How can "poverty" invest in prosperity?

Merci Beaucoup (pronounced correctly thanks to Obama) to the French; the food is wonderful, but besides imparting fabulous technique and lots of butter to African cuisine, they didn't do much else for Louisiana. (Not that we have either, mind)

Driving through Louisiana, is kind of like driving through the beginning of Omega Man.
The dilapidated parking lots, lack of road signs and/or people able to give directions to "foreigners"
There's the charred sugar-cane stubble, with the petrochemical and fertilizer factories to add an slightly piquant industrial aroma, that successfully detracts from any natural beauty that the countryside might have. The wealth that flows (or used to flow) through New Orleans does not seem to affect it much; though the appearance of living in the 1860's does make it an attractive tourist destination. But why is it stuck? An enormous amount of wealth flows (or used to flow) through New Orleans, perhaps there is the difficulty of resource-rich entities being unable to create sustainable economic growth (in that large amounts of resources go through New Orleans because it is there not because there are necessarily buyers.

France did not have the infrastructure that Britain and later Germany (or Prussia etc.) had, they had a larger population and there was not as much incentive to create labor-saving devices. Is it contagious or something?

Does Louisiana suffer from being ignored? Or is it like Baltimore a place who's time has past, but can't adjust?

Besides the annual manic outburst the state seems to live in perpetual depression. Poverty seems to work like that, depressed people can't be bothered to make to try making themselves happy. It's probably just that it is more difficult to invest in prosperity if you are poor (somewhat obviously.)

The infrastructure can be solved, cultural changes take more time, and can't exactly be legislated (though they do try in California................)

in addition: recognize I must, that word order is often essential in english, "how poverty can invest in prosperity," implies that instead of being a pontificating fool, I actually have suggestions on how to improve the living standards of Louisianans. So I decided to rewrite history, as a result this post is dated wrong.
(by the way, I have no hard feelings after the HOURS spent driving along the left bank of the Mississippi, after not paying $20+ to enter a ramshackle plantation in the middle of NOWHERE, and getting lost because of an AWFUL map----I just feel a particular pity for the people that have to live there.)

La Siesta

Because of the Industrial Revolution, western rates of productivity are pretty high.  But what about when rest of the world catches up? How are we going to eke out that last smidgen of production per person?

Napping, napping is the answer! Unfortunately, we don't take naps as a rule; and surely we all want to be more productive. Maybe napping just doesn't look productive, or a manic caffeine-orgy followed by it's inevitable depressive torpor feels more industrious.
Maybe we enjoy living in the clouds, simply floating, coasting on the magnificent pollution of the 19th century.

Now that we are assured that napping does in fact mean that we are resting our magnificent midbrains, instead of meaning that we are lazy louts------- the spanish will take over the world (again.)
The Japanese sometimes have special rooms for workers to nap in, and they seem to be doing okay. (haven't fallen of the edge of the earth, or become a third world nation or anything.)