Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 10/19/2026 11:28:01 AM PDT by chickenlips
When Rexnord moved its Indianapolis ball-bearing plant to Mexico, John Feltner lost a $25-an-hour union job, the second factory job he had lost in a decade. Around Christmas of 2017, a hospital offered him maintenance work at $18 an hour. When a former boss offered him a union job at a cornstarch plant paying 20% more, John refused. “I don’t see it crumbling underneath me like Rexnord,” he told The Indianapolis Star. John had already been burned twice, and a hospital, he figured, wasn’t going anywhere. Three decades of deindustrialization had taught him and millions like him to take the safe option. The ideal that hard work and risk are rewarded stopped feeling true for John, and for many Americans like him.
That is why so many in the heartland voted for populism, and why a growing number of young Americans have turned to socialism. Americans have stopped believing either party’s promises of economic renewal. Rent-seeking, getting rich by capturing wealth but not creating it, has done more to discredit free enterprise than Bernie Sanders ever has. Generations watched plants move overseas, communities disappear, and watched financiers strip what remained. When people hear “the free market,” they hear “the fix is in.” Private equity did not stay in manufacturing either. It soon entered healthcare, retail, and food service, jobs that seemed safe because they couldn’t be shipped overseas.
In 2010, the private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management bought the Archdiocese of Boston’s hospital chain, converted it to for-profit and renamed it Steward Health Care. In 2016, Steward sold nine hospitals’ real estate to a landlord and leased it back, part of a $1.25 billion deal that loaded the chain with rental debt. Cerberus sold off its stake in 2020, netting roughly $800 million. Four years later, Steward was bankrupt.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailywire.com ...
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
Socialists to the left of me
Wealth extractors to the right
Here I am jobless with you
As a tax payer I'm tired of paying for the carnage left behind by these parasites on both the left and right.
The rise of Big Finance in the late 70s is going to cause the rise of socialism today.
Multiculturalism creating a low trust society and turning America into an economic zone isn’t helping either
I was expecting Joe Isuzu...
A good post. That was an interesting read.
Little guys are getting eaten too
veterinarians
CPA
dental
Optometrists
medical offices
are they forced to sell?
PDJT is working overtime himself to re-industrialize America.
Very sad, feel bad for them.
A while back a co-worker of mine started a pizza shop, financed it with his family home as collateral, hoping to quit his day job later. Within a year he lost everything. Had to move his family into a rental apt. Sad.
“are they forced to sell?”
Essentially all businesses are forced to sell due to inheritance taxes.
A father can’t pass along a family business of any size to the children to run it because the children have to sell it to pay the tax man.
I’ve very carefully structured things so growth after middle age goes into irrevocable trusts (that I technically don’t control) so this tax will be minimized.
It’s an expensive (legal and accounting) process and a PIA.
But will keep businesses in the hands of my family and not private equity.
Most don’t plan or can’t.
Bitte. Nicht hier.
They have little options
The only place to start a business and make any money is in food and that isnt working out too well.
no dress shops or corner stores, or car repair shops or shoe stores...
I didn’t ask about starting a business. I asked if they were forced to sell their existing business.
Threads about the economy these days are about trying to influence the elections.
If it doesn’t promote Trump or republicans, the thread is always a passive-aggressive (sissy boy) attempt to discourage republicans from voting.
Due to 'higher' education.
Nationwide studies show that roughly 50% to 60% of U.S. college professors identify as liberal, though the exact percentage varies depending on the specific survey, institution type, and academic discipline.
It is tough here in America to “industrialize “ without massive government contracts or loans. I know first hand and sold my business in June to a company that got huge government contracts. The cost of buying machinery is insane and going through the headache of hiring people just isn’t worth it. When I went to get government jobs I had to play the game and have “diversity” before I was ever considered. Hire a black fat woman and you get jobs thrown at you. I did contract work for a major aircraft manufacturer. They had an entire division filled with worthless DEI hires just to keep up appearances while “boring old white men” did the actual work. The manufacturing industry here stinks. The quality coming out of China is amazing. Until that dragon is slayed I don’t see much changing.
It is the love of money, and it applies at all levels, from the lowest laborer to the richest of the rich, and everyone in between.
Whether you are talking to the janitor at the cable company seeking union padding that he knows is wrong, or the nice lady on the phone as you are trying to cancel cable and she keeps lying to you, or to the CEO of the company who does wrong at a massive scale and is probably a sociopath, they are all willing to do what is wrong to increase their income or position, and this is everywhere and in government and politics as well.
NSS
I said they had little options and had to sell
they were all told nicely that if not them, they would buy competitor and be wiped out.
Here is just one link from Whitehouse.gov regarding re-industrialization.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/04/trump-effect-american-manufacturing-is-roaring-back-as-factory-activity-hits-four-year-high/
I write all this background because we (I was unable to work in my previous industry due to health reasons, so I went and worked for da boss) we didn't look at his situation as something that would force us to sell. What it did was force us to pivot and adapt. We did a "rinse" and suggested new accountants/shops for their taxes/books for low revenue clients, changed from per hour to a tiered service system of pricing, and basically leaned into our type A personalities and started networking at our burgeoning town's business associations and networked. We were able to make more money with fewer clients as a boutique advisory firm specializing in medium to medium-large revenues that are still considered small. We have leveraged technology and continue to use AI in a manner that decreases our workload, and that includes time spent on reviewing AI output.
Many of our contemporaries in the area are doing the same thing. I don't buy the whole small-business-forced-to-sell BS that is portrayed as the mean capitalists on the right are just as bad as the socialists. The left's propensity to roll over and let gov take care of them has been able to co-op plenty of weak RINO loving GOP.
From a CoPilot query on small biz numbers:
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration's 2026 Small Business Profile: Small business openings: 1,068,489 Small business closings: 1,034,813 Net gain: +33,676 small businesses between March 2024 and March 2025.  On the broader economy side (all business sizes): 1,249,999 establishments opened 1,179,362 closed Net gain of 70,637 establishments.
Bill Clinton kicked it in to high gear with NAFTA, that was the beginning of the end.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.