Posted on 02/24/2016 10:30:48 AM PST by jacksonstate
I have had to explain to family and friends that have wondered why Trump is so popular here in Central Kentucky and here are the reasons.
1. Fruit of the Loom who was the major employer in this community has slowly been moving their production south of the border and finally closed all production in 2014 leaving this community devastated.
2.Migrants have taken so many low wage jobs that remained along with driving wages down. They live much cheaper than even us common folks often housing several in one home. Employers take advantage of the lower wage workers. American workers can't compete with migrants that wave in and live several to one home. The migrants do spend in this community but they send the biggest part of their pay back to families south of the border.
It is that simple.
Kentucky should pass a law raising the minimum wage to $50 per hour. Problem solved. /s
Thank you for bringing the issue up.
It’s an important one. Keep telling family, friends, everyone you know...
But if we tied benefits to work it would help correct the problem. I live just north of the “water park capital” tourist trap, Wisconsin Dells. They always need help and pay above minimum wage. Even the local Walmart always needs help. They have a constant need to ship in foreign workers. Why work when there is rent assistance, heat assistance, foodshare, even disability (I’ve watched the handicap running and jumping into their new trucks) and the list goes on and on. Lets stop the gravy train.
340,000 anchor babies born each and every year. Enough!
Back when I was a contract programmer, I went wherever the jobs were, which took me back and forth across the midwest.
What I remember most is that the first time I drove through the rust belt, I saw a lot of closed factories. A few years later I went through there again and noticed those factories were gone - just vast empty spaces. The corporations razed them to the ground as taxes were lower on bare land.
I thought then that I had witnessed the passing of an age, as with all the environmental hoops today, those factories were NEVER coming back.
New activism two point vanity.
I doubt the situation is much different than in the rest of the USA...
I hate globalism. Screw everyone else, America first.
My F-I-L was in the Agriculture Business all of his Adult life in California. We have discussed the things you mention.
He has always said that we need Immigrants here to do this work and we should use Work Permits to allow them in to do so. The Industry is highly Mechanized, but you can never get away from the Manual Labor required to get Product from Farm to Market.
He also knew Cesar Chavez, an avid Anti Immigrant Activist.
They didn’t like each other, but they respected each other, probably because they both served in the U.S. Navy.
The days of White Farm Laborers moving throughout the Country from Crop to Crop are over and done.
That is actually the REAL culprit here. The decisions were made in places like Davos. The first world and the third world must meet in the middle to create the New World.
That means Americans standard of living must decline. It is GLOBAL WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION. World Wide Socialism.
If you refuse to go along, you will drown in a river of migrants. It has all been decided.
Our niece moved to Sonoma, CA from North Carolina to take a marketing job with one of the major local wineries. She bought a 2,500sf home out of foreclosure. We had to help her “rehab” it so she could move in. It sold pre-2007 to four or five Mexican “illegal” families for $750,000. When it got to be worth only half of that, they bailed on the mortgage. They had put up numerous interior walls to create sleeping rooms for lord know how many people (even divided the living room into to spaces and cut in a additional exterior window which you could see daylight around). It was so filthy that washing down the walls prior to painting wasn’t enough. I ended up spraying the entire interior with white primer with an airless to cover up the ground in filth. So I understand what you’re saying about their effect on everything. They are used to squallor so they are well able to continue to live in it here. The funny thing is that the local building department was clueless as to what they had done. None of the neighbors had ratted them out!
By the early 20th century, the industry in the developed world often involved immigrants in “sweat shops”, which were usually legal but were sometimes illegally operated. They employed people in crowded conditions, working manual sewing machines, and being paid less than a living wage. This trend worsened due to attempts to protect existing industries which were being challenged by developing countries in South East Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Central America. Although globalization saw the manufacturing largely outsourced to overseas labor markets, there has been a trend for the areas historically associated with the trade to shift focus to the more white collar associated industries of fashion design, fashion modeling and retail. Areas historically involved heavily in the “rag trade” include London and Milan in Europe, and the SoHo district in New York City.
By the late 1980s, the apparel segment was no longer the largest market for fibre products, with industrial and home furnishings together representing a larger proportion of the fibre market.[19] Industry integration and global manufacturing led to many small firms closing for good during the 1970s and 1980s in the United States; during those decades, 95 percent of the looms in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia shut down, and Alabama and Virginia also saw many factories close.
Maybe you should tell your friends the truth about Trump. He’s for touchback immigration of illegals. If he wins, he’s just going to say that it makes no sense to send them back home if we’re just going to let them back in again.
Cruz is going to send them home and tell them to get in the back of the line; and if they don’t go voluntarily, they will never get back in.
A smart move was to take a mill job, then get into one of the skilled trades training programs (millwright, electrician, etc.) But even the labor gangs paid well.
As you noted, every one of those mills are gone now. Some have been replaced by strip malls. Some have been replaced by vacant lots.
Side note: I worked in one of those mills for 5 years while going to college (night school). I understand the real value of unions. But the unions were a big part of the problem. The shop steward had more actual power than the plant superintendent.
You do, however, pay for the indirect costs of all those "little brown men."
Thanks for that explanation.
Those are, however, symptoms of a greater problem. Immigrants who come here, work hard, and sacrifice are not an exception in our history, they are the norm. What you describe largely reflects the experience of my grandparents a hundred years ago - and your criticism echoes the criticism which each successive wave of immigrants experienced: the Germans, the Irish, the Italians, the Eastern Europeans, the Chinese, the Japanese - and more recently Hispanics and Haitians. Each was accused of taking someone else’s piece of the pie.
None of that is new. That has been the case when the population was 24 million in 1850 and the problem was the Irish, and it is the case now, with the population at 320 million. What is new, however, is an economy which has not grown significantly since the last recession. That is not the fault of immigrants, it is the fault of fiscal, tax, and regulatory policy by the Federal Government, specifically the Obama Administration, which has not only failed to create the conditions necessary for a robust recovery, but has in fact created conditions to ensure exactly the opposite result, a continuing economic malaise. Great work, Barry!
Motivated, hard working immigrants are a demographic necessity for us as a country, and not a bad thing. Policies which discourage assimilation are a bad thing, as are policies which fail to screen for immigrants who are productive and (other than in the case of illegal aliens, their presence here) law abiding.
Economic growth is an even bigger necessity for us as a country, and that is the real issue. Most of the other things people are talking about, like minimum wage, immigration, income distribution, etc are really driven by frustration at the lack of growth.
When I was a college student in the 1980s working my way through school in entry-level jobs, I never earned minimum wage. The de facto minimum wage was $2-$3 an hour higher, because a booming economy raised the market value of labor and generated enough jobs for anyone who wanted one (or in the case of me and many of my friends, two or more.) If we put in place growth-oriented policies in this country, we would see that level of growth again.
There are legitimate reasons to be concerned about the security of our borders, and the immigration issue. Should we build a fence, and do a better job patrolling our physical border? Of course. But 40% of illegals come here legally and overstay their visas, and a wall isn’t going to do anything to stop them. Should we have a way to legally permit some groups, like agricultural workers who follow the crops north and south of the border to be here legally? That would only reflect the realities of farming. Should we evaluate those who are here legally and illegally, and send those who commit crimes, and those who take welfare benefits, home? Absolutely. Those are all things we should do - but none of them addresses the real problem.
The real problem is a stagnant economy. People like Trump are selling economic scapegoating, not trying to solve the problem. His tariffs will not contribute to growth, nor will his spending plans, like replacing ObamaCare with “something terrific” - another government program. Those things hurt growth, and growth is the real cure.
I forgot to mention that FOL is owned by Berkshire Hathaway(Warren Buffett)and it was a coal fired plant.
This is the winning platform for the general.
Bernie Sanders is against free trade. Hillary isn’t.
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