Time for a new Civil War?

by philg

We’re having a second Great Depression. Why not a second Civil War?

Consider the typical Southerner, working at a backbreaking job for $10 per hour. If business slows down or his company goes out of business, he is immediately laid off. What does he read in the newspaper? Wall Street executives have taken most of the $350 billion that they got from the Federales and paid it to themselves as bonuses. Why are they getting bonuses? For a job well done in the past? These guys did their level best to turn the U.S. into Argentina circa 2001. As an incentive for them to stay in their posts? Where else could they work? Who would hire them? You don’t hear about banks in China desperate to bring in a staff of experts from Citigroup, Merrill, or Bear Stearns. You don’t hear about successful companies like GE or Google saying “What we need to do is bring in some of those great minds set free after they bankrupt Lehman Brothers.”

He turns to the next page of the newspaper. The Federal government has been indifferent to all of his friends in the Carolinas who’ve lost their jobs in various mid-sized manufacturing concerns. The potential of GM and Chrysler employees losing some pay, however, attracts the full-time efforts of the U.S. Congress for weeks. Now he reads that George W. is sending a $17.4 billion Christmas present to Detroit. Our Southerner works hard for a $10/hour paycheck with minimal benefits and he is now paying extra taxes to support guys in Michigan who get millions every year to work a desk job (incompetently) or UAW members getting over $40 per hour in cash, health care, and pension benefits.

Incompetence in the South leads to the management getting fired, the workers being laid off, and everyone in the community suffering lower wages going forward. Incompetence in the Northeast and Midwest leads to the rest of the U.S. being taxed so that employees continue to get paid the same, oftentimes regardless of whether or not they show up to work. Now would seem to be a great time for the South to secede.

4 thoughts on “Time for a new Civil War?”

  1. The problem with the statement – “and he is now paying extra taxes to support guys in Michigan” is that taxes don’t really reflect the reality of what’s being spent.

    If they did, I think people would care a heck of a lot more about the big numbers involved these “bailouts”. (a truly balanced budget where we paid taxes immediately on these costs would certainly put these numbers into perspective)

    Perhaps time for a balanced budget amendment?

  3. The Southern states that complain about the bailout of Northern interests would discover pretty quickly that secession isn’t in their interests since basically the entire South receives more in federal spending than they pay in taxes, while the Northeast and Midwest are big-time donors. See http://www.taxfoundation.org/press/show/22659.html or other similar studies….

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