Death Spiral states (taxes, debts, rates, credit)

[Chadd1014]

William Baldwin over at Forbes advises “Thinking about buying a house? Or a municipal bond? Be careful where you
put your capital. Don’t put it in a state at high risk of a fiscal
tailspin.
Those 11 states are:
[CENTER] [/CENTER]
Baldwin explains:

Two factors determine whether a state makes this elite list of fiscal
hellholes. The first is whether it has more takers than makers. A taker
is someone who draws money from the government, as an employee,
pensioner or welfare recipient. A maker is someone gainfully employed in
the private sector.
Let us give those takers the benefit of our sympathy and assume that
every single one of them is a deserving soul. This person is either
genuinely needy or a dedicated public servant or the recipient of a
well-earned pension.
But what happens when these needy types outnumber the providers?
Taxes get too high. Prosperous citizens decamp. Employers decamp. That
just makes matters worse for the taxpayers left behind.

[...]

The second element in the death spiral list is a scorecard of state
credit-worthiness done by Conning & Co., a money manager known for
its measures of risk in insurance company portfolios. Conning’s analysis
focuses more on dollars than body counts. Its formula downgrades states
for large debts, an uncompetitive business climate, weak home prices
and bad trends in employment.
Conning rates North Dakota the safest state to lend money to,
Connecticut the most hazardous. A state qualifies for the Forbes death
spiral list if its taker/maker ratio exceeds 1.0 and it resides in the
bottom half of Conning’s ranking.