dmv wrote:

Now here's something curious: The Map from the NYT shows the various increases in bankruptcy rates on a county by county basis. The results were not exactly what I would have suspected, given how various counties voted in the last Presidential election:

Is it just me, or are is the map above surprisingly similar to those red/blue maps we saw so much of right after the election?

The really curious thing is that the Gore voters from 2000 are filing for less bankruptcies since 2000, while the Bush voters are filing for more. (Does that make any sense to you?)

The comment about how few people can afford to vote Republican? Done in graphical form.

Here's what I don't understand. The areas where bankruptcy had a lower incidence voted democrat (mostly) yet the republicans are the ones making it harder to declare. In other words, the wishful thinkers vote republican because they wish they had enough money to be republican? There's a disconnect here, and it's exploitable.

Mike the Usurper wrote:

There's a disconnect here, and it's exploitable.

You mean, is being exploited. Ask Karl Rove. As per my first comment on this thread, the joke has been that most people who vote Republican can't afford to.

Maybe it is because we're seeing it in Republican fiscal policy, too. Cut taxes, boost spending -- someone on the verge of bankrupcy can understand that ideology. Because one rarely sees the approaching bankrupcy, until it is upon them and if they just got that new car, everything will work out. Economic stimulous, right? Forget balancing the checkbook, that's for people who actually need to or could make ends meet.

And those who can afford to vote Republican -- well, they're getting enough tax relief that they can feel confident in their personal ability to weather the debt storm coming. In Bermuda, or whereever convenient.

I remember some time around the election last year, there was a graph plotting net worth and party affiliation. When you approached a net-worth of 1-10M, it was primarily Republican... but then there was an interesting roll-off into Democrat territory as you got substantially above it. When you got to the kind of fortunes that are no longer concerned about tax law impacts, and that look back into a macro scale.