[PRCo] Re: Fayette County Economy

[Fred Schneider]

Industry does change.  Walking ... horses .... wheel invented ... canals
replace wagons for long distance ... railroads replace canals ... cars
and planes replace railroads.   Try a different vein ... pony express
... train mail ... truck mail ... plane mail ... e-mail.  Or wood
...iron ... steel ... plastic.  One group is always gaining and the
previous one loosing.

And I would never suggest Harold, that we should wipe out those people.
In many instances, however, we did eradicate one industry towns,
particularly those places dependent on extractive industries like
Pithole, Pennsylvania or Bodie, Nevada.  Farm towns in our prairie
states vanished too as fewer people were needed to farm each acre and we
no longer needed a general store a mile from each farm.    The people
who wanted to work had one choice ... move.   But, to some degree, we
still eliminate the places on the map because the youngster leave and
the old folks stay there to die.  I say to some degree because, for
example, we've lost half the population of Pittsburgh since 1950.

Local chambers of commerce and industrial development boards do
everything they can to bring in jobs (despite all the NIMBY's that don't
want the jobs in their back yard).  Of course that can become difficult
if the area has a strong union climate like southwestern Pennsylvania.
I'm immediately thinking of the Chrysler assembly plant in New Stanton,
Pa., that sat empty for many years.  Volkswagen came in.  We built a
railroad to the plant with state money.  VW moved out after a constant
or never ending struggle with the UAW.  Again the plant sat empty.  Sony
has it today.  But that area is still the classic one-industry region.
They lost coal but Sony is about the only big thing there.

Can you imagine the uproar that would take place if we tried to build a
steel mill in Charlotte or Las Vegas or Council Bluffs today?

We live in a totally different world today ... one that professes that
there is no reason to move because the government will give you a weekly
check for staying there and doing nothing.  If you are old enough, that
check comes from social security.  If not, it comes from welfare.  We've
tried to eradicate long term welfare but I doubt that we will ever
succeed until the government achieves bankruptcy.   Remains to be seen
what the baby boomers will do to social security ... I'm simply hording
my SS money until I really need it.

You want an interesting exercise in frustration.  Calculate how much of
your income goes into taxes.  Then find out from dad and grandpa what it
was like when they were the same age.   And I'm counting social security
as a tax because the program was always funded by the "contributions" of
the next generation.

Harold Geissenheimer wrote:

> Greetings to Fred and every one//
>
> I am not a social worker and have no political interest.
>
> Pennsylvania and other states does have a problem of shifts in the
> economy.  You find it in Scranton as well as Fayette County.  And
> in West Virginia and elsewhere.  Northern New York state also.
>
> Indistries change.  Technology improves   Mines and factories
-- Trailing quotes stripped by Listar --