An excerpt:
The South, in fact, has been a hotbed of business innovation. FedEx (Memphis) was a revolutionary company that has transformed transportation and business logistics in America. Wal-Mart has been a pioneer in bringing low prices to the American consumer and has immeasurably benefited the lifestyles of Americans, especially lower income people; Tyson Foods, Sanderson Farms, Smithfield Foods, Cal-Maine Foods (the number one egg producer in the nation); innumerable soybean farmers are protein factories that have fed America and are feeding the world (and helping our balance of payments). America's largest bank, Bank of America, is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, New York City is rapidly losing its place as the world's leading financial center to London, Hong Kong, and other centers of finance. Trades are increasingly done off the floor of the exchanges and through the internet. One of the largest such "virtual" exchanges is located in Kansas City (in reality, the exchange resides on a shelf of computers). Boston, Greenwich and New York City are no longer the only places where hedge funds are located.
Home Depot was a pioneer in retailing and has helped to make homes and home improvements affordable for millions of people. Texas Instruments and Dell computer have created a technological corridor in Texas that will benefit the region for years to come. The Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle can hold its own against Silicon Valley and surpasses Route 128 in Massachusetts. More prosaically, Coke has been refreshing the world's billions for years.
While Texas and Oklahoma and the Southern states bordering the Gulf of Mexico supply our energy needs, many blue states (and Florida) forbid the development of their offshore oil reserves and prevent the rise of nuclear power, while the Kennedys lead efforts to stop a wind farm from spoiling their view off the coast of Cape Cod.
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