Brendan Gates

A co-worker recently made a claim to me that our country’s most financially busted states were also the most liberal states, and went on to say that the liberal ideology is what put them into their debt-laden situations. I didn’t know if these claims were true or not, so I decided to do some research.

Getting data on state deficits, budgets, and populations was pretty straightforward. Quantifying whether a state was Liberal or Conservative was less so. I decided to go with three indicators. The first was whether the state’s governor was Republican or Democrat. The second was which presidential candidate the state’s electoral votes went to in the 2008 election. And the third was an average margin of victory for Republicans or Democrats over the last 5 presidential elections; something Wikipedia is using to label states as either Red, Blue, or Purple (in the middle).

So what does the data say?

For starters, one way to determine if a particular ideology is more fiscally responsible than the other is to just look at the states with no deficit at all. There are six; Arkansas, W. Virginia, Montana, Alaska, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Three of them have Democrats for governors, and three have Republicans, though all six went for McCain in 2008. And four of the states were considered Red by Wikipedia. So far so good for my co-worker, and not so much so for the Liberals.

The other end of the spectrum, the most debt-laden, paints a picture that’s much less black & white. California has the largest deficit, and they’re as blue as a blue state can be. But second place is occupied by Texas, who is typically quite proud of their very Red state label. Absolute totals are probably not the best way to read the data, since of course California and Texas will have a lot of debt. They have a lot of people.

For deficit as a percentage of budget, Nevada reigns supreme with a whopping 45%. And they’re a Red state. Second place is New Jersey with 37%, and they’re a Blue state. Of course, third is Texas and fourth is California, so they don’t seem to do well no matter whether we’re looking at the absolute or the relative data. The all Liberals = Debt theory is starting to look a little weaker than it did before.

Alright, so what’s the answer? Does being a liberal state equal debt?

Not really, according to this data. You can probably make a strong argument that more of the states with debt are Blue states. But there are some Blue states with no debt or very little debt (like Iowa), just as there are Red states with tons of debt (like Texas or Nevada). So I can’t justify saying that being a liberal state means you automatically have more debt, since that doesn’t hold up across all of the states.

For the record, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a statistician and you can trust my analysis about as far as you can throw it. I personally think the argument that more populated states tend to accrue higher deficits is just as likely as any sort of political explanation (the six states with no deficit are all in the bottom third of population). But you don’t have to trust me. I put the data in a Google Spreadsheet so you can see it yourself and sort it any way you like. Download it here (State Budget Deficits 2012 [PDF]) as a PDF too, if that’s your thing.

Ladyfriend and I are buying a house, and as a part of that we needed a loan. Earlier this month I put in applications to four different lenders, the third of which was Regions bank. We ended up meeting with a Loan Originator from Regions, followed by a meeting with a Broker from Gershman. Both were very helpful and pleasant, and went out of their way to make sure we understood their process. We were upfront with both lenders from the beginning about how we were approaching the process, and that we would be comparing them to other lenders. Both told us that was no problem, and in fact was a good idea.

Starting on December 8 and ending today, 36 messages were exchanged between myself and the Regions Loan Originator. I left him a voicemail yesterday informing him that we had decided to go with Gershman, and thanking him for his time and effort on our behalf. He responded with the email below, which is message 36 of the 38:

My response (message 37):

The Regions Loan Originator’s final response (message 38):

I was really taken aback by this message. Calling us disloyal and “pathetic” go a little too far, in my opinion, and make this much more personal than it needs to be.

So I’m putting the messages online, for my friends and all five of my blog readers to see. Why do that? I don’t feel like I was treated properly, and it’s something I would have wanted to know about (and avoid) ahead of time. But you may not agree, and that’s perfectly fine. I thought that the best way to be objective about this was to just put it all out there, and let you decide for yourself.

12/30/2010 UPDATE: Regions customer service has apologized, and the Loan Originator has also reached out to personally apologize for his behavior. Though they have lost my business, I do appreciate them attempting to make things right.

It’s official. We’re moving back to Missouri.

Ladyfriend got a new job (within the same company) that requires relocation, and I’m coming along for the ride. I work remotely anyway, so I can do that from most any city I would choose to live in. We’ve even had our offer accepted on a house we wanted, and at this point we’re going through the whole inspection/loan acquisition process. With luck we’ll be all moved and settled by the end of January.

I’m excited to go back, mostly because of family and friends that I’ve been away from for the last three years. But I’ve been a little surprised at how sad it’s made me to think of leaving Oregon.

Sure, I’ve had my differences with the Beaver state. I drove my Prius into town thinking I would fit right in, and quickly learned that “liberal” in the Midwest is not the same thing as “liberal” on the West Coast, putting me squarely into a political no man’s land. It also rains here. A lot. Home prices seem inflated, which is in stark contrast to the shockingly high homeless population that peppers the city’s street corners. And then there’s the football team. Just as I start to feel smug about Mizzou’s recently succesful years, I need only look outside to see countless flags, stickers, jerseys and hats to remind me of the Ducks – a team poised to take the National Championship, if not break into dynasty status.

But Oregon has offered me quite a bit during my time here.  For starters, I doubt that I’ll ever live in a place with as much natural beauty. Mountain views, the Pacific coast only an hour away, Crater Lake, countless waterfalls, and parks everywhere. Natural offerings that are only improved by the gorgeous summer weather. I also had the privilege of helping create something bigger than myself. We opened a new center for my company, taking it from construction site to a bustling office, with all of us pitching in to build, hire, train, clean, install, market and do whatever else was needed to open those front doors. To see that facility today, and know that it will be here long after I am gone, is something that will always give me great pride. It is quite easily my proudest professional achievement.

And of course, there’s the people. I met so many great people, and nothing will be harder to leave behind. I will miss working with all of them, the ridiculous water-cooler chats we had, and being the office’s all-around go to nerd.

So fare thee well, Oregon. I’ll come back and visit sometime. Go Ducks!