Thanks for that. It also doesn't matter how rich a state is if all the wealth is concentrated in a small few while everyone else struggles. This is also compounded by the fact that the wealth in a state controls government spending to a large degree. The antebellum south is a good example of this historically.

Your statistics are a decade old - in the meantime California continued to climb, there's updated numbers. The fact that a state that huge is competitive in GDP per capita with extremely tiny flyover states, is extremely telling.

California also has a massive homeless population and one of the worse police states in the country, and that's saying something. But hey, a small percentage are really rich!

That just means the rich elite of facebook could use their money to buy mid western meat for the people :D

So what you're saying is - money from the coasts provides money to flyover states. Thus, my point - with further balkanization, less economic benefits for the whole country.

This thing doesn't work as a "European Union." we're all tied together, for better or worse.

The EU isn't balkanized, lol. It's just another lame attempt at federal overreach.

Alas you are right, we're all tied together- until we're not :)

Never said it was.

> Alas you are right, we're all tied together- until we're not :)

The south tried that once when the battle lines made more sense. We all know what happened there - annihilation. Maybe that is necessary again.