvard that are pretty conservative but, by and large, I feel like most econ professors favor policies that are more in line with the Democrats.
This is particularly true. This is another reason why well educated north easterners or city dwellers (in other parts of the country too) tend to be liberal. When you have most of the ivy league schools teaching Keynesian economics, you are going to get graduates who conform to exactly that (and not any other Hayekian theory). Since most people on this board might be from good Keynesian schools, what should really be surprising is that the vast majority are libertarian and not Keynesian.
This is personal opinion. I find the outspoken rich liberal a.k.a champagne socialists extremely patronizing, unkind and cold. You can't advocate pro poor policies when you can't be kind to your neighbor. Keynesian economics and the American progressive institution provides an outlet for this group of people, to portray themselves as kind, loving and get rid of all the guilt they have for being so rich (They shouldn't be guilty for being rich tbh); which is why NONE of these rich progressives will give their own money away.
they can afford it.
To be fair, here is the critique, which finds no discernible distinction between levels of charitable giving between people who are liberal or conservative politically. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/10/21/study-conser…
Wow, I just read through this thread. While Europe is melting down from its fiscal leftism, and while California and Illinois in particular are fiscal basket cases, and in light of the fact that traditional Democrat states, which were in fiscal and in some cases economic collapse, threw out those politicians for Republicans to clean up the messes in Michigan, Ohio, and New Jersey (among others), it's fascinating to see here that liberals are so smart and that conservatives are so stupid. It's, uhh, it's a little shocking in light of the actual, ya know, record of progressivism throughout the world. There's a reason that Chile is thriving and not Argentina--it's the difference between (University of) Chicago boys economics and Marx-style economics.
But I, I guess we conservatives are just tobacco chewing morons. Ya know, those people that believe that the free market will produce prosperity (which, ya know, I'm sure we've never seen before...), where state budgets should be balanced, and where workers have the right to, ya know, not join a union if he doesn't want to. Just basic concepts. But yeah, basic concepts applied to the real world with, ya know, historical success is too simple for the extremely intelligent liberals and fits the mold of us dumb, Bible thumping hicks.
The rich guys who are voting Democrat believe in free markets and they'd rather not see their employees join unions. But they're smart enough to see that the Republicans aren't the party of free markets and true capitalism, that they would never try to enforce all elements of the Washington Consensus, only what's convenient in the short-term. Today's conservatives have made their small-government/no-regulation mantra a religion at the expense of all macroprudential sanity and such basic needs as education and health care. Voting Democrat might not be much of a solution either, but what in the world is there to gain in the long-term from voting for today's Republicans?
And your Argentina example is priceless. They were hit with a major crisis after spending a decade trying to put into practice what the Chicago school economists were preaching and they got taken to the cleaners. Yet they somehow managed to pay back their restructured loans and claw back a semblance of stability by electing more left-leaning neo-Peronists.
Most people supporting either the Democrats or the Republicans are on the dumb side and don't have a clue about economics. I have tended to vote Democrat lately but it's more a matter of choosing the lesser evil. All I know is I will never vote for someone in the William Buckley/Barry Goldwater mold that has ruined the Republican party for the past 50 years. Conservatism is the religion of pussies who are too scared minorities will take their jobs and too scared they'll fall back in the rat race to vote for anyone with a long-term desire to see our country succeed. It's too bad there isn't a party out there to tap into those who know how America became the greatest country in the world and who aren't groveling about looking for a handout, tax cut or whatever stupid little advantage they can get, be it affirmative action, tax breaks, bailouts or QE1 though infinity.
Now I've heard it all. The United States, between 1790 and 1970, was built on progressive, big government principles? Wow. I mean, wow. You know this is transparently and provably false, right? You do realize that "classical economic liberalism" is modern conservative economics, right? What, what planet are you living on? The progressive movement didn't even begin until more than 100 years after the ratification of the US Constitution, genius.
GoodBread is the classic example of a pseudo-intellectual left-wing pinhead who can speak for hours and hours and say absolutely nothing of substance.
I don't know quite understand how you are using Argentina's case here. Argentina's case followed most patterns seen in latin american countries like Brazil who had their own crises in the 1980s etc. Argentina had a pegged currency, so that it could borrow in hard currency and get lower interest rates. The government borrowed more and slowly the debt burden grew. Argentinia had to compete with Brazil who devalued their currency and switched to the real from the cruzeiro. In order to protect the peg, the Argentinian government needed more dollar reserves which could only be got from Argentinian exports. So protecting the peg was next to impossible; with exports down, the only way the government could survive was with more borrowing.
Note that the privatization in the 1990s was only a response to IMF requirements to issue more credit.
Most countries follow very similar patterns of credit fueled investment and then a bust. China's boom is credit/investment driven and will not last long. Just like China follows some form of mercantilism now, the US did get away with tariffs and government intervention in the mid twentieth century. But the US and the world also followed the gold standard then. A lot of Krugman's defense of more borrowing is dependent on the US dollar's status as the world reserve currency - "In crisis, everyone still wants the dollar, so lets borrow and print to the death".
The Hayekian school isn't right because the US became the biggest super power in the twentieth century. It is right because it is the only sustainable way to long term prosperity. China can very well become a super power with US standards of living if the yuan becomes the reserve currency. But that will not justify mercantilism. Britain was the last big empire, but that doesn't justify colonialism. In fact, the very idea of wanting to be a superpower is an extension of our own little egos wanting that extra bit of power and prestige, but inevitably, as history has shown, this usually results in a nation states decline as well.
To put my argument more succinctly, when has a group whose goal is to bring back the good old days ever been on the right side of history?
I support anyone that reduces government and taxes. This bastard we have now is not what was envisioned under any radical thought when the idea of a Federal government was created. Wasteful spending, agencies upon agencies, meddling in the lives of its citizens, all under the lie of "protecting them".
Democrats is the part of social spending and taxation. Republicans lost their way, but sold themselves on small government, less taxation. Tea Party was a reaction to the fact that Bush era Republicans were simply big government Dem's in disguise.
We have a perfectly fine safety net, a little too lucrative if you ask me. Cut it back, shut down agencies, sell off the buildings, permanently reduce staff. Stop spending through the tax code, remove deductions, allow those making below $25K to pay nothing and everyone else has to pay into the system. Stop providing tax credits to have kids. If you can't afford a kid without a tax credit, you shouldn't have one and if you do, I am not paying for it.
GoodBread, nice PR move trying to sell the Democrats as something they aren't. You have poor Democrats with their hands out and rich Democrats handing out the cash with the strings attached. Maybe 20 years ago you have middle class, Catholic's and blue collar union workers, but now you have the poor, white collar unions (thugs looking to milk taxpayers) and the wealthy who just know better.
Take a trip to Washington DC and see how much construction is going on. Sickening. That city ought to be a half assed outpost where we elect some figure head to sign international accords and if necessary declare war. Instead we have this ever expanding parasite which craves the production of an ever shrinking group of people who actually pay taxes. Sad to think we've become exactly what we fought to get away from.
Might be come confusion with Jeffersonian Liberalism and the disease we have today that bastardizes the name.
DCD - You da man!
Texas is the home of the fastest speeding ticket at 242 MPH. Apparently I was wrong about the people in the northeast being slow drivers. There was a case of someone in NY allegedly going 200 MPH. They would have to be an idiot to do that in NY though. Texas has lots of nice open planes. I heard that people would usually go over 100 MPH when the speed limit was still 80 MPH in TX.
http://www.nytrafficticket.com/blog/index.php/2009/08/22/fastest-speedi…
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