Recent quotes:

Recession in Oil Patch Red States This Year? - Washington Center for Equitable Growth

After accounting for the multiplier, the absence of the Medicaid expansion and other ObamaCare nullification efforts is putting a downward drag on economic growth in Red States of about 0.5% this year: a 2%-point growth in the non-insurance gap times 1/6 of the economy times a 1/2 insurance-spending attenuation factor times a Keynesian multiplier of 3: Add to that the effect of the oil price declines like 1986 and 1998 on the oil patch: And I do not see how the Dallas Fed can still forecast: This year Texas job growth likely to moderate to 2.0-2.5%, about 259,000 jobs–149,000 fewer than 2014–and close to US job growth…
#Regional-Economics - equitablegrowth.org

Afternoon Must-Read: AFP: 'Mega-Drought' Risk in 21st-Century Western U.S. - Washington Center for Equitable Growth

Increasingly, not just prairie agriculture but California agriculture looks like toast. Phoenix and Las Vegas look uninhabitable because of an unsolvable water problem. And when prairie agriculture goes and we shift away from carbon energy, there will be no reason to live between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountain Front Range… AFP: ‘Mega-Drought’ Risk in 21st-Century Western U.S.: “Currently the western United States… …has been experiencing a drought for about 11 of the past 14 years…. ‘I was honestly surprised at just how dry the future is likely to be,’ said co-author Toby Ault…. ‘We are the first to do this kind of quantitative comparison between the projections and the distant past, and the story is a bit bleak,’ said Jason Smerdon…. ‘Even when selecting for the worst mega-drought-dominated period, the 21st century projections make the mega-droughts seem like quaint walks through the Garden of Eden.’… Researchers applied 17 different climate models to analyze the future impact of rising temperatures on regions from Mexico to the United States and Canada…. ‘The results… are extremely unfavorable for the continuation of agricultural and water resource management as they are currently practiced in the Great Plains and southwestern United States,’ said David Stahle… who was not involved in the study…
#Global-Warming #Regional-Economics - equitablegrowth.org