Posted on 03/11/2009 1:42:07 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
ELKHART, Ind.: Hundreds of cars lined up in economically distressed Elkhart on Tuesday to receive food and other items from 13 semitrailers sent by a charity.
The trucks carried more than $2.1 million worth of food, enough to help sustain about 5,200 families for a week. Elkhart, with an unemployment rate of 18.3 percent, was recently visited by President Barack Obama trying to muster public support for economic stimulus legislation.
The line wrapped around a shopping mall parking lot and onto surrounding roads. Layoffs in the recreational vehicle industry have driven much of the job loss in northern Indiana. The city was the second of several cities on Feed the Children's "Americans Feeding Americans Emergency Caravan."
"It's been a struggle," said Patricia Smith, of Elkhart, who waited more than an hour to get her supplies, which came in a box containing macaroni and cheese, canned goods, toilet paper and other items. "We're surviving and we're going to make it through this."
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
$2.1 million of food can sustain 5,200 families for one week?
That’s $400 per week per family.
Big families in Indiana, I guess?
Saw what may be termed an “Obamaville” in Sacramento on the news... more are sure to show up as this travesty unfolds!
Tent citys springing up all over the place, picture spread on MSNBC a couple days ago of one in Sacramento.
I prefer to call them “Barryslums”
I’m of the opinion that much unemployment (or “underemployment”) results from a lack of vocational education, and I think we have too little vocational education in this country because almost our entire education system, from pre-school to the university level, is dominated by the government.
RV market got a double whammy: $4 a gallon gas, and then the credit crunch/equity crash.
Any time you give anything away, people will line up for blocks. If some car dealer gives away hot dogs, he’ll get hundreds of these moochers. When a bank gives away coffee and cookies at Christmas, they’ll be packed.
Your comment: Tent citys springing up all over the place, picture spread on MSNBC a couple days ago of one ...
Here's clear evidence that the idiots are in charge of everything, everywhere. It's not mismanagement -- it's absolute non-management.
Here's a town with an industry that manfactures 800-foot travel trailers to sell for a gazillion bucks each, complete with swimming pools and basketball courts. Each of them requires a semi-tractor to haul. There are millions sitting in dealer lots across the country, unsold. That's all they make. That's all they can make. There's no more market for them, but that's what they make. Can't make one any smaller; can't make one without the swimming pool. Can't do any market research to find out what kind might sell. Can't stretch their brains a little to think what else they could also make with their sheet aluminum, steel, plastic, piping, framing, insulation, and electrical wiring, and all the tools they have sitting idle, and all the people in the town sitting on their skills.
Instead, let's monkey with the money supply and markets until people can again have the cash and credit to buy something they can only use one week per year, to move from a dealer's lot to an RV storage lot.
Meanwhile, what's up with that tent city fiasco?
Yep, and why not MOVE to a job, I just did. I heard an advertisement on the radio by a Jackson Ms plumbing company saying "hiring qualified plumbers".
The government schools teach that you can't be a success w/o college. W/O college, your a failure. (how else are they going to perpetuate academia?)
Oh, I'm a HVAC Tech/electrician, (voc school grad x2) plenty of work.
I wasn’t getting on your case, man. In fact, I learned my lesson the hard way. Dropped out of college and never got my computer science degree. Went back a few years later to study electrical engineering and a paperwork snafu forced me to stop taking classes after one quarter. Soured me off higher education for about six straight years. Now I’m heading back to engineering college. I just hope the government-created financial crisis won’t affect my ability to get student loans.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2136635/posts
“Are you looking for a job?”
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The problem in Elkhart with the RV business is what the article is about. Dealer lots across the country are full of the million dollar models. Millionaires can only buy so many of those. They could downscale and make smaller models. They could make many other non-RV products with the same tools and materials. Instead the whole town is standing in line at the food bank, and the company is sitting idle.
This economic downturn is no surprize to any competent manager. Such a person would have, several years ago, directed a significant portion of their marketing budget to determine what they might make and sell when the super-luxury items don't sell.
What is going to happen when the government can’t fund food stamps and there aren’t as many farms that need “hands” as there was in the 30’s? Now we have machines that can do what most hands could do before.
These fools in Indiana voted for Obama. The first time Indiana went other than Republican in many years. I wonder if they like being out of a job?
You need to subtract out the bureaucratic overhead.
At Denny's recent give away of the grand slam breakfast (2 eggs, 2 pieces of bacon and 2 pancakes) people were lined up for hours in near zero tempertures.
I would not have stood in that line in that weather had they been handing out one hundred dollar bills.
“They could downscale and make smaller models. They could make many other non-RV products”
They make very few “million dollar motorhomes” in Elkhart. The majority of the motorhomes made there are class c and retail for between 60,000 and 80,000 dollars which would still put it out of my league.
They also manufacture all the Fed-Ex and UPS trucks that you see all over the country as well as small box delivery vehicles.
They’re having a tough time right now but Elkhart is filled with fine hard working people and I know they will work their way out of this mess somehow.
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