Replies

DiogenesLamp: "The graphic shows which cities were *COLLECTING* the money, but the South was paying 75-85% of it."

Sorry, but that is simply a lie, regardless of how often you repeat it.
You have no data -- none, zero, nada data -- to support it and there's lots to refute it.

Your argument here might make a smidgen of sense if you talked about cotton as roughly 50% of US exports, about $200 million in 1860.
But even then it falls apart from the fact that the South also imported $200 million -- from Europe?
Noooooo, from the North.
So effectively everything they earned from exports, they soon spent in the North.
This gave the North, not the South, money to pay for imports.

Finally, there's the matter of Confederate debts to the North repudiated in early 1861.
It was supposed to help finance the war, but didn't work out because the debtors had lost their income sources, manly cotton.
Well, there are no reliable figures on how much debt Confederates repudiated, but the number out there is $300 million, an interesting number beside $200 million in cotton exports and $200 million in imports from the North.

Point is that Northern banks contributed a lot to Southern prosperity.

DiogenesLamp: "As I keep telling you, the laws were jiggered to funnel almost all import traffic into New York where the Robber Baron crony capitalists who controlled Washington DC could get their cut.
The South was paying for the vast bulk of the European trade, but the money was funneled into New York."

But nothing was "jiggered", it was simple economics:

It cost a lot of money to buy and build a cotton plantation, money planters largely borrowed from Northern banks -- up to $300 million.
It cost more money to run a plantation, money for imports of Northern manufactured goods, about $200 million per year.
Once such expenses were paid, Southern planters had little to no money left for luxury European imports.
That's one reason tariffs from Confederate state ports in 1860 totaled less than $3 million.
So how much of circa $400 million in total 1860 imports were bought & paid for by cotton exporters?
Certainly not more than the 6% which arrived in cotton state ports, about $24 million.

So why did so much of imports come through Northeastern cities?
Because after "exporting" $200 million in manufactured goods to the South, that's where nearly all the buyers were.

FLT-bird: "The parallel would be today claiming that NY generates some large percentage of GDP.
No it doesn't.
They money flows through there."

As for how much of New York's income comes from manufacturing, how much from trade, transportation, finance, media & communications, technology, fashion, entertainment & tourism, etc., etc., there's certainly a mix and all of it economically legitimate, much as some people don't like it.

FLT-bird: "A lot is collected from the banks via various taxes and fees.
They didn't generate that wealth.
Take them away and a new finance center could be erected fairly quickly.
Take away the vast vast hinterland that generates all that economic activity and NY would have its balls chopped off and would never recover."

Now you sound like Barrack Obama: "you didn't build that!".
So why are we getting Leftists propaganda on a conservative site?

Anyway, the same is true of any city -- large, medium sized or small -- not just New York.
Every city can be like a large tree with roots growing deep & spread wide in the ground.
At the top, in spring you see pretty flowers, fruit in the fall, all seeming graceful & effortless, but just under the leaves & bark is an incredibly hard working machine.
The US has dozens of large metropolitan areas, of which about 1/3 are in the Old South, especially Texas.

FLT-bird: "The PC Revisionists never have a good answer for that one.
'Tariffs were collected in NY'.
LOLOLOL!!!!
Does anybody with even a rudimentary understanding of economics think New York paid those tariffs?
If Wal-Mart has a ship full of goods land in the busiest port in America, Long Beach California, does anybody think the city of Long Beach or the state of California pays the tariff? "

Now you guys are waging fierce battles against straw men, and winning!
Amazing!

Your Walmart container landing in Long Beach is a pretty good example -- who exactly do those goods belong to?
Do they belong to cattle ranchers in Texas who shipped beef to China & Japan?
Noooo… those ranchers were paid for their beef at the stockyards where they sold them.
So ranchers don't own Walmart's containers, Walmart does.
So who owns Walmart?
Well, pretty much everybody who has a retirement plan or has a stake-holding there -- employees, customers, suppliers, banks, sub-contractors, neighbors, etc., all have at least some interest in that Walmart container.
But the fact is ownership of a Walmart container is so diffuse there's no single person or even interest group who can lay claim to having "paid for" it.

Just as in 1860, Southern planters cannot claim to have "paid for" US imports with their exports.

New York and Brooklyn, then a separate city, were major manufacturing cities in 19th century America. Plenty of wealth, apart from shipping and finance, was generated there, and the large population provided plenty of consumers.

And yes, New York was the center of a distribution network, but it's easy to forget how much of that network was clustered around New York. Hartford, New Haven, Springfield, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Elmira, Paterson, Newark, Trenton, Scranton, Allentown, Reading: all were manufacturing centers which generated their own share of the country's wealth and bought much in imports, whether for business or for household use. New York was a major distribution center in good part because it was so close to so many industrial cities, and those cities were successful because they had access to the consumers and transportation facilities of New York City.

Actually, there was direct transportation of cotton from Charleston and New Orleans directly to Britain and Europe. Fraser and Trenholm or John Fraser and Company or Trenholm Brothers was a major Charleston shipping firm with branches in Liverpool and New York City. But there were limits to how much in imports Charleston and other Southern cities could absorb, so it made sense that much business was done through New York.

BTW I just found Ezekiel Donnell, Chronological and Statistical History of Cotton (New York: J. Sutton & Co. printers, 1872) online. He says that in 1853-1855 fully half of all cotton exported to Britain was shipped from New Orleans. The book gives statistics for other years. It looks like most of the cotton trade did not go through New York City. Most of the cotton from smaller ports, like those in Florida, made its way up the coast, most likely to New York, but New Orleans definitely was the major player, and became more dominant over time. So have we been arguing about nothing all this time?

BroJoeK:

Sorry, but that is simply a lie, regardless of how often you repeat it. You have no data -- none, zero, nada data -- to support it and there's lots to refute it.

nah. Your denial is the lie. There has been a ton of evidence posted. You just don't like it because it refutes what you want to believe. BroJoeK:

But nothing was "jiggered", it was simple economics: It cost a lot of money to buy and build a cotton plantation, money planters largely borrowed from Northern banks -- up to $300 million. It cost more money to run a plantation, money for imports of Northern manufactured goods, about $200 million per year. So why did so much of imports come through Northeastern cities? Because after "exporting" $200 million in manufactured goods to the South, that's where nearly all the buyers were.

the navigation acts were just simple economics? Tariffs were just simple economics? Grossly unequal government expenditures for corporate welfare and infrastructure with most going to the North...yes North of the Mason Dixon line were just economics? Don't bother trying the usual spin and lies here. Nobody's buying it. You've been provided with tons of sources which directly refute your little fantasy numbers. BroJoeK:

The New York metropolitan area has about 7% of the US population and produces about 8% of our GDP, giving them a per capita income roughly 15% higher than the national average. That 15% average higher income doesn't seem so much when you consider the overall higher prices people pay to live there. As for how much of New York's income comes from manufacturing, how much from trade, transportation, finance, media & communications, technology, fashion, entertainment & tourism, etc., etc., there's certainly a mix and all of it economically legitimate, much as some people don't like it. Then as now, NY doesn't "produce" nearly as much as the money that flows through there. That wealth is generated by the rest of the country. The finances just flow through New York. It was the same then. NY was the banking center and at the time an even larger port relative to others. The actual wealth was generated elsewhere - most of it in Southern cash crops. Without the tariffs, Southern exporters keep more of their money and everybody pays lower prices for manufactured goods. This particularly benefits the Southern states at the time since they have less manufacturing. If they are a separate country then they no longer are governed by the navigation acts and thus have no reason to use NY insurance companies, banks, middlemen, shipping companies etc. They also buy fewer Northern manufactured goods because now those foreign goods come in at a much lower tariff rate. Also, plenty of ship builders in the North are put out of work because they don't have nearly as much shipping business - ie yet more jobs and wealth staying home in the Southern states. In addition to all that, if Northerners want corporate welfare and infrastructure projects, they need to figure out how to pay for it themselves since they're now going to have to bear the costs rather than Southerners bearing the bulk of the costs. That is why Northern newspapers were filled with stories about how their Cash Cow - ie the Southern states - leaving would be such a disaster for the North. BroJoeK:

Now you sound like Barrack Obama: "you didn't build that!". So why are we getting Leftists propaganda on a conservative site?

the Leftist propaganda is what you've been spewing. PC Revisionism....something put forth in the last generation by a bunch of LEFTISTS in Academia.BroJoeK:

Now you guys are waging fierce battles against straw men, and winning! Amazing!

No we're not. This has been your argument. This is the economically illiterate argument made by James McPherson.BroJoeK:

Your Walmart container landing in Long Beach is a pretty good example -- who exactly do those goods belong to? Do they belong to cattle ranchers in Texas who shipped beef to China & Japan? Noooo… those ranchers were paid for their beef at the stockyards where they sold them. So ranchers don't own Walmart's containers, Walmart does. So who owns Walmart? Well, pretty much everybody who has a retirement plan or has a stake-holding there -- employees, customers, suppliers, banks, sub-contractors, neighbors, etc., all have at least some interest in that Walmart container. But the fact is ownership of a Walmart container is so diffuse there's no single person or even interest group who can lay claim to having "paid for" it.

in your long rambling response that only vaguely resembles an answer, you could have saved everybody a lot of time by simply admitting Wal-Mart owns that container and pays the tariff. WHERE the container ship docked makes no difference. Had it docked in New Orleans, Wal-Mart would have had to pay the tariff there.

Get it? The owner of the goods pays. Where they pay is IRRELEVANT.BroJoeK:

Just as in 1860, Southern planters cannot claim to have "paid for" US imports with their exports.

Once again, you demonstrate your gross ignorance of economics.