I VOTE YES ON CALEXIT!

[playwrite]

This is also very insightful -

Donald Trump lost most of the American economy in this election

Basically, the counties that Trump won, while much more numerous, only provide about 1/3 of the Nation's economic output, while Clinton's provides 2/3's, as visualized here -

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Or, as noted -

Quote:With the exceptions of the Phoenix and Fort Worth areas, and a big chunk of Long Island, Clinton won every large-sized economic county in the country.

I believe if they had measured economic growth, change in GDP over 10-30 years, the Clinton counties would likley represent at least 80% if not 90% of that growth. And what is interesting about this is -

Quote:But it's not the case that the counties Clinton won have grown richer at the expense of the rest of the country -- they represent about the same share of the economy today as they did in 2000. Instead, it appears that, compared to Gore, Clinton was much more successful in winning over the most successful counties in a geographically unbalanced economy.

 - in other words, it is not that Silicon Valley and NYC have gotten relatively richer, and they always go Blue, it is that she's dropped more of the less-rich counties and to a lesser degree added more of the more-rich counties.

This is obviously derived from the White Working Class (WWC) revolt of former Obama voters turning to Trump, the Trumpocrats, from their frustration from falling behind.   This is the meme that has grown out of the election and with Trump's COMBINED margin of just 107,000 votes (or just 0.09% of the national votes) in PA, MI, and WI giving him the Electoral College win, it is the correct walkaway from the election (imagine if just 54K of those 107K had voted the other way, just 0.045% of the national total votes - we'd be talking about how Bubba was measuring the drapes at the WH).  

Here's the rub, however, for those WWC - 

Quote:There's a downside, though, for a candidate such as Trump, whose economic appeal was rooted in a promise to restore coal, manufacturing and other jobs lost in the shifts of the past several decades.
That task will be difficult, Muro has written, in part because manufacturers have grown substantially more productive in recent years, meaning they probably won't be adding millions more workers even if Trump pursues major changes in trade policy that result in more goods being made in the United States.
"The prescription isn't that helpful," Mark said. "We're going to have a lot of questions about how to translate the political geography into actually helpful policy."

What most people don't get is that the trade deficit is about 3% of US GDP.  Whatever Trump can elicit out of his coming trade wars has to be measured by how much he negates or even reverses that deficit.  But the amount of upside to it is pretty tiny compared to total US GDP. 

And the manufacturing jobs coming back?  Is the actual work going to be done by a couple thousand newly-hired assembly workers on the floor or by robots run by a few technicans?  This past September, the US produced more goods than any month in its history - where's all the jobs that use to manufacture less, a lot less?

As to boosting GDP and jobs in the energy sector, does anyone believe coal is still economically viable?  Is there demand for even more surplus oil or gas reserves on the markets now or far into the future?  Really???  Maybe we can blow a big energy bubble bigger than the housing bubble, but in the end... Pop!

That brings us to infrastructure. Lord knows we need it.  But, some folks have already caught onto the Big Con that's coming -

Bernie Sanders Calls Out Donald Trump Over Infrastructure Plan

Basically, Trump's plan is a scam - huge tax credits to other 0.1%ers to take over public assets and rent them back out (e.g., road tolls) to the public.  It's not going to be Flint Michigan like public works projects but probable some sport stadiums and maybe some casinos.

Details here -

Build He Won’t

You know, it's true that there's a lot of angry by WWC from feeling left behind, and much of it is justifiable.

It is also true that people often do really very stupid things when they are angry.

Its going to be fun watching a lot of WWC rationalize and get manipulated by Bannon and the neo-Confederates.  It took 9/11, the Iraqi invasion based on lies, and the Great Recession to shake some sense in them.  What will it take this time, and how long will their memory last?  Eight years seems to be about the limit.