Posted on 02/05/2016 7:50:23 AM PST by grayhog
"Abe Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them equal."
It's an interesting idea to ponder. President Lincoln is praised universally today, across the aisle, and around the world, but what of Samuel Colt? Who is Samuel Colt?
...The region reminds me of New York's former boomtowns like Kingston and Binghamton, and Connecticut's Waterbury and Hartford. These once vibrant communities and buildings were gutted by the twin blades of time and politicians, their facades decaying and cadaverous, lining streets and throughways like architectural tombstones. Where is everyone?
Kingston and Binghamton were home to IBM and Singer Link. Connecticut played a key role in the industrial age with factories and textiles, the pioneers of industry in the New World. Waterbury was the hub of the brass industry and clockmaking.
The old IBM succumbs to the desktop computer. The manufacture of guns, mortars, and weapons for the revolution, for the Union, for the country, based in Springfield Mass, capitulated to progress, and more recently to politics. Hartford's where Samuel Colt set up his factory, invented the revolver, and built an empire.
The iconic blue dome off Interstate 91 in Hartford is not a church after all. It is the symbol of a bygone era: Samuel Colt built this dome atop his armory with a rearing horse on a gold sphere, known as the "Rampant Colt." Colt's firearms played pivotal roles throughout U.S. history. Colt's Single Action Army Revolver became known as the "Gun that won the west," its Browning Automatic Rifle was the standard for WWI and WWII, and the M16 was the service rifle into the 1990s. It's the same weapon I qualified on as a cadet and officer.
(Excerpt) Read more at treehouseletter.com ...
There was an article in the WSJ yesterday. Foley says further tax hikes are impossible, it’s time to cut spending.
When the Dems say this, you know you’re in trouble.
For every three Connecticut residents moving to other States, two move in from other countries.
In fact, I would not be surprised that ESPN is considering moving a good fraction of its operations out of Bristol, CT to a more tax-friendly state. The very possibility of ESPN setting up major broadcasting operations on land that is part of the Disney World complex in Florida is sounding less and less far-fetched.
The very possibility of ESPN setting up ... in Florida is sounding less and less far-fetched.
Florida today - tomorrow the Bahamas.
Yet the United Nations is still in NY!?!
Friday!
Where is Foley from CT or ? Yes I watched the De-industrialization of CT. It was a place of Engineers in Aerospace ( Kaman, Pratt, H-S, Sikorsky and all their suppliers ) Power ( Combustion Engineering ) , CAD-tech Gerber Scientific. How many are left or downsized and are a shell of their former self. CE is almost gone, the remains of it may be winding down from a gnome I have still with what is left of it.
These were good jobs, people with sharp minds, great draftsmen, engineers, assemblers, inspectors, and manufacturing. Now they are farming stuff out to Puerto Rico, when the heck did they become a center of excellence in aerospace?
Now what does CT have? Legacy Cost is my guess at the State Employee level. Dang shame IMHO.
In retrospect Weicker and his State Income Tax was the beginning of this downfall....
First they got rid of the farmers, then they came for the textile makers, then the gun makers, and were left with only welfare wonders lounging in trash-filled parks that once were productive farms and industrial parks.
That pretty much sums it up.
Massachusetts used to be like this, but even though they remained under Democrat rule, they pulled themselves together and reformed fiscally.
Foley is the Democratic governor of Connecticut.
GE threatened a year ago to leave CT if the tax situation wasn’t resolved. It’s now moving it’s Corp HQ from Fairfield to Boston.
Aetna will certainly move a lot of jobs from CT to Louisville KY following the merger with Humana, and quite possibly it’s Corp HQ.
Other companies, like IBM in Southbury, are threatening to do the same.
CT’s at a tipping point: without the big corp HQs the state is left with a tax base that relies on defense work and NYC execs who live in Fairfield County. I don’t think Sikorsky or even Pratt are long for the state. The only big defense plant that would be impossible to move (piecemeal or otherwise) is Electric Boat in Groton.
There are still plenty of farmers in Connecticut. In fact, there is a surprising amount of rural activity of all sorts; hunting, fishing, canoeing and rafting, horseback riding. The heavily industrialized areas are only part of the story.
How are the tobacco growers doing?
You don’t get it ...
Tobacco is doing well at least price wise, I have seen a few new barns put up over the last couple of years but a lot of prime tobacco land has been turned into rent a building and industrial development and once they take away that beautiful topsoil it will never be used for growing again. Blue Hills Ave in Bloomfield and Windsor [where I grew up] is totally developed now with hardly any tents put up at all these past couple of years. I remember working in those fields as a kid.
Thanks. Down here in Maryland we have lost a lot of growers too.
That is NJ as well; taxpaying Americans are leaving (fleeing along with employers to greener pastures with lower taxes), and the state is trafficking Third Worlders here to keep housing, classrooms, and store aisles full. The rest of the country is subsidizing our new “Welfarian-Americans”...
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