Louisiana loses population in 2017

[Tom Lennox 70]

Originally Posted by bpollen

Job diversity. Louisiana is mainly an oil & chemical state. They went down that road years ago and I suspect are stuck there, now. There's not much here to attract headquarters or big white collar businesses or large retail, like some other states. Texas is huge, also. Louisiana is small.

Once the area became industrial, I believe that makes it less desirable for white collar jobs. Industrial businesses by their nature are dirty. Flooding is rampant (it wasn't a few decades ago). The cost of living is a tad high, compared to many other cities of the same size, because of the high cost of homeowner's insurance, auto insurance, and health insurance (and there are fewer ins. cos. who want to sell those things here because of all the claims).

Houston is a metropolis, so is not comparable to any city in La., except maybe New Orleans. Houston floods less, and is a tad further from the coast because the coastline dips down.

Lafayette will be booming again in the future. It has a vibrant music business, entertainment business, and a few smaller headquarters. Lake Charles diversified a bit with gambling, but that type of business doesn't attract the kind of white collar people needed for lasting middle class, low crime growth.

As the effects of climate change continue to kick in, I think that the hotter areas, like the Gulf Coast, will lose population or become stagnant, as people move to cooler climates. Hurricanes will get worse & more frequent, as well.

LMAO what about people fleeing the frozen wastelands of Michigan, upstate New York, etc etc???? The South in general is booming.

[Tom Lennox 70]

Originally Posted by Innotech

Louisiana is at a good size. big enough to be interesting, small enough not to get big city problems. It still feels like a real place too and not the cookie cutter sanitized place many other states are becoming.

Ascension Parish is becoming that way. More and more of St. Tammany and Livingston too.

[Tom Lennox 70]

Originally Posted by bpollen

The people are tired of taxes in La because the taxes are already so high. Calcasieu Parish has the highest sales tax in the nation. Then there's a state income tax, which some states don't have. Then there are added taxes because of drainage and disasters and storm protections (added to utilities and whatever). Then there are property taxes, which are lower than most other states, but the house prices are considerably higher so that makes the property taxes equal with many other states. Then there's homeowner's insurance, which is double over many other places because this is a disaster state. That's not a tax, but that's a huge hit to the average resident.

The state cut corporate taxes 80% under Jindal. Tha's what caused the financial problems. If the state needs more money, it needs to rectify that mistake. It can't expect the residents, most of whom have below-national level wages, to make up for that whopping tax cut they gave to corporations. Now, the federal tax cut bill will lower taxes considerably more for those corporations, while giving average people little relief, and even RAISING taxes on some.

I'd say the corporations could easily afford to pay a bit more in taxes, while the average resident would find it a hardship. There's the answer.

Flood protection should be the responsibility of the federal government and should come out of the federal taxes. IMHO the federal government should have covered the cost of Katrina reconstruction and also helped businesses rebuild and reopen, not just private residences. So many people I know were also screwed over by FEMA after the 2016 floods. Obama showed he didn't care, not even enough to interrupt his taxpayer funded golf. vacation on Martha's Vineyard.

Very unfair that powerful states like California are able to get the feds to pay for all their fire damage and response and all of us subsidize the New York City subway while we in the South and in rural areas get nothing back from Washington despite the taxes we pay. All we get is overregulation hurting our economy.

[SavannahLife]

Tom, you realize most southern states lose money, and the north and west make money. Right? Under your logic you should be getting LESS help. And frankly, with the boneheaded approach to sea level rise and environmental regulation from Republicans, you shouldn't get any help. In fact, to be truly conservative, I think we need to get rid of the national flood insurance program altogether. To be fair, I also think we ought to tell people living in rural California near national forest, they're at their own risk. Not worth risking fire fighters' lives to save houses in the woods. Nor to continue having people rebuild in flood zones putting responders' lives at risk and costing people living inland to keep bailing you out. Now if a true natural disaster strikes, that is where the federal govt should step up. But we know where flood zones are. Ironically that is often where rich people want their ocean view house. Which we pay to rebuild again and again. Crazy. I just love how the economic externalities always escape so-called conservatives. It's fine, as long as some northern state is paying, right? Pff. Without California and NY the rest of the US would be in a lot worse shape.

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

Originally Posted by Tom Lennox 70

LMAO what about people fleeing the frozen wastelands of Michigan, upstate New York, etc etc???? The South in general is booming.

Many, if not most of those folks from Michigan, Indiana and Ohio who moved to Houston for industrial and other blue collar jobs during the late 60's, 70's, and mid-80's came from families who migrated to the Midwest Rust Belt during the 1930's, 40's, 50's, and the early 1960's from the Middle and Eastern parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. Michigan is the Northern terminus of the so-called Hillbilly Highway.