It is quite insane that there are only three countries that have larger GDP than these seven regions: China, Japan and Germany.
Still US doesn't have public healthcare and free educations. Those would be peanuts in money. Crazy.
It would save money. On average citizens would pay less than they do right now.
Americans don’t vote with their brain, they vote with their limbic system.
It's not a personal problem, it's a systemic one. Americans are disenfranchised by little percentages that add up here and there until broadly popular positions can't get made into law. The Senate is inherently gerrymandered. Congress is gerrymandered depending on each state legislature. We've got the electoral college for president and supreme court justices are selected for life just depending on when the last one died. And everything driven by who can raise the most campaign funds.
Yup - its really that big. If California was a country, it would have the 5th largest economy after the US, China, Japan and Germany.
To be fair, Minnesota pulls bro. By designing a map where each state must touch it relegates well performing states to seems less profitable than they are. Is Minnesota California? Fuck no. But should Minnesota seem like the state equivalent of the guy on the couch? Also no.
I wonder how much of Californias is entertainment and tech related with the Midwest being more manufacturing and production focused. Will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next century as tech gets more mobile and Hollywood losses influence to YouTube like sites (Yes also CA based as of now).
Also , there's a bit of a push to build more factories in the us and bring more manufacturing jobs back here from China and elsewhere abroad
The groupings in OP's image don't make sense to me. There is huge variation within those regions. Why is Washington lumped together with Idaho and Montana? Why is New York grouped with New England rather than standing on its own?
Link to larger version of this image.
And GDP per capita paints an even different picture. By this metric North Dakota should stand by itself:
