Texas became the USA's second-largest economy during the past decade — displacing New Yorkand perhaps heading one day toward challenging California — in one of the biggest economic shifts in the past half-century.
In this July 20, 2010 photo, Cedric James, left, admissions director with MyComputerCareer.Com,meets with a prospective job applicant at a National Career Fairs Job Fair in Plano, Texas.
The dramatic realignment of the nation's economy was illustrated byNorth Carolina, Virginia and Georgia all overtaking one-time industrial powerhouse Michigan in economic size from 2000 to 2010. The economic winners of the last decade are states that focus on raw materials, government and senior citizens. The big losers are places that make things — industrial states and even California.
USA TODAY examined each state's gross domestic product to determine how the country's economic output has shifted within its borders. The data, recently released by theBureau of Economic Analysis, reflect both population growth and income increases — in short, the economic weight of each state.
Texas notched one of the biggest increases in size in a half-century, surpassing $1 trillion in annual economic output. The state gained nearly a full percentage point in its share of the U.S. economy during the decade, reaching 8.3% in 2010. This growth in economic clout has been matched only twice in the past 50 years — by California in the 1980s and Texas itself during the 1970s oil boom.
"We're growing faster than everyone else, and this trend should last a good while," says economic forecaster Raymond Berryhill of Waco, Texas. His state enjoyed "good fortune and good planning" from having natural resources, immigration and successful technology businesses while avoiding the real estate bubble, he says.
Florida's share of the national economy grew more than any state except Texas as seniors took their wealth south. But it was the long-booming state's smallest growth of any decade since the government began keeping track in the 1960s.
Other ups and downs:
•California.The state's share of the national economy peaked in 1990 but shrank faster than all but three states from 2000 to 2010. It's hard for a large economy — at $1.9 trillion, the nation's largest — to keep growing fast, especially when hit by a housing downturn, says Stephen Levy of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy.
•Virginia.The federal government-fueled suburbs of Washington, D.C., led this state and neighboring Maryland to a decade of prosperity.
•Michigan.Michigan and Ohio were the only states to end the decade economically smaller than when it began. "Michigan was the place that created the 20th-century middle class — the well-paying factory job," says Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, an economic research group. "It ended so quickly we fell off the cliff."
Economic rank
State
2010 GDP
% change from 2000
1
California
1,901
17.8
2
Texas
1,207
26.8
3
New York
1,160
19.8
4
Florida
748
22.7
5
Illinois
652
8.2
6
Pennsylvania
570
11.8
7
New Jersey
487
11.6
8
Ohio
478
-0.7
9
North Carolina
425
20.3
10
Virginia
424
27.6
11
Georgia
403
9.8
12
Michigan
384
-7.1
13
Massachusetts
379
13.5
14
Washington
340
18.3
15
Maryland
295
26.3
16
Indiana
276
10.6
17
Minnesota
270
15.3
18
Colorado
258
20.5
19
Tennessee
255
15.5
20
Arizona
254
27.5
21
Wisconsin
248
11.1
22
Missouri
244
6.1
23
Connecticut
237
14.1
24
Louisiana
219
16.2
25
Oregon
174
37.5
26
Alabama
173
16.2
27
South Carolina
164
10.9
28
Kentucky
163
12.7
29
Oklahoma
148
21.0
30
Iowa
143
21.3
31
Kansas
127
16.5
32
Nevada
126
26.7
33
Utah
115
29.1
34
Arkansas
103
18.8
35
Mississippi
97
14.6
36
Nebraska
90
22.3
37
New Mexico
80
24.4
38
Hawaii
67
21.8
39
West Virginia
65
13.0
40
Delaware
62
19.9
41
New Hampshire
60
12.0
42
Idaho
55
28.6
43
Maine
52
10.3
44
Rhode Island
49
14.8
45
Alaska
49
32.0
46
South Dakota
40
35.1
47
Wyoming
39
48.7
48
Montana
36
23.4
49
North Dakota
35
47.1
50
Vermont
26
15.9
-
United States
14,552
16.7
-
Washington, D.C.
103
29.9
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Simon Jones of Trinton Internationalsaid it was unclear what message the Somali government was sending with the arrests and jail sentences [Al Jazeera]
Somalia has jailed six foreigners for bringing millions of dollars into the country allegedly intended for pirate ransom.
The men from Britain, the US and Kenya were arrested in the capital, Mogadishu, last month after they landed at the airport. They were given jail sentences of 10 to 15 years and fines of up to $15,000.
While the Somali government opposes the payment of ransoms, the practice has become common. The UN says more than $110m was paid in ransom to Somali pirates last year.
Just last week, pirates freed a German-owned cargo ship after they received $5.7m.
"The German cargo ship has now sailed away. We have taken $5.7m in ransom," pirate Ibrahim told the Reuters news agency by phone from coastal Ras Guna.
At least 24 ships and their crew are believed to be being held for ransom at various points along the Somali coast.
Somali pirates have recently increased their attacks in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden, hijacking numerous commercial vessels.
According to the UN International Maritime Organisation, the attacks have grown in sophistication and range.
The Israeli missile defense system will be integrated into a regional defense array planned by the U.S., General Patrick O'reilly, head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, said Monday.
In an interview published in the American Defense News journal. According to the interview, the Israeli missile batteries may also protect Arab countries who are allies of the U.S. but with which Israel has no diplomatic ties.
Arrow type missile being launched in an IDF test site, 2006.
Photo by: IDF
General Patrick said that the multi-layered defense system being developed by Israel – comprised of Iron Dome and Magic Wand systems on the lower levels and Arrow 2 and 3 systems on the atmospheric level and above – will strengthen the ability of the U.S. to protect its forces in the Middle East.
Israel is the only country today employing operational missile systems that are capable of intercepting rockets and missiles of different sizes and ranges. The Arrow and Iron Dome systems were developed with American aid and in cooperation with American security companies. A large part of the systems' trials were conducted in the U.S.
Iron Dome is also the only system in the world that has succeeded in intercepting rockets in a real-time theater, by shooting down eight Grad rockets launched from the Gaza Strip two months ago.
This week, the Israeli Air Force is conducting its largest interception exercise to date, deploying missile batteries on the ground and preparing for rocket launched from Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and Iran.
In 1993, Dr. Frances Rauscher and two colleagues at the University of California - Irvine performed an experiment in which participants listened to 10 minutes of Mozart, 10 minutes of a relaxation tape and 10 minutes of silence. After each listening session, they were given a spatial reasoning task to perform. The researchers found that the participants did better on the tasks after listening to Mozart. The finding was deemed the "Mozart Effect" and quickly led to the popular misunderstanding that Mozart makes people smarter. We asked Dr. Rauscher five questions about what music actually does to our brains.1) Is there a “Mozart Effect”?
Yes. The Mozart Effect refers to brief enhanced performance on spatial-temporal tasks (such as solving puzzles or working out proportions) following 10 minutes of exposure to Mozart’s "Sonata For Two Pianos, K 448." Although the effect is “real,” it is not clear what actually causes it. Current data suggest that any music or auditory event that is arousing will produce the effect. This ability is important for solving multi-step problems, such as those tackled by architects, engineers, physicists, mathematicians, and artists. Spatial-temporal reasoning is also important for music cognition. In order to see cognitive improvement through music instruction, the instruction should begin before age six or seven, continue for at least two years, and it must be high quality instruction. 2) What happens to rats who listen to music?
Rats that were exposed to Mozart for 12 hours a day for 60 days completed a maze faster and with fewer errors than rats that were exposed to Philip Glass, white noise, or silence. There is some evidence that this is due to synaptic plasticity in the rat hippocampus incurred by exposure to Mozart.
Synaptic plasticity is one of the most important processes involved in learning and memory. It refers to the strengthening of the space (synapses) between neurons as a function of use or disuse. Everytime someone learns something, there is a physiological change in the brain. The more a neural pathway is used, the stronger the connection between those neurons involved becomes (this is why practice makes perfect.)
Babies are born with almost all the neurons they will have throughout their lifetimes, but many of the connections between neurons (the neural pathways) form after birth as a function of experience. Neural connections that are not used die out. The hippocampus, which is largely responsible for spatial learning and memory, is one of the most plastic areas of the brain.
3) Can music make you smarter?
This is an overgeneralization. Our data suggest that students who learn to play a musical instrument (rather than those who just listen to music) perform better on spatial-temporal and phonemic awareness tasks than children who are involved in other activities, such as swimming or computer lessons.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to discriminate speech sounds, a.k.a. “phonemes.” Phonemes are the smallest speech sounds that carry meaning. Breaking words down into their separate speech sounds (phonemes) requires phonemic awareness. For example, a person who can break down the word "stop" into its four separate phonemes (s-t-o-p) is showing phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness correlates strongly with pitch discrimination and reading acquisition.
Other researchers’ data suggest that overall intelligence may be affected by music instruction as well, although the data from my lab show effects only for spatial-temporal and early reading abilities. Mathematical ability may also be improved through music instruction, although not all studies are consistent. 4) Do different instruments – or different types of music – affect cognitive functions differently?
There is very little data on this, because most of the studies have used keyboard instruction. Our research shows that instruction in voice, rhythm instruments, and keyboard improves spatial-temporal reasoning. Also, children provided with instruction in rhythm instruments scored higher on numeracy tasks than those provided with voice or keyboard instruction. Finally, we have recently found that children provided with violin instruction score higher on phonemic awareness tasks (required for learning to read) than those provided with swimming lessons. 5) Should music be taught in schools?
Yes, music should be taught in schools - for its musical benefits. If one wishes to enhance spatial or mathematical abilities, there are likely more direct ways to do so. Frances Rauscher is a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh. She documented the "Mozart Effect" in 1993, along with colleagues Gordon Shaw and Katherine Ky.
Imagine an educational system in a large American city that would test every sixth grader for musical skills – pitch acuity, manual dexterity, enthusiasm about public performance – and then put the most motivated of them in a seventh grade music class that met for a full class period every day where each student would be handed a brand new musical instrument for practice and performance. Then let’s add a corps of highly educated, motivated, and talented music teachers who work with individual students on the technique required to play each instrument well and who assemble and conduct bands, orchestras, jazz ensembles, and choruses which perform for their fellow students throughout the school year.
If this sounds like the idealistic fantasies of a frustrated educational innovator, think again.
What I have just described is exactly the environment I experienced when I went to a New York City junior high school located in the borough of Queens in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Sadly this magnificent system that sought out talent and motivation, and that included students from every ethnic group and religion, no longer exists in the New York City school system of 2011.
The reasons for the dissolution of such a powerful system are attributed today to economic conditions of the 1970’s and an effort to put greater emphasis on core courses like English or mathematics, but the real reason is much more troubling. Our educational systems around America no longer have leaders who put value on artistic experiences within primary and secondary school curricula. Juilliard currently runs a program started in 1990 called the Music Advancement Program (MAP) which recruits and enrolls under-represented and economically disadvantaged children for a Saturday program at our School at Lincoln Center, where each student has a private music lesson with an experienced teacher, as well as ensemble experiences and classes in music theory and history. Invariably these MAP students (who range in age from 8 to 14) not only excel in their chosen instrument but also realize better grades in their academic studies and are identified as leaders by their peers in school and beyond.
The reasons for this success are not highly complex or esoteric, in my view. Our MAP students embrace the beauty, discipline, and pure joy of making music. They are encouraged – actually required – to use their imaginations and creativity to realize their musical goals. Their group work with their fellow student musicians make them better listeners and more empathetic individuals. They are motivated because they come to appreciate the complexity and challenges of what it is to be a serious musician and to accomplish set goals with clarity and a type of personal courage that would be appreciated by anyone who has ever tried to perform in public.
Today the arts are simply undervalued or completely ignored by many school systems around America. In New York City, teachers, principals, and entire schools are evaluated based on test scores in reading, mathematics, the sciences, but not in the arts.
I have met troubled school principals throughout New York City who have supported thriving arts programs in their individual schools and are frustrated by the fact that these arts programs are not considered when their schools are evaluated for the effectiveness of their teaching. As a result, these administrators and teachers often become despondent and either give up on these arts programs or simply disappear into retirement because New York City has no structural way to reward these educational leaders for their good work in the arts.
Sadly, America has had a long history of ignoring or undervaluing the arts. Today we see a disturbing number of our representatives in Washington, D.C. working to eliminate both the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, although each endowment’s budget is in the range of $150 million – a paltry sum when viewed in the context of the current federal budget.
Recently, the House Committee on Education & the Workforce approved HR 1891, repealing specific provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. This new bill terminates 42 federal education programs, including the longstanding Arts in Education program at the U.S. Department of Education. Of major concern is that HR 1891permanentlystrips policy language out of ESEA that allows Arts in Education to be funded each year.
It is time that legislators, school administrators, parents and the general public collectively come together to reinstate the presence of the arts in our schools’ curricula. Some of the attributes that we value most in our country – discipline, creativity, imagination, empathy, unconventional thinking – are exactly the qualities that are nurtured and developed by the study of the arts.
Let us not let down another generation of our children by allowing the arts to be disregarded by our educational systems around America. Joseph Polisi is the president of The Juilliard School and an accomplished bassoonist.
Washington, D.C.– As Joplin, Missouri, recovers from the single deadliest tornado since officials began keeping records in 1950, U.S. Representative Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, today introduced bipartisan legislation that would solidify Indian Country’s tribal sovereignty during major disasters and emergency situations.
“This has been a priority for Indian Country for over a decade and upon enactment will treat Indian tribes as the sovereign governments that they are,” said Rahall. “As sovereign nations, Indian tribes should have a direct line to the Federal government to expedite aid and assistance during an emergency or major disaster.”
Under current law, Indian tribes experiencing a disaster or emergency situation must rely upon a State governor to request the President for an emergency declaration, which triggers federal resources. Legislation introduced today would amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to authorize Indian tribes to directly request the President for such a declaration.
“Current law is not only contrary to tribal sovereignty but it also requires the President to consider the State’s, not the tribe’s, ability to pay for the damages,” said Rahall. “Under this legislation, tribes may still request the State to make the declaration on their behalf but it provides another avenue for those tribes who want to exercise their sovereignty or where a State may be unable or unwilling to make a request on a tribe’s behalf.”
Rahall earlier this year convened a Native American Transportation, Infrastructure and Economic Development Roundtable with tribal leaders from across the country who raised concerns that the current process threatens and undermines the very principles of sovereignty. Rahall crafted draft legislation to address these concerns and circulated the bill to Indian Country for comment in March, 2011. The legislation introduced today directly addresses issues raised by tribal leaders at the March 2, 2011, roundtable, and incorporates some of the recommendations by Indian Country following the roundtable.
“Indian Country will always have a prominent place at the table as I draft legislation that affects their lives and livelihoods,” said Rahall. “Indian tribes’ voices will be heard, their ideas will be incorporated, and they will be an equal partner in the process.”
"Rahall’s legislation is cosponsored by U.S. Representative Tom Cole (R-OK), Republican Co-Chairman of the Congressional Native American Caucus, and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Democratic Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management. Letters of support have also been received from the National Congress of American Indians as well as other tribal organizations and individuals involved in emergency management.
