• Read this chart backward, meet us at the Parthenon and get ready to riot

As it turns out, our beloved moniker — The Athens of the South — is more apt than you might think.

At The Atlantic, Derek Thompson shares the above chart, from JP Morgan analyst Michael Cembalest, in a post explaining the difference between the United States and Europe. He explains (and do read his explanation) that while the U.S. sends money from richer states — California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York — to poorer states — like Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee — in the form of Medicaid and unemployment insurance, Europe has no comparable practice. Hence, the Molotov cocktails.

In a theoretical world where Europe does engage in these kinds of "seamless transfers" as the chart shows, Greece is Tennessee. Of course, read it backward — that is, take away the transfers that allow for Medicaid, unemployment insurance, etc., as many in this country might like to do — and we become Greece.

[H/T Steve Cavendish]

• Is the recovery a dream? We have to go deeper...

According to a post on the Nashville Chamber of Commerce's blog, the unemployment rate for the Middle Tennessee region is yet more proof that the economy is on the road to recovery.

"At the local level, recently released data on the unemployment picture in the Nashville region showcases continued strong improvement in our local economy," the post reads. "The March unemployment rate for the Nashville MSA was at 6.7 percent, down from 7.1 in February and 8.1 percent in March 2012. Davidson County tied for the second-lowest rate in the Nashville MSA, at 6.6 percent."

The chamber goes on to point out that "the current number of unemployed people in the Nashville area, 55,400, represents the lowest level since December 2008," and is indicative of a "pattern of resurgent economic growth [that] aligns with the stronger performance that the Southern U.S. continues to experience relative to the nation as a whole."

Yet even a cursory understanding of the specifics regarding the nation's ongoing "recovery" and unemployment statistics in general yield a more nuanced and decidedly less-than-rosy outlook for Nashville and beyond.

• Ross Hunter
• We're guessing this might also be on the ALEC reading list.

Titled "Rich States, Poor States," the 112-page supply-side manifesto was authored by none other than Arthur Laffer (godfather of trickle-down economic theory), Wall Street Journal pundit Stephen Moore and ALEC's own Jonathan Williams. Together they take Tennessee to task for its dreadful, job-killing estate and gift taxes.

With 44 Tennessee legislators tied in some fashion to the pro-corporate legislative factory, it's little wonder that the legislature recently passed bills that would end both estate and gift taxes. Some people might call this "synchronicity."

While other, more knowledgeable sources have critiqued the bunk methodologies ALEC employs in this annual report (including ALEC's patented "15 variables" metric, which ranks the Volunteer State 12th in the nation for "state economic outlook"), the report is also noteworthy for employing some pretty damn funny apologetics to describe a variety of hostile behaviors.

For example, why wealthy people don't like paying taxes:

The Associated Press has a pretty depressing read about the impending closure of a Corrections Corporation of America prison in Wheelwright, Kentucky, a poor rural town in the Appalachian hills of eastern Kentucky, that is deeply troubling in what it reveals about America's Rube Goldberg economy.

Per the AP, CCA's Otter Creek Correctional Facility is expected to shutter its doors in the coming months as a result of Kentucky's understandable decision to forgo its $21 million contract with the Nashville-based prison company, in the wake of a 2009 sex scandal in which Otter Creek corrections employees were accused of trading privileges for sex with female inmates. The story goes on to state that the main rationale for the closure is part of a budget streamlining plan and — in a move that's actually kind of surprising — a shift away from high-volume incarceration for drug offenders and other non-violent criminals.

As a result, Wheelwright officials are fearful of the hole that Otter Creek's closure will cleave in the local economy once the town's main industry (i.e., incarcerating human beings for the purpose of lining shareholders' pockets) packs up and leaves.

Two years ago, Cleveland faced a similar situation as people freaked out over the departure of LeBron James from the city's eponymous Cavaliers NBA franchise.

Excuse the labored analogy, but bear with us for a moment.

While we at Pith don't claim authority on matters economic and financial, our heads are scratching over the Nashville Chamber of Commerce's decision to spin legislation against local raises in minimum wages while at the same advocating the very wage increases it's trying to squash.

First, some context: Earlier this week, the chamber launched "Business Voice," an online service designed to drum up support for policies beneficial to business interests — in this case, further depressing worker wages to insulate employers from the culture of entitlement that threatens Democracy as we know it (and is a known leading cause for honeybee colony collapse disorder). As you may well know, this is a byproduct of the supply-side economics that have been good to American workers — so good that it's kept their pay levels frozen to 1980s levels, while their bosses have seen their pay soar like the mighty bald eagle.

Thus the chamber has thrown its support behind a pair of bills sponsored by a couple of free market defenders, state Rep. Glen Casada and state Sen. Brian Kelsey, whose HB 3386 and SB 3276 would, respectively, prohibit local Tennessee governments from raising wages.

The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce does not believe local governments should get into the business of establishing independent minimum wage ordinances that limit private businesses' ability to invest and add jobs. Instead, the Chamber supports a consistent state policy regarding local minimum wages for private businesses, leaving the federal government to set the minimum wage level. ...

Allowing market forces to determine pay rates above federal requirements will help ensure consistency in employee wage and benefit regulations across all jurisdictions in Middle Tennessee, leading to a more predictable and favorable business environment.

It's a familiar, albeit specious, tack that the country's plebes must be forced to make do with less in order to remain competitive with their Chinese equivalents — and what's more, it erodes local autonomy in deference to the very federal government that conservatives like Casada and Kelsey supposedly abhor. But the truly head-exploding thing is that the chamber also supports raising wages as a means to combat poverty.

To put it another way: Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, dumbass.

• You could possibly buy this boat for $70,000

Conversely, wealthy heirs do much better under our Republican governor’s new tax plans. Surprise!

Let’s do the math: Cutting the grocery tax from 5.5 percent to 5.3 percent will cost the state treasury $18 million. That means savings of a whopping $2.84 this year for each of the state’s 6,346,105 citizens. On the other hand, raising the exemption to the state’s inheritance tax from $1 million to $1.25 million—as Haslam proposed—costs the state $14 million. That puts an extra $70,000 in the pockets of each of the roughly 200 heirs who would save money.

To review, that’s $18 million for 6.3 million people, and $14 million for 200 people. Of course, Republicans point out those 200 people are job creators. So we can all count on that $14 million trickling down and making all of our lives better and better.

Update: To anti-tax organizations, Haslam's proposal isn't nearly good enough. Death to the death tax! they cry. From the presser from the American Family Business Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for Prosperity, National Taxpayers Union, and the Beacon Center of Tennessee:

“Governor Haslam is right; the Tennessee death tax is a job killer that chases family businesses away from the state. However, even with an increased exemption Tennessee will still be at a competitive disadvantage to States like Florida that do not have death taxes. While we applaud the Governor for taking a step in the right direction to make estate tax reform a priority, we urge him and the legislature to completely repeal the tax rather than raise the exemption.”

In an email blast sent out yesterday, the AFL-CIO has taken Congress to task over soon-to-lapse unemployment insurance benefits as part of a public relations push to extend those benefits through 2012.

"Unless Congress acts now, lifeline aid for nearly 2 million workers who have lost jobs will be cut off Dec. 31 as the extended unemployment insurance benefits expire. In Tennessee alone, 40,500 will lose unemployment benefits," reads the press release. "Over the course of 2012, an estimated 6 million U.S. workers struggling to find jobs will lose these essential benefits if Congress continues to focus on keeping tax cuts for the 1% who crashed our economy rather than helping the 99% by extending unemployment insurance."

To further shame Congress into doing something, the AFL-CIO launched a website today recounting the stories of jobless Americans whose only lifeline is government assistance because job creators like those in Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey's favorite novel, Atlas Shrugged, are too busy hoarding their money in preparation of the impending apocalypse (Although, to be fair, Ramsey probably just watched the most-excellent film adaption).

The site takes dead aim at House Speaker John Boehner over the impending snafu, saying that the congressman from Sun Tan City, Oh., "continues to block a clean and immediate extension of emergency unemployment benefits." Boehner insists that any extension of unemployment insurance be accompanied by matching cuts in other areas, which the LA Times rightly opines would result in even greater job loss.

If Congress does fail to act, expect any of the modest gains made during the Great Recession to evaporate and be replaced with this:

• The latest weapon in Amazon's war on your local economy

According to Gawker:

To get the $5 discount, you're supposed to use Amazon's "Price Check" iPhone and Android app to scan in the bar code of an item and then indicate what price the item is being sold at. This gives Amazon valuable intelligence on how various retailers are pricing various items. "We scour online and in-store advertisements from other retailers, every day, year-round," an Amazon director said on All Things D. But now Amazon won't have to work so hard in the future, since hordes of consumers will (theoretically) sell out the merchants who pump sales taxes into their localities with sales taxes, all to save a measly five bones.

What makes this shrewd strategy all the more egregious — aside from the obvious "fuck you" to brick-and-mortar stores where people already earn their livelihood — is that Gov. Bill Haslam recently cut a deal with Amazon to give the company two years' worth of online sales tax exemptions in an economic hostage negotiation over a proposed Tennessee distribution center. If that deal sounds about as upstanding as a Sicilian promise, it's because it is: Forbes magazine recently reported that such dealings potentially violate the commerce clause of the United States Constitution.

In September, former Scene editor Liz Garrigan pointed out the inherent nastiness of Amazon's strong-arm tactics:

There's no doubt that we've been hit very hard by the recession and the most vulnerable Tennesseans have been hit hardest. We need to put their parents back to work as soon as possible.