Sharing the Misery

For many years now, I've heard and mostly agreed with the theme about what Liberal governance brings; not an improvement in poor people's lives, but misery shared equally by all.

So now we get Forbes' list of the most miserable cities in America.

1. Detroit
2. Flint
3. Rockford, IL
4. Chicago
5. Modesto, CA
6. Vallejo, CA
7. Warren, MI
8. Stockton, CA
9. Lake County, IL
10. New York
11. Toledo, OH
12. St Louis
13. Camden, NJ
14. Milwaukee
15. Atlantic City
16. Atlanta
17. Cleveland
18. Poughkeepsie, NY
19. Gary, IN
20. Youngstown, OH

The obvious conclusion that can be reached with this list is related to the consequences of unfettered Liberal governance.  With Rockford, Chicago, and Lake County all in the top 10, it should give everyone pause about the president we somehow elected twice who is a product of that Chicago machine.

Certainly California and New York fit the bill in terms of unfettered liberal socialist governance.  But I see other trends.

What ties these cities together - Detroit, Flint, Warren, Toledo?  The auto manufacturing industry.  Wait, isn't Obama out there telling everyone he saved that industry?  Dirty little truth - he didn't save it, be merely extended and deepened the misery.  Bailing out the union pension funds and beefing up GM's balance sheet did nothing to address the structural failures of GM.  Giving Chrysler away to Fiat hardly qualifies as "saving" that company.

Fact is, Henry Ford's American automotive juggernaut is dead.  The Japanese, Koreans, and Germans are all building better cars cheaper.  Because they don't face the same obstacles the U.S. Government places in front of the American manufacturers.  Fortunately Henry's company continues to survive despite all the efforts of Washington bureaucrats to kill it.

Another group of cities - Cleveland, Gary, Youngstown.  Those cities have long been known as Steel Cities.  What has killed them?  Federal Environmental Regulation.  Gary was once a thriving metropolis with jobs for the taking that paid wages well above those people could get anywhere else.  But they were dirty jobs.  Dangerous jobs.  So the Steel Industry is all but gone from North America, moved overseas to countries who don't mind putting their poor folks to work in dirty, dangerous steel plants.

So yes, every city on the list can track its demise straight back to government.  Sometimes it's local government corruption (Gary, Cleveland), sometimes it's City and State corruption (Rockford, Chicago, Lake County, California).  Mostly it's all of the above.

Want to find out where people are thriving?  The Dakotas, where Obama hasn't figured out how to shut down their oil shale boom.  Most of the states with Republican governors.  Perhaps except for New Jersey, where we're learning that Chris Christie is not a Republican.  In Ohio, even with a Republican Governor, it doesn't seem possible to overcome the longstanding domination of places like Cleveland by liberal Democrats.  One of the most notorious places for Democrat voter fraud in this year's election was Cleveland.

Certainly Gary has always been influenced much more by Chicago politically than Indianapolis.

The trends can't be more stark.