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The day that destroyed the working class and sowed the seeds of Trump
New York Post ^ | September 16, 2017 | Salena Zito

Posted on 09/19/2017 8:06:04 PM PDT by MilesVeritatis

CAMPBELL, Ohio — Forty years ago, on Sept. 19, thousands of men walked into the Campbell Works of Youngstown Sheet and Tube along the Mahoning River before the early shift.

Like every fall morning, they were armed with lunch pails and hard hats; the only worry on their minds was the upcoming Pittsburgh Steelers game on “Monday Night Football.” The only arguing you heard was whether quarterback Terry Bradshaw had fully recovered from the dramatic hit he took from a Cleveland Browns player the season before.

It was just before 7 a.m., and the fog that had settled over the river was beginning to lift. As the sun began to streak through the mist, the men made their way into the labyrinth of buildings where they worked.

In the next hour, their lives would change forever.

From then on, this date in 1977 would be known as Black Monday in the Steel Valley, which stretches from Mahoning and Trumbull counties in Ohio eastward toward Pittsburgh. It is the date when Youngstown Sheet and Tube abruptly furloughed 5,000 workers in one day.

The bleeding never stopped.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Ohio; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: economy; election; manufacturing; middleclass; rustbelt; steel; trump; youngstown; zito
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To: central_va
America is a very poor and indebted nation. Over half the USA earns less than $30K/yr. All of this technology is making us poorer in general. Cable bills, cell phone bills, data plans etc. are killing the personal budget.

Personal budget is a result of personal choices, cable, cell phones, data plans, all are choices.

My cell phone bill is $100 per YEAR, my data plan is ZERO and while my cable bill is higher than it could be, that too, is my choice.

Many Americans are making very bad choices.

61 posted on 09/20/2017 3:37:23 AM PDT by USS Alaska (Kill all mooselimb, terrorist savages, with extreme prejudice! Deus Vult!)
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To: fr_freak

>>I know that tough economic times can really get people riled up, but I still believe that Trump’s election is at least as much about the destruction of our culture.

The destruction of the blue collar middle class is how the culture was destroyed. No one teaches their kid to be a skilled worker, like an electrician or plumber. They tell their kids to go to college and learn a profession. So they go off to college as empty-headed young adults and are force-fed Marxism and Humanism for 4+ years and they come out the other end as Progressives who follow the rainbow flag more than the Stars and Stripes. Someo of them actually get degrees that lead to a profession, but most get useless hobby degrees or degrees that they aren’t suited for. The people who do go into skilled trades don’t have problems with cultural relativism. They are pure American. They elected Trump. And they are the butt of jokes by the “educated”.

A nation of workers doesn’t have time for Millennial Snowflakery.


62 posted on 09/20/2017 3:58:53 AM PDT by Bryanw92
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
Secondly, times were bad enough that Billy Joel wrote, ‘Allentown.’ That song STILL makes me sad to this day. :(

I used to like that song. I could relate to it as I and my dad worked at US Steel in Chicago. I got laid off in '80 and him a few years later. Now, I can't even listen to it because so much of it has hit home.

63 posted on 09/20/2017 4:16:37 AM PDT by raybbr (That progressive bumper sticker on your car might just as well say, "Yes, I'm THAT stupid!")
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To: Aria

You dont need netflix. I have unlimited text..data...phone for 35 bucks a month non contract...start reading..get movies from libraries...you wont be up to date...but youll have extra money...and you wont feed the media industries need to create more bizarre unreal eye candy in order to get paying customers


64 posted on 09/20/2017 4:20:00 AM PDT by Getready (Wisdom is more valuable than gold and diamonds, and harder to find)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

We live 20 min from Allentown & downtown is crime ridden. Back in the day, they worked at Bethlehem Steel. Now it’s full of illegals. They tore down buildings & put up an event center. People go to restaurants before a concert & then usually leave ASAP.


65 posted on 09/20/2017 4:35:50 AM PDT by Dr. Scarpetta
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To: Garth Tater
Every time a labor or environmental law or regulation was laid on one of our manufacturers their manufacturing costs went up which put them at a disadvantage to their unencumbered competitors over in those asian hell-holes. We could have rebalanced this manufacturing cost disadvantage with import tariffs but

But it would be far more efficient to not impose the "environmental" or labor regulations in the first place.

66 posted on 09/20/2017 4:44:09 AM PDT by NorthMountain
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To: DoughtyOne

Close our borders, remove all undocumented, if immigrants don’t care for our American Ways, dress, religion, send them back to the homelands the left. Remove all welfare goodies.
Begin TEACHING, reading, writing and arithmetic, quit pussy footing around bad behavior in schools. Prefer scholarship rather than football, basketball, etc. It’s a beginning.


67 posted on 09/20/2017 6:53:42 AM PDT by tillacum (I'm still a Deplorable and I COLLUDED during the election SO THE DONALD could WIN! I voted.)
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To: cba123

It is EXACTLY why Trump won, and its also why he is attacked and/or discretely undermined by people on both sides of the aisle.

Trump’s vocal opposition to open borders, and the bogus “free trade” dogma of the Globalists, are why he finally flipped the upper midwest (rust belt) states. Had the Republican party taken the stands that Trump did decades ago, the “blue wall” would have begun to turn red in 2000 at the latest.

The realignment of the upper midwest was long long long overdue. This part of the country, by and large, is just as conservative as anywhere in the south, with the sole exception of their attitude toward unions because of its past industrialization. Since that has been decimated there really hasn’t been anything holding these people to the D’s other than historical inertia.... and the fact the Republicans offered them absolutely no reason to switch... the Democrats marched further and further off the cliff into nutter land, not only taking their votes for granted, but also advocating things they found morally reprehensible and attacked them directly as evil... so rather than switching parties they simply disengaged.

Trump finally gave them a reason to switch, and they re-engaged and were willing to cross the rubicon and vote for someone who was not a Democrat.

If you think people in upper midwest agree with the crap the Democrat party has been up to for the last 20 years, you are ill informed. They have just had to have a reason to overcome their historical biases and become engaged.

Trump gave it to them... Called it from the start, Trump would win, and win it right through the upper mid west/rust belt.

Hillary did better than I thought she would, honestly.. only getting 100k less votes than Obama did in 12... but Trump got 2 Million more votes than Romney...

I also firmly believe without the access hollywood mountain out of molehill crud, Trump would have likely taken another 5 or more states, and gotten another 1-2 Million votes.


68 posted on 09/20/2017 6:55:01 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: Ciexyz

I too live in Pittsburgh and I can tell you, the Steel industry at the time was full of a lot of bloat and other things.... because being the only industrialized post war power had thrown off a lot of wealth and lead to a lot of complacency and bloat.

Ask any of the old hunky’s left what happened if you went over your quota in the mills.....

There is a lot behind the decline of steel, its not as simple as black and white. Legal and policy factors, combined with management that didn’t react to the growing threat as the rest of the world came back from WWII until it was too late. However, don’t kid yourself, the Union helped hasten the decline as well.


69 posted on 09/20/2017 7:00:45 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: USS Alaska

How do you get a data plan for free?


70 posted on 09/20/2017 7:11:57 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: a fool in paradise

Everyone wants a cut of a workers paycheck. Too many workers giving away those cuts, for things that are ‘wants’, then can’t understand why Needs can’t be met.


71 posted on 09/20/2017 7:49:12 AM PDT by RoadGumby (This is not where I belong, Take this world and give me Jesus.)
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To: dragnet2

There are parts of the country where you can still buy a decent home for $100k. Heck, in the Los Angeles region it’s hard to live on $100k.


72 posted on 09/20/2017 8:05:37 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (DACA: Their dream, our nightmare... will the rule of law prevail or not?)
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget

Very cool. Thanks for the mention.


73 posted on 09/20/2017 8:07:49 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (DACA: Their dream, our nightmare... will the rule of law prevail or not?)
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To: central_va

Maybe you don’t have a data plan. You just use (free) wifi.


74 posted on 09/20/2017 8:10:20 AM PDT by Jane Long (Praise God, from whom ALL blessings flow.)
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To: tillacum

I agree.

I will say, guys need to physical outlet. I don’t have a problem with sports as long as academics remain reasonably elevated.


75 posted on 09/20/2017 8:11:10 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (DACA: Their dream, our nightmare... will the rule of law prevail or not?)
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To: DoughtyOne
We have 50 million people out there that need work. It’s our job to get them working.

This is really a flawed view of where we stand as a nation. A substantial number of those 50 million people are more accurately described as unemployable than unemployed. It's not "our" job to get anyone working who isn't in a position to meet basic requirements of any job.

76 posted on 09/20/2017 9:10:00 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." -- President Trump, 6/1/2017)
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To: MilesVeritatis

I saw a fascinating documentary on Bethlehem Steel a while back, and I was surprised to see that they gave a very fair and balanced story of what killed the U.S. steel industry. Really nobody was spared any blame in the whole thing — the unions, the company management, the U.S. government (in several different ways), and the simple economic reality of having far more steel production capacity than the world needed.


77 posted on 09/20/2017 9:13:14 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." -- President Trump, 6/1/2017)
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To: Alberta's Child

I’ve run a study on this. What you said there is not true.

For forty years we averaged a 9.75% increase in jobs each four years. Each two terms of a president, we increased jobs by 18.75%. I know that looks lopsided, but it worked out that way in the study.

We fell off the boat in 2001, and it continued half-way through Obama’s terms in office.

Instead of an 18.75% increase during the Bush years, jobs increased around 1.0%. During Obama’s first term, it increased at roughly the same rate.

For those four terms in office, we under created jobs significantly.

By now we should have over 190 million jobs.

We have about 145 million jobs in the nation.

We’re not talking about retired folks, people with infirmaries, or people on Welfare, although the people on Welfare should be added to the roughly 50 million we have out of work, who are perfectly able to.

Why did/does the jobs rate increase like this? It does for several reasons. One is that the population base continues to grow. The other is that when jobs grow, they actually support the growth of other jobs.


78 posted on 09/20/2017 9:19:39 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (DACA: Their dream, our nightmare... will the rule of law prevail or not?)
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To: rb22982
Probably closer to 50k after taxes, even in CA.

In CA, after all taxes, they'd be lucky to clear 40k between them. I can assure you, thrown in all the other sky high costs in the state, counties etc, and that young couple working full time each, won't even be able to buy a home, and if they do, they'll be long distance commuting to where the homes are possibly more affordable. Then throw in even more more $$...At that income, they're screwed in CA.

79 posted on 09/20/2017 9:43:31 AM PDT by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: DoughtyOne

There is no debate, in CA they have completely out priced most the population that were actually from CA. And it’s one of the big factors so many leave the state is because of the obscene housing prices. And it’s wealthy foreigners who are replacing them. In fact, CA has basally stated they don’t want middle class types, Trump supporters or those who want to put America first in the state.

All the poor slobs that bought way inland away from the coastal plain just to afford a basic home? They’re now forced to commute through epic traffic, 2 hour commutes etc. They’re hating life in a big way.


80 posted on 09/20/2017 9:55:52 AM PDT by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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