Monday, August 15, 2016

Mark Dayton's Economic Minnesota Miracle

For the past couple years I've had the occasional brainwashed Minnesota leftist automaton regurgitate cud it received, pre-chewed by the Minnesota democrat party and say,

"Oh yeah!!! But what about Mark Dayton's economic miracle!!!!????  About how he taxed the rich and now Minnesota is the fastest growing state in the nation?  Huh?  What about that!!??? Huh huh???"

I'm old and experienced enough to ignore this because 100% of the time...

not 97%
not 98%
not 99%

but ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time when I hear anything coming from the left it is either an outright lie or it is a half-truth making the entire statement a lie.  Combine this with the fact no leftists (and not that many rightists either) care about empiricism or proof, I don't bother wasting my breath trying to argue, and just let the naive fool continue on his/her doomed leftist career path of non-profit work, academia, panhandling, or slinging Uptown coffee.

But when I heard it the fourth time, it was getting annoying.  And so to have the data very handy I decided to look up this "economic miracle" and see for myself just what a great job Mark Dayton (and not the hard working people of Minnesota) did to get this economy booming.  And true to form, you find out the left's claim of an economic miracle here in Minnesota, just isn't true.

Right off the bat there is no "miracle" happening here in Minnesota.  If you look at GDP figures of Minnesota vs. the United States, we averaged a whopping 1/10th of 1% more than the nation since Mark Dayton has been governor.  This right here is not a "miracle."  It's a rounding error.  Minnesota's economic growth has been IDENTICAL to the nation's.


Of course, then the left immediately cites unemployment as success of Dayton's trust-fund baby socialism, pointing out Minnesota's unemployment rate is much lower than the country's.  This is true, but has always been true.  Minnesota has always had a lower unemployment rate than the nation.  Chalk it up to sociological factors of its people, not the governor:















About the only thing approaching "miracle" status is that of the government budget, which went from deficit to surplus under Dayton's reign.  This is hardly shocking that the left would point to a growing state as "success" since they largely parasitically depend on it for their survival, but state finances are NOT the economy.  Furthermore, this was the trend NATION WIDE.  All states went through the worst recession in 2006-2010, most of their budgets went into deficit, and when the economy (sort of) rebounded, they went into surplus.  About the only thing Dayton did was his same ole same ole Trust Fund Baby Socialism or "tax the rich" which may have begotten a healthier surplus than most, but at the expense of driving long term capital and investment away (um for those leftists reading this, "capital" and "investment" means companies who provide jobs).

In short, I would like to say that I am writing a biased or political piece.  I would like to say I have a personal hatred for Dayton (which I do).  But I don't have to.  An empirical and intellectually honest assessment of Minnesota's economic performance will plainly show there is no booming economy here, let alone a "miracle."  It's simply a lie that should be a text book case study for any student interested in studying political propaganda.

8 comments:

Hot Sam said...

Job growth in Minnesota since the recession has been tepid and is now slowing below one percent.

Housing permits are rising but are still below the median level since 1980.

House price growth has been holding steady at about 5% since 2013, but that is the MINIMUM growth rate required to break even on maintenance, depreciation, interest, and other costs.

State GDP is only an estimate obtained by weighting the state's share of Industrial Production by national GDP growth. So yes IP in MN is growing only slightly faster than the national rate.

The labor force participation rate recently rose sharply in first quarter 2016, but several other Midwest states had a similar rise. Can't explain it. LFPR remains at low levels for MN though.

Home ownership rates in MN also spiked upward in first quarter 2016. Something appears artificial here.

MN is increasing state expenditures this year after three years of decline. That's always an easy way to artificially boost growth.

Anonymous said...

I think the left hand column is supposed to show more than just "2011".

Anonymous said...

There is 5 times 2011 in your table.

Mark Matis said...

Here's another "biased political piece":
https://www.youtube.com/embed/BdNHf1g4ivA

It's absolutely true, but it reflects poorly upon the Chosen One, and so it must be buried.

Captain Capitalism said...

Whoops, thanks guys.

One Fat Oz Guy said...

A bit like the trend in the 80s and 90s for CEOs to outsource and carve up and sell off chunks of companies, it's not until they've taken their golden handshake and run you realise they sold everyone, including the investors, out.
In this case the investors are the taxpayers.

iowaan said...

i've always thought DFL stood for Dumb F**k League.

Anonymous said...

Take a look at this:

Conservative Myths: Top 10 Myths

On this page, they talk about the discrepancy between Minnesota's and Wisconsin's governor.