freeman3 wrote:Yep. It's still a free country--at least until the Trump reign begins or Cruz cabal takes over.

I thought your point of bringing up natural resources was to point out that a state without them would have a much harder time and therefore critiquing a state without such resources under conservative policies would be unfair and/or comparing Red States with Blue States would be unfair. But then your survey lauded the oil states. A bit Whitmanesque...

No, I'm pretty sure I was saying that SEVEN categories weren't enough.

freeman3

Which I guess makes sense if you're basically an investment newsletter for investors, but it does seem oddly coincidental that the best-run states are the ones with a lot of oil.

Which doesn't bode well for next years list since oil revenues are way down...

You'll notice also that the Wall Street criteria included Debt per capita, and excluded GDP per capita.
Surely GDP per capita is a much more revealing statistic.
And the Wall Street also included budget deficits... A current favorite target of conservatives.But not one that presents much rationale. Debt is not always a bad thing, and the management of debt as investment is an important part of building valuable infrastructure...

The problem with that is that a focus only on debt reduction by a government can lead to a deterioration of services, including education ...and a deterioration of infrastructure. And can contribute to economic down turn if poorly timed.
All in all the Wall Street criteria is short term focus versus long term.... and governments really need more of a long term focus. It should be noted that the focus on quarterly and annual performance by corporations has also been criticized as poor management focus by many.

Still its good to have lots of oil when oil prices are high... Whatever happened to all of Louisiana's oil revenue?

Doctor Fate wrote:
Nope, but of the HUNDREDS mine said they looked included natural resources. I think that has some import. If a State has few, it won't do as well as one that has many.

Yours was too simplistic for my liking.

But if they don't show their methodology, how do you know it is better? They could have overweight something. Or some of the "hundreds" of factors could be repeating.

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:Another natural resource boom, but still they slip to second despite seeing the largest GDP slump in the nation.

So they controlled well for that then!

Yes, thank you . . . for proving what I said: you are the Sultan of Snark, nothing more.

Well, sorry for trying to apply your measures of success to the survey you posted :-)

By the way, the survey is run annually, so perhaps you could have referenced this one instead, published in late 2015.

http://247wallst.com/special-report/201 ... ll-50-4/2/

You couldn't even "invest" the time to produce the Top 10. More evidence that you are nothing but a sniper. Thanks for that.[/quote]Grow up. I was busy counting the number of terror attacks related to Ireland since March 2006.

It includes a few Democratic states, but the "best" are still GOP-run.

Define "run" - do they have to have majorities in the legislative houses and the governor's seat? Or less than that?

So now I have some more time, here is the latest top 10, with the political position as it is now

1. North Dakota (R gov, R sen, R hse)
2. Wyoming (R gov, R sen, R hse)
3. Iowa (R gov, D sen, R hse)
4. Nebraska (R gov, officially non-partisan unicameral legislature, but mainly R)
5. Minnesota (D gov, D sen, R hse)
6. Utah (R gov, R sen, R hse)
7. Texas (R gov, R sen, R hse)
8. Colorado (D gov, R sen, D hse)
9. Washington (D gov, R sen, D hse)
10. Massachusetts (R gov, D sen, D hse)

I note that some changed hands in the 2014 elections, so the current balance may not mean a lot. But 5/10 are GOP clean sweeps. 7 have GOP governors, 3 Democrats.

And the bottom 10:

41. Pennsylvania (D gov, R sen, R hse)
42. Arkansas (R gov, R sen, R hse)
43. Louisiana (D gov, R sen, R hse)
44. New Jersey (R gov, D sen, D hse)
45. Kentucky (R gov, R sen, D hse)
46. Alabama (R gov, R sen, R hse)
47. Rhode Island (D gov, D sen, D hse)
48. Mississippi (R gov, R rep, R hse)
49. Illinois (R gov, D sen, D hse)
50. New Mexico (R gov, D sen, R hse)

1 All Dem, 2 all GOP. 7 Republican governors to 3 Democrat. Louisiana was one of the subjects of the original article.

Seems that there isn't much of a party political pattern really, not in the latest survey. Maybe that's why you preferred the older one.

California comes in 21st, which is remarkable given how freeman3 was raving about it.

So they went up 29 places in three years. That looks pretty impressive to me.

As I said, it's a lot more complex than the superficial studies he was posting.

Yes. Not sure how full the study you posted really is because it doesn't really say how they got from the data to the rankings, what weightings were used etc etc,

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:
Nope, but of the HUNDREDS mine said they looked included natural resources. I think that has some import. If a State has few, it won't do as well as one that has many.

Yours was too simplistic for my liking.

But if they don't show their methodology, how do you know it is better? They could have overweight something. Or some of the "hundreds" of factors could be repeating.

Feel free to prove it's not.

Doctor Fate wrote:Feel free to prove it's not.

Well, seeing as 247 Wall St has not published the methodology, that would be impossible

All I will note is that both Louisiana and Kansas come out lower than California in the latest survey. And that while CA went up 29 spots between 2012 and 2015, Kansas fell 7 spots and Louisiana fell 2.

So thanks for the further evidence, DF.

danivon wrote:All I will note is that both Louisiana and Kansas come out lower than California in the latest survey. And that while CA went up 29 spots between 2012 and 2015, Kansas fell 7 spots and Louisiana fell 2.

So thanks for the further evidence, DF.

Yes, CA went from the bottom of the pile to the middle. Great.

All in all, the standard freeman3 chose is a bit meaningless. Which standard? The State.

For example, is it comparable to live in San Francisco and Hesperia? How about La Canada Flintridge and Waterloo?

In a State as big as California, moving from Lancaster to Lake Forrest is like moving to a different country in terms of property values, climate, and opportunity.

But, if you want to keep comparing States to prove liberal policies are best, then go for it. If it makes sense to you to compare Hawaii and Nebraska, feel free. Just don't skip Illinois when you get to the glories of high taxation and Democratic policies.

http://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/10-wo ... ?a=viewall

10 Connecticut
9. Rhode Island
8. South Dakota
7. Montana
6. California
5. Vermont
4. West Virginia
3. Maine
2. Oregon
1. Hawaii

Only 3 conservative States on the list.

Here's an interesting note in one of these surveys:

There is no comprehensive measure of a state government administration and how well or poorly it runs the state. Selecting appropriate criteria to compare the 50 states is difficult because there is so much variation among them. Some states are rich in natural resources, for example, while others rely on high-skilled sectors, such as technology and business services. Some depend disproportionately on one industry, while economies in other states are more balanced. Further, some states are more rural, while others are highly urbanized and densely populated.

As a result, policy decisions that may work in one state might not work in another. For example, while taking on large amounts of debt to fund a state's spending is often fiscally irresponsible, wealthier states arguably benefit from higher debt levels — they can use the extra funds to pay for public welfare services and are able to pay it back without much effort.

Huh. Well, what do you know?

He was looking at an article that discussed statewide "projects" of a particular ideology to boost them, which appear to have had the opposite effect.

I see nothing from you to contradict that hypothesis.

danivon wrote:He was looking at an article that discussed statewide "projects" of a particular ideology to boost them, which appear to have had the opposite effect.

I see nothing from you to contradict that hypothesis.

Of course you don't.

Socialism is wonderful until . . . well, you know. Thatcher said it well.

DF, the survey you linked us to showed that both states had declined in terms of how it defines a State's effective governance. Absent whataboutery and claiming the facts are biased, what have you presented that outweighs that?

danivon wrote:DF, the survey you linked us to showed that both states had declined in terms of how it defines a State's effective governance. Absent whataboutery and claiming the facts are biased, what have you presented that outweighs that?

I've been clear. I've presented other studies--including one that showed CA was the #6 worst place to try and make a living in 2015. So, stop pretending and playing your endless games.

You may think that makes CA a "worker's paradise," but it's not "whataboutery" to point to the FACTS.

Meanwhile, you keep whining and producing nothing. And, this is hardly unimportant to our topic, no matter how you might wish it to be so:

There is no comprehensive measure of a state government administration and how well or poorly it runs the state. Selecting appropriate criteria to compare the 50 states is difficult because there is so much variation among them. Some states are rich in natural resources, for example, while others rely on high-skilled sectors, such as technology and business services. Some depend disproportionately on one industry, while economies in other states are more balanced. Further, some states are more rural, while others are highly urbanized and densely populated.

As a result, policy decisions that may work in one state might not work in another. For example, while taking on large amounts of debt to fund a state's spending is often fiscally irresponsible, wealthier states arguably benefit from higher debt levels — they can use the extra funds to pay for public welfare services and are able to pay it back without much effort.

I am not asking about California. The original post was about two completely different states.

You brought up California. I was more interested in Kansas and Louisiana, and whether there is a comparison with Ohio, where Kasich apparently did quite well.

danivon wrote:I am not asking about California. The original post was about two completely different states.

You brought up California. I was more interested in Kansas and Louisiana, and whether there is a comparison with Ohio, where Kasich apparently did quite well.

I'm more interested in Illinois.

Thanks for not addressing any of the material points I raised. Well done.

Now, you can go back to whining about me being personal or whatever.