Posted on 08/02/2004 5:34:00 PM PDT by Willie Green
His employees all bought Model T technology.
Here in Phoenix, the population is increasing with people buying new houses at incredible rates. I'm not talking about illegals, I'm talking about professionals buying 2500 sq/ft houses.
I obviously don't have to explain that all these people have jobs.
The growth of the East valley is somewhere around 1-2 miles of desert built out every year, along a 15-20 mile front.
Stop whining and move to where the jobs are. It's been that way every generation. Still is.
ff
My husband & I had this discussion at lunch today. One reason the Confederacy lost the Civil War was because they had failed to adequately industrialize, and failed to build a substantial rail infrastructure (the interstate highways of the day.) They thought it was sufficient to grow the cotton, haul it to the ports by oxcart, and ship it to England. It wasn't.
We're putting ourselves in the same boat as the antebellum South. Is this really where we want to be, re: our national defense?
"These people" aren't professionals. This country is not going to subsist on 200 million "professionals" (read: people in service industries that are rapidly being outsourced if they don't require direct hands-on work.)
What's the fate of working-class, poorly educated working people in the Novus Ordo Seculorum - to be Soylent Green?
yes, service jobs. as long as population is growing, there are plenty of jobs in construction, real estate, government is growing, more malls, more stores, more restaurants, more health care, more car dealers, more Jiffy Lubes, more hotels.
but at the core of our economy - where is the productive sector that provides middle class jobs? Manufacturing (employment) was destined to decrease due to automation, I accept that. But we had technology and knowledge jobs - but those are taking a big hit from offshoring. Where to next?
Not true at all. Most of the times, the "T" defeats the Rats. That's why we have more R's than D's in Congress and the Legislature, and why the RATs almost never win Senate and row office seats in the State. The only real competition is top of the ticket races (President and Governor), and that comes from ticket splitting RINO's in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburbs.
I know many people like those described from these areas (unskilled losers to put it bluntly). They are the people who live in those regions and vote Democrat. High School drop-outs, teenage mothers, heroin addicts, etc., etc., etc. They are the people who get jobs at Wal Mart, McDonalds, and the Prison when the local factory closes, simply because there is nothing else they are remotely qualified for. The Republicans, the majority of the people there, are small business owners, people in skilled services, farmers, shop keepers, skilled laborers, and the like. You know, folks with brains. As opposed to folks who think the rest of the world owes them a living.
You wouldn't know it from reading this article, but Mifflin County is actually a tidy and prosperous little place, as a drive down State Route 655 would reveal from the many bustling farms and businesses.
Been through Mifflin County many times. The back route from Rock Springs through Belleville is absolutely breathtaking. It's good to see that the Amish are finding a home there as well. The farmland will stay as active farms for generations to come.
There used to be over a 1 million people employed by the railroads, another 1 million in the steel mills, another 1 million in the mines, and another 1 million by AT&T. Those 4 industries had about 10% of the working population of the US working for them.
Today, those industries produce far more with less than 1/4 of their previous number of employees. Altogether, maybe 1% of American workers work for them now. All those ex-mine employees in Montana and Illinois and West Virginia and Arizona still can't afford a car unless they got a new job using higher skills. Same for all the types who used to work as fireman or brakeman on the railroads, or telephone operators who used to direct calls. Enormous productivity gains have made it possible for those remaining workers in those industries to enjoy a better standard of living. But it came at the cost of throwing at least 3 of every 4 co-workers to the wolves.
All this bellyaching about American job losses in manufacturing, and you'd hardly know that the American manufacturing sector is more modern and productive than ever. China lost a net 15 million manufacturing jobs in the last decade due to productivity gains. Similar story in Mexico.
Jobs aren't being exported abroad, they are being zapped out of existence by technology and efficiency - all around the world. Not just in Lewistown, PA.
Lawyer-Client is an interesting one, but I would make the case that the very nature of this relationship is such that it doesn't really meet the requirements of a normal business transaction. For one thing, most lawyers today operate in a legal system that is little more than a government racket driven by lawyers themselves. In addition, most people who hire lawyers are willing to drive themselves into bankruptcy if their legal problem is serious.
.....Weaseling....
Artist-Fan is certainly worthy of consideration, but I'd have to consider some specific examples to see if there is any merit to this. Most famous artists were damn near broke and never made much money on their work while they were alive.
....Think modern artists like Warhol.
I have to agree with your assessment.
Most of my former in-laws live in Reading or the out-lying areas, Altoona, Huntingdon or the Amish type communities (where they don't vote.)
They are all card-carrying Unionists (firemen, truck drivers, telephone company). The idea that the middle of the state, where NO ONE lives will carry the state is such crap.
Pittsburgh is just as bad. Bitter Iron workers who are pissed that they aren't valued anymore. East, it's dumb-ass textile workers who Unioned themselves out of jobs and wonder why the knitting mills went to Georgia.
There ain't no one to vote Repub in Philly proper anymore.
The unskilled workers world-wide have never been conservatives. They are naturally of the mentality that someone else owes them a living, because they certainly can't see a way to making one themselves.
The Republican party's base has always been the farmers, self-employed, skilled workers, small business owners, and entrepreneurs. People who think and take business risks.
Protecting unskilled assembly line work doesn't help Republicans, and very few of the people on those lines are Republicans.
If their kids don't sell off to the English.
MY idiot farmer relatives in Nebraska think they need more farm subsidies.
tech jobs are being exported abroad. no way around it - they are. the customer service person who used to be in the US working for American Express, is now in India. Period, that job has moved abroad and is now held by a foreign worker.
As I have mentioned on other threads, the current dual trends of exporting jobs and importing cheap labor, if it continues will make the US a European style welfare state by 2010. The liberal voters, plus the votes of displaced workers + the votes of immigrants and minorities will produce a country that is a European style welfare state that has the social problems of Brazil.
My Amish ancestors settled Mifflin County along with some Scots-Irish Presbyterian wahoos. Go look at the dates in the graveyard in Allensville. 1770's and the like.
Its more like the rest of the world is discovering our little hideaway.
There's nothing "weaseling" about it. I specifically said that one major exception to my statement involved cases where government interference distorted economic reality. I can't think of a better example of "government interference" than our current legal system.
Did Andy Warhol make a fortune selling art to people living on modest incomes? Are the Manhattan art galleries in SoHo and the West Village filled with prospective buyers wearing John Deere and Dale Earnhardt Jr. caps?
I don't think anyone misses $6/hour telephone call centers.
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