Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[--Pete]

Hi,

Those numbers would be close, if Okanogan County was an autarky. The 4.2% in manufacturing presumably also counts, which would make the number more like 4 to 1.

OK, we split this one. The manufacturing takes it up to 18.8%, slightly more than 5 to 1. The nearly 8% in public administration is what perplexes me. Maybe it's related to your next point.

While you're right that it's not quite as easy as looking at the raw %, it's also not quite as easy as assuming the entire economy is based 100% on its primary industries.

Given its relative isolation, low population density, and low average incomes, I can only imagine it is the recipient of substantial government largesse, at least per capita.

And that would explain the large percentage of public administrators (probably following the model of the bridge and night watchman ).

Quite a lot of the US (and of most first world countries with hinterlands) is primarily employed in simply existing - despite the incredibly low population density of, say, the Northwest Territories, without government subsidy, people would be moving out, not in. Given a ruthlessly operating free market inhabited by homo economicus with no attachment to its hometown, these areas would be essentially abandoned.

Really, do you think people move to or stay in a region because of government support? I'd suppose that it might influence some not to move away, but even that would probably marginal in an area where there are few other services for the indigent.

That then raises the question of why 40,000 people live there in the first place, if the predominant occupations are economically unfeasible given free trade with what amounts to the very same region across the border.

I suspect a number of reasons. First, logging is only one of the base occupations. And logging was hurt, not destroyed; the logging plant was hurt, but not shut down. So, there are a lot of reasons to stay, hope being one of them.

Another, of course, is inertia. Combined with denial, it keeps people from moving on to new professions and new areas. In the rational sense, the choice between staying while hoping that the old ways will return and leaving to face the uncertain unknown is quite simple. Emotionally, it is not. The question is not why so many Irish moved to the USA (and elsewhere) during the potato famine. The question is, why did so many stay.

--Pete