What's going on

Paul Krugman continues to be the indispensable man.  The (4/2) article linked below is the clearest diagnosis I have seen of the state of the nation.  As I type this - across the street from Stanford, about a mile from Facebook and Google headquarters, a few miles down the road from where Genentech and Gilead developed drugs to fight cancer and cure hepatitis C, not far from the garage where Hewlett-Packard was founded - Oklahoma is cutting funding to schools because trickle down something something.

For the most part I’m in agreement with Berkeley’s Enrico Moretti, whose 2012 book, The New Geography of Jobs, is must reading for anyone trying to understand the state of America. Moretti argues that structural changes in the economy have favored industries that employ highly educated workers — and that these industries do best in locations where there are already a lot of these workers. As a result, these regions are experiencing a virtuous circle of growth: Their knowledge-intensive industries prosper, drawing in even more educated workers, which reinforces their advantage.

And at the same time, regions that started with a poorly educated work force are in a downward spiral, both because they’re stuck with the wrong industries and because they’re experiencing what amounts to a brain drain.

(link)