Posted on 04/30/2023 10:02:28 AM PDT by sodpoodle
Sage advice.
Due to some road construction, I got diverted off the highway while going through Gary, Indiana.
I ended up driving a few miles through desolated buildings before I could get back on the interstate.
Now this is a toll highway so when I went to get back on, my FastPass transponder wasn't working. However, there was nobody manning the tollbooths. So I just ended up driving through the tollbooths without paying.
Never heard anything about it so I guess it was no problem.
I believe Gary, Indiana was where the Michael Jackson family were born and raised.
The Democratic Party will not rest until every city, town and village looks just like Gary, IN.
So why didn't that happen before? Because Nixon took the US off the gold standard. Before 1971, trade deficits had to be paid for in gold. Too many gold transfers meant your currency had to depreciate, raising the costs of imports and reducing the trade deficit. Removing gold destroyed this balancing mechanism.
In addition, this was not "free trade," as all foreign competitors subsidized or gave domestic producers a protected market.
At the time it was argued that this happened because US steel producers had failed to modernize. But the billions needed for that instead had to be spent on pollution controls, effectively an enormous tax US producers had to pay but foreign producers did not. Effectively a reverse tariff that penalized US production and encouraged imports.
So Gary became a wasteland because the US government delivered a left hook followed by a right uppercut right on the chin of US industry.
It isn’t racist if it’s true, is ot?
The fate of all such cities.
The U.S. steel industry declined for a number of reasons. Foreign competition was only one of them. I'll list a few more here:
1. The completion of the construction work on the Interstate Highway System (bridge construction was a major part of the domestic market for steel).
2. The use of plastic, fiberglass and composite materials for auto manufacturing in place of steel.
3. Technological obsolescence of U.S. steel factories, tied to #4 below.
4. A fascist business model involving management, labor and government that kept obsolete steel plants afloat long after they should have been upgraded or replaced.
5. Domestic competition from new U.S. steel mills.
Item #5 is a big one that doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should. As one industry representative said at a North American trade conference a few years ago: "It's not 'globalism' when a company closes a steel mill in Ohio and opens a new one in Alabama or Texas."
I was born in the same hospital and about the same time as Michael.
Being true makes it doubly racist.
L
Your points are valid in some cases. As I understand it, though, the US imports much of its steal now compared to decades ago even if some companies relocated within the US and still produce some steal.
The critical difference being that you didn't grow up and identify as a rich white woman like Michael Jackson did. I'm also betting you never owned a chimpanzee.
With its 79.1% demographic majority, this is what our black urban under class in Gary, Indiana provides America in terms of cultural enrichment.
Single-dominant-industry towns usually have histories that fade with that dominant industry or fade with changes to where that industry wants to be located.
Usually it’s something as basic as that.
People are always mourning that beautiful old buildings aren’t preserved, but usually the reason is that it would cost a fortune to bring the electricity and the water up to whatever is required by the building code.
Silliness. TikTok is fine. We were sold a bill of goods on this crap. The truth is that it is far better and blows away Facebook and Instagram. Zuckerberg called his bought and paid for congressmen and demanded action.
A tale as old as time.
I’ve never been on Tik Tok, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram or any of that social sewage. Tried Twitter, but I can’t figure out how to navigate it. Probably best. I am on several firearm websites and enjoy those. And I’ll just stay here on FR.
The story isn’t complex at all.
Our “leaders” betrayed us and gave away most of our industrial capacity to foreign countries.
Straight 100% cause and effect chain there.
Steel industry collapsing.
That’s how.
But who needs jobs and industry? Those jobs are for losers right?
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