Buy / Sell: Mississippi's economy is in a 'death spiral'

[Maroon Eagle]

Being the least expensive isn’t a bad thing.

It’s not so long as folks and businesses in the state have money on hand to cover rising costs.

 

[garddog]

Goat, are any of the interstates more than 2 lanes? Does the rail yard have cranes, warehouses and easy access? Jackson Airport has been half dead for 25 years.

I lived in Dallas and Memphis before coming back home. I have worked with companies in logistics and inventory. Everything in both my posts is 100% true.
Big companies want cheap and easy transportation for their goods.
Jackson's urban planning was crap and still is.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

The way we vote is our biggest problem.

Here we go

On the county level, most of Mississippi opted for the most country *** redneck on the ballot for supervisor. Or in some cases who they “are kin to” . Either way, these guys are responsible for a ton of infrastructure, and their sole goal is to not spend money. The county roads in this state are deplorable, mostly still dirt even in the 21st century. God forbid most Mississippi counties vote for a qualified candidate over one that might do em a favor.

Cities and counties aren’t much better. But since the cities have what little infrastructure and industry we do have these positions are vital and mostly run by uneducated people with no business sense.
And why we continue to let the Rankin county Republican Party continue to control our statewide candidates we will continue on the same path we are on.
Do your homework on candidates and vote for the most qualified.

I have a hard time believing that this isn’t the case in most rural areas around the country.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Goat, are any of the interstates more than 2 lanes? Does the rail yard have cranes, warehouses and easy access? Jackson Airport has been half dead for 25 years.

I lived in Dallas and Memphis before coming back home. I have worked with companies in logistics and inventory. Everything in both my posts is 100% true.
Big companies want cheap and easy transportation for their goods.
Jackson's urban planning was crap and still is.

None of that is true. The actual infrastructure is fine for the traffic and growth. Trust me - I know more about this than you.

Airport is half dead? Talk to the airlines, not the airport. JAN has TONS of capacity.

ETA: there are also tons of logistics companies in the Jackson metro. You think they came here because it was HARD to move goods?

 

[Pink Floyd.sixpack]

I have a hard time believing that this isn’t the case in most rural areas around the country.

Well the topic is Mississippi’s economy. Just my local observation. Could give two dumps about the rest of the country’s local voting habits.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Well the topic is Mississippi’s economy. Just my local observation. Could give two dumps about the rest of the country’s local voting habits.

So you are saying that improving and investing in the rural counties of MS is the answer? Just abandon the thought of urbanism. Bold strategy Cotton.

You have to compare to your peers. That’s the only way to measure anything.

 

[garddog]

None of that is true. The actual infrastructure is fine for the traffic and growth. Trust me - I know more about this than you.

Airport is half dead? Talk to the airlines, not the airport. JAN has TONS of capacity.

ETA: there are also tons of logistics companies in the Jackson metro. You think they came here because it was HARD to move goods?

Compare Memphis and Atlanta's layout for shipping. Railyards and airports in close proximity with huge warehousing between.

Jackson, airport out east, rail yard in the middle of town, big warehouses out on the west by 220. It was bad planning and implementation.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

Compare Memphis and Atlanta's layout for shipping. Railyards and airports in close proximity with huge warehousing between.

Jackson, airport out east, rail yard in the middle of town, big warehouses out on the west by 220. It was bad planning and implementation.

That Industrial Drive area on 220 is near Hawkins Field which is Jackson’s OLD airport

I thought it was weird too

 

[Pink Floyd.sixpack]

So you are saying that improving and investing in the rural counties of MS is the answer? Just abandon the thought of urbanism. Bold strategy Cotton.

You have to compare to your peers. That’s the only way to measure anything.

No. What the 17 does bold strategy cotton even mean. I’m saying that the way we vote has as much to do with is being 50th as anything. Just threw out a couple of examples. I’m saying we are too 17d up to invest on the local level in this state in anything that makes economic sense. That is all. You can have all the damn green spaces and bike trials you want for the under 35 crew and they aren’t living here until we show some sort of positive economic progress. Is that simple enough for you to understand?

 

[paindonthurt]

Yes.

Potholes— See also: Infrastructure.

Potholes not top 5. Probably even in infrastructure.

 

[paindonthurt]

It’s not so long as folks and businesses in the state have money on hand to cover rising costs.

Costs are rising everywhere.

when costs are rising being the least costly is good.

 

[johnson86-1]

"Jackson" arguably is the most desirable part of the state for young people. "Jackson" already has the most jobs. Almost everyone I remember from college that stayed in MS now lives within 10 or 20 miles of the Mississippi Capital building. No one moved back to Nettleton and Waynesboro - they all moved to "Jackson". You're hyper focused they moved to Rankin County and not Hinds, or this zipcode vs that zipcode. Who cares?

The bigger issue is that like 1/2 of us left the state. Jackson's Mayor election had virtually no impact on any of our decision. The decisions made at the Capital building did, and still do, have quite an impact.

Holy **** I don’t know how else to explain it to you. Lots of young college graduates want to live in a city. The idea of moving to a place like rankin county and having a commute into a city with basically no amenities and not wanting to go in other than for work is just not attractive to a good portion of highly educated graduates. Even for those willing to move to a place like rankin, they want the type of jobs that generally aren’t located near rankin because companies don’t want want to write off the significant portion of the workforce they want to hire that want to live in or near a nice city.
Madison and rankin county are fine and are good places to raise a family but not having a decent city means we just will not be on the radar for a ton of desirable workers and therefore not on the radar for a lot of potential site selections for good companies providing good jobs.

 

[Perd Hapley]

I would probably agree with you that "productivity" is a great measure of economic health, but I'm not sure we'd agree on what productivity means. For example, most measures of GDP are going to include incomes earned by government workers. So a policeman providing a service by providing security and discouraging crime is going to count just as much towards GDP as a policeman that is spending his time setting speed traps.

For the sake of this discussion (macroeconomic comparative analysis), I’d be more inclined to assume the aggregate to be a proportional constant. By that, I mean there’s not likely to be an appreciable difference from state to state in this category on a per capita basis. You’re going to have your productive precints and your clock punching precints (and productive / non-productive individuals in both) at a roughly equal rate. Not saying your point has no merit, I just think you get way too far into the weeds when trying to pinpoint exact levels of output in state / local government operations.

$1M in teachers salary at a school that produces exactly zero students that can read or do math at grade level counts ten times as much at $100k in teacher salary that produces 60 students that can read and do math at grade level.

Except that the situation with all the students not at grade level is obviously not something that’s ever going to happen in a vacuum in an otherwise good economic area. It’s going to be in an area that is already going to be dragging down all the indicators. Those handful of teachers aren’t bringing up the GDP in a locale that likely is filled with uneducated / deadbeat parents who likely are floating the poverty line, and are likely the real reason the kids aren’t at grade level. Teachers may be productive and capable, just not in the role they would typically be assigned. For example, if they’re qualified to teach 8th / 9th grade and above, they probably aren’t qualified to teach remedial reading / math to kids who should already have half a decade of those basics pre-programmed. But they can still offer some level of productivity as glorified day care workers, if nothing else. That still adds value even if the parents don’t take advantage of it.

Again, this gets way too far into the weeds. Good, productive economic areas don’t just up and produce bad public school districts, and vice versa. The negatives you mention are always going to he mere symptoms of much bigger problems. And the reverse is also true for the teachers in the good school.

If you and I both have stay at home wives and we each make $100k a year, we collectively count $200k towards most GDP measures. If you hire my wife for $20k a year to take care of the house and kids and I hire your wife at $20k a year to do the work that my wife was doing for free, now we collectively count $240k towards GDP. Our households became 20% more productive!1!!1!1

Well on top of not making very much sense, this would only count towards a GDP calculation if both our wives were private sector employees (or self-employed) as daycare or nanny workers, all of which require various certifications and such, with business tax returns and the whole nine yards. None of that would jive with the “stay at home wife” part so much, unless they both registered LLC’s for this work, which would then raise both our tax burdens in all likelihood. But sure, you can certainly come up with various unrealistic or illogical scenarios such as this that could theoretically cheat a productivity calculation. Does that happen hardly at all….let alone anywhere close to often enough to paint a drastically different economic picture from reality in any area? I’d say absolutely not.

And this isn't just nitpicking. Washington DC has a per capita GDP way higher than any state. In reality, most of that GDP is probably created by harmful activities that the country would be better off if they would stop.

The biggest portion of the GDP in DC is created by the DoD, which is the city’s largest employer, as well as indirect defense contractors who are overseen by the DoD. Not sure if they are responsible for the “harmful activities” you mention, but they regulate, purchase, and oversee the sale of hundreds of billions in arms, missiles, tanks, etc. to both the US military as well as other allied nations. That’s one of the country’s biggest revenue streams and value generators internationally. Wouldn’t necessarily say that’s something that needs to stop.

With something as complex as an economy, there's not going to be a one size fits all number. If I had to pick one, I think I'd go with PPP adjusted per capita income. I think that would just unfairly penalize places that are particularly nice to live (say touristy type places) and places that have geographic caused costs (say hawaii being an island; alaska being remote).

Agree with this in general. Per capita GDP is not the only number. But its certainly one to consider alongside a handful of others.

 

[Dawgg]

No. What the 17 does bold strategy cotton even mean. I’m saying that the way we vote has as much to do with is being 50th as anything. Just threw out a couple of examples. I’m saying we are too 17d up to invest on the local level in this state in anything that makes economic sense. That is all. You can have all the damn green spaces and bike trials you want for the under 35 crew and they aren’t living here until we show some sort of positive economic progress. Is that simple enough for you to understand?

Not catching the Dodgeball reference...

 

[Maroon Eagle]

Potholes not top 5. Probably even in infrastructure.

If you drove in Jackson regularly, you’d say otherwise.

 

[Dawgg]

For the sake of this discussion (macroeconomic comparative analysis), I’d be more inclined to assume the aggregate to be a proportional constant. By that, I mean there’s not likely to be an appreciable difference from state to state in this category on a per capita basis. You’re going to have your productive precints and your clock punching precints (and productive / non-productive individuals in both) at a roughly equal rate. Not saying your point has no merit, I just think you get way too far into the weeds when trying to pinpoint exact levels of output in state / local government operations.



Except that the situation with all the students not at grade level is obviously not something that’s ever going to happen in a vacuum in an otherwise good economic area. It’s going to be in an area that is already going to be dragging down all the indicators. Those handful of teachers aren’t bringing up the GDP in a locale that likely is filled with uneducated / deadbeat parents who likely are floating the poverty line, and are likely the real reason the kids aren’t at grade level. Teachers may be productive and capable, just not in the role they would typically be assigned. For example, if they’re qualified to teach 8th / 9th grade and above, they probably aren’t qualified to teach remedial reading / math to kids who should already have half a decade of those basics pre-programmed. But they can still offer some level of productivity as glorified day care workers, if nothing else. That still adds value even if the parents don’t take advantage of it.

Again, this gets way too far into the weeds. Good, productive economic areas don’t just up and produce bad public school districts, and vice versa. The negatives you mention are always going to he mere symptoms of much bigger problems. And the reverse is also true for the teachers in the good school.



Well on top of not making very much sense, this would only count towards a GDP calculation if both our wives were private sector employees (or self-employed) as daycare or nanny workers, all of which require various certifications and such, with business tax returns and the whole nine yards. None of that would jive with the “stay at home wife” part so much, unless they both registered LLC’s for this work, which would then raise both our tax burdens in all likelihood. But sure, you can certainly come up with various unrealistic or illogical scenarios such as this that could theoretically cheat a productivity calculation. Does that happen hardly at all….let alone anywhere close to often enough to paint a drastically different economic picture from reality in any area? I’d say absolutely not.



A big portion of the GDP in DC is created by the DoD, which is the city’s largest employer, as well as indirect defense contractors who are overseen by the DoD. Not sure if they are responsible for the “harmful activities” you mention, but they regulate, purchase, and oversee the sale of hundreds of billions in arms, missiles, tanks, etc. to both the US military as well as other allied nations. That’s one of the country’s biggest revenue streams and value generators internationally. Wouldn’t necessarily say that’s something that needs to stop.



Agree with this in general. Per capita GDP is not the only number. But its certainly one to consider alongside a handful of others.

This is the most productive use of Bard or ChatGPT I've seen yet and I applaud you.

 

[Pink Floyd.sixpack]

Not catching the Dodgeball reference...

Thanks for the info!! Forgot about this one

 

[Boom Boom]

That’s fine, but do you lay any of the blame on the City of Jackson?

Of course. But it doesn't really matter who runs Jackson. The state has been, and will continue to be, the deciding factor. They have the city they decided to have long ago. They "won", they gave "them" a ********.