chapotraphouse

I can guarantee you that no balkanization is going to happen in the US.

Why? Because this is no longer the time period where individual states can build up their gold reserves as a store of their wealth. No, the US dollar is unparalleled in history in the sense that it allows the US to get “free lunches” from all over the world with junk papers.

I love quoting from this article from 2022 because the Californian finance department accidentally revealed a very crucial fact:

If you look at all of the personal income tax returns that were filed in California in the year 2020, just 1% of the total number of income tax returns that were filed were responsible for more than 49% of all of the personal income tax that was paid in that year. And unlike most of us who get our income from wages and salaries, that very narrow band of taxpayers derives a lot of their income from things like capital gains, stock markets [and] bonuses that are tied to corporate or stock performance. So when the markets are doing very well, those individuals are doing very well and state revenues are doing very well. Conversely, when the markets go south, their fortunes don't do very well and the state's revenues decline as a result.

Let’s parse this paragraph: California, the richest state in the US, derives much of its tax revenues from capital gains such as stocks and bonds. Yeah, good luck losing access to the dollar, if any US state even dares to contemplate about seceding for real. Their wealth and living standards are going to plunge overnight. Good luck with that.