Trouble in Trumpland

By SAM URETSKY

On April 2, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s column was titled “Trouble in Trumpland.” He wrote “Political polarization has marched side by side with economic polarization, as income inequality has soared.”

The observation is in large part based on the fact that not only did Secretary Clinton win the popular vote by a dramatic 2.9 million votes, but the 472 counties she carried represented 64% of America’s economic activity, while Donald John Trump won 2584 counties, but these represented only 36% of the gross domestic product.

This reflects Professor Krugman’s pioneering work on economic geography, and while some regions develop because of natural resources, others grow as a result of what might be a type of crystallization, where the presence of a corporation or industry attracts other companies with similar needs. It’s worth looking at the traits that Amazon is looking for as a location for its second headquarters:

• Metropolitan areas with more than one million people

• A stable and business-friendly environment

• Urban or suburban locations with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent

• Communities that think big and creatively when considering locations and real estate options

The third entry is critical. The classic example may be UBS, the giant Swiss bank that, in 1994, moved its headquarters from New York to Connecticut. The dollar estimates clearly favored Stamford, not least because the city was offering tax breaks worth $60,000 per job. But in 2011, UBS reported buyer’s remorse. What they learned was that the young bankers they wanted to recruit preferred to live in Manhattan or Brooklyn, near other young bankers, where they could be in touch with their next job. People with strong technical skills want to be near other people with the same skills and interests. This is how industrial centers develop, Silicone Valley in California and Silicone Alley in New York, and other cities that are starting late, but beginning to develop.

Other cities can see the future, which is how Amazon managed to find 20 finalists for its search. The Brookings Institution, writing about “the two rust belts” wrote about cities that reinvented themselves. “... these communities are attracting and keeping highly educated populations, producing rising incomes, and maintain a diversified economic base. They are no longer beholden as manufacturing monocultures, as was the norm across the region 50 years ago when Minneapolis was “Flour City,” or Pittsburgh as the “Steel City.” Pittsburgh is am Amazon finalist.

But there are other implications to the word “attract” – because people want to live in places that offer other attractions, whether sports or museums or quality restaurants and, as Forbes noted, the availability of quality education. This is a factor that depends on political party. The Oklahoma teachers’ strike is an example of political priorities, as reported by USA Today: “Leaders of Oklahoma’s largest teacher’s union have said protests will continue unless lawmakers approve a repeal of a capital gains tax exemption and the governor vetoes a repeal of a proposed lodging tax.” According to Education Week, “Alaska and New York pay teachers nearly double the salaries of those working in Mississippi and Oklahoma.” Alaska may have to pay a high salary to get people to move there, but after that, the rest of the top 10 states are blue, with at most a hint of purple.

At a higher political level, there is Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos who seems to know very little about education, and Donald John Trump, who said “Today you have community colleges — when I was growing up we had vocational schools … we should have vocational schools. You learn mechanical, you learn bricklaying and carpentry and all of these things. We don’t have that very much anymore. And I think the word ‘vocational’ is a much better word than in many cases a community college. A lot of people don’t know what a community college means or represents.“ President Trump very obviously doesn’t understand what a community college is, or its role in modern education.

Education is divided along party lines, and the differences show. Jared Bernstein, in the Washington Post, wrote, “In Oklahoma, disinvestment in public schools has gone on for so long that volleyball games get rained out because of a leaky gym ... Textbooks and computers are ancient; one former teacher told of students ‘stuck with history textbooks so old that they say Bill Clinton is president.’

In Wisconsin, under Gov. Scott Walker, whose contributions to higher education had already removed faculty tenure and led to a near doubling of faculty resignations, faced student and alumni protests after UW Stevens Point threatened to drop 13 majors, including English and Philosophy. The school planned to add programs, such as management and marketing, which are considered more in line with the skills needed for employment. But employers are actually recruiting liberal arts majors, because their skills make them able to adapt to changing markets and conditions.

Republicans have been draining school budgets and teachers’ salaries for decades, and it shows, blocking union organizing, turning school systems into training centers for local industry. Donald Trump said “The teachers love their children. They love their pupils. They love their students.” They love them enough to stand up to an armed attacker. But iIn West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona and Kentucky, the teachers love their students enough to stand up to their state governments, and that’s harder.

Sam Uretsky is a writer and pharmacist living in New York. Email sdu01@outlook.com.

From The Progressive Populist, May 15, 2018

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