[PRCo] Re: China

[Fred Schneider]

Yes, Dwight, but it came much later.   

The wages paid in Lancaster County, for example, were substantially lower than the national average and we had few union companies in the 1960s.   Wages rose as a result of pressure on the labor market by extremely low unemployment.   When you have unemployment that is sub-frictional, you wind up with corporations being forced to pay a premium above the norm for the area just to get help.   Today our wages are pretty much in the national park and so is our unemployment.  

What hemorrhaged first in this area were the soft goods industries.   If we were to go back to the 1930s, it was said that Lancaster County had no clue what the Depression was.   Many of the garment and textile plant workers simply were on piece rate and did work in their homes.   They simply has less to take home but they were all working.   In Pittsburgh, the U S Census for 1940 still showed 30% unemployed!   But when we get into the 1980s, all those garment, textile and boot and shoe and shoe jobs in Lancaster simply evaporated.   There were about 5500 garment workers, 3000 textile employees and 2700 shoe factory jobs in the 1960s.   The shoe jobs went first.   I cannot think of any active plant today.   Foreign competition, you understand.   Then the high price of fuel hit a lot of those recreational vehicle plants that move in during the 1970s.    Cheap watches wiped out Hamilton Watch and our government gave them a subsidy to move the residual to Puerto Rico ... the engine hour meter division with a few hundred people is all that remains of about 2000 people that once worked for the watch company.   The biggest company in town was Armstrong Cork ... and I can take this back to Pittsburgh because that was a Pittsburgh company that relocated here because of a major fire in Pittsburgh about 1900.  The Lancaster Cork Works became the Closure Plant and that whole division was sold to Kerr Glass about 1969.  The Lancaster Floor Plant unions got too greedy ... about 1800 jobs have been reduced to about 200 and most of the plant is now and empty field.   The company still makes about as much resilient flooring as they always did but most of the work today is done in right-to-work states and in single-floor plants where they don't have to waste time using elevators.  RCA built a huge plant here in World War II and by 1965 it had 3600 people here making color television tubes (both for cameras and for receiving sets).   They Sony showed them how to do it more cheaply.   The plant closed.   

Yes, Dwight.   I know.   And maybe 50 years from now some other nation like Argentina or Brazil will show the Chinese how to do it.   Who knows.   Right now the ball is in the Chinese court and most of us don't understand how we've been screwed or why or what is ahead for us or if we can recover anything.   Instead we lash out at any convenient receptor.  





On Apr 5, 2011, at 11:34 PM, Dwight Long wrote:

>   Fred   Eastern :Pa had its share of the decline as well as my old
> stompinggr= ounds did.  Perhaps Lancaster County was an island of exception,
> but B= illy Joel did not get the idea for his song "And We're Living her= e
> in Allentown" out of thin air!   Dwight
> 
> Apr 5, 2011 03:17:48 PM, pittsburgh-railways at dementi= a.org wrote:
> Yes. It alway= s chases the cheapest labor doesn't it......
> 
> I saw the same thing in= eastern Pennsylvania when western Pennsylvania was
> declining because we ha= d lower than national average wages and the work
> ethic of the plain people.= Jobs came here and so did the kids to work them.
> Our population climbed in= Lancaster County from 230,000 in 1950 to 520,000
> today. Unemployment dropp= ed to an unprecedented 1.4% of the labor force in
> 1964. As one industrialis= t put it, "That's rolling the barrel over, wiping
> the moss of the underside= and trying to get a few hours work a day out of
> the moss." Well, in the 20= 08 recession our unemployment rose to where it
> had been in Pittsburgh and J= ohnstown when steel shut down because the
> goodsproduced here are now done = in other nations. 
> 
> For the first time, our kids and grandkids and gr= eat grandkids are going
> tobe making less than the previous generation or t= hey will work a lot more
> hours. 
> 
> 
> On Apr 4, 2011, at 9:13 PM, Her= b Brannon wrote:
> 
>> I remember when the United States used to have= a vibrant economy like that
>> showing in these videos. Busy streets,= people going to work, shops and
>> stores all open for business. Oh y= es, that is our former economy we're
>> looking at.
>> On Mon, Ap= r 4, 2011 at 19:28, Fred Schneider wrote:
>> = 
>>> Peter Folger and I both have a strong desire to educate. He ke= eps
> telling
>>> me to keep it up. This is an item he passed along t= oday which I think
>>> deserves much wider distribution.
>> &gt= ; The second and third links just show views of China. While we may be
> &= gt;> upset that they are taking our dollars, they are also part of our w=
> orld ...
>>> our planet.
>>> 
>>> The third link? W= ell, if any of you operate conventional air-brake
>>> streetcars in= museums, imagine doing it on city streets with people and
>>> auto= mobiles impinging on you every few hundred meters. Look at what the
>> = >lady in the third video contends with while running her car in Dalian.= 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> From: = "Peter Folger" 
>>>> Date: April 3, 201= 1 2:30:48 PM EDT
>>>> To: "Peter Folger" 
>>>> Subject: A return to Dalian, China
>>>> 
> &= gt;>> A return to Dalian, China
>>>> If I ever had my drut= hers answered this is a place I most assuredly
> would
>>> like to vi= sit; hopefully I have not covered any previously sent videos.
> As
>> &gt= ; Bill Withun, now retired curator of transportation at the
> Smithsonian,>>> 
>>>> (http://teamstermagazine.com/smithsonian%252= 6%2523039%3Bs-rail-chief),
>>> opined one night years ago
>> &g= t;> 
>>>> in a Lowell, MA, Thai restaurant, "these are the pe= ople you need to
> keep
>>> an eye on for they are smart and think>>> 
>>>> in the long term, they have it far more toge= ther than the Russians."
>>>> 
>>>> =C2=A1=E2=89=A4= =C3=8E=C3=92=C2=B5=C3=84=E2=97=8A=C3=A6=E2=80=99=C3=BA
> 720HD=C3=8A=C3=93=C3=
> =86=C2=B5=C2=A1=C2=BF=C2=A3=C2=A8=C3=88=E2=80=A1=C2=A3=C2=A9 =C3=80=C3=8B=
> =C3=82=EF=AC=82=C3=96=C2=AE=C2=B6=CF=80 =C3=8A=C2=B1=C3=89=E2=80=B9=C2=B4=
> =C3=B3=C3=81=C2=AC 1/2 Dalian the Capital of Romance and
>>> Fashio= n.
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DjB6I9z= dV8Qs
>>>> 
>>>> =C2=A1=E2=89=A4=C3=8E=C3=92=C2=B5=C3= =84=E2=97=8A=C3=A6=E2=80=99=C3=BA
> 720HD=C3=8A=C3=93=C3=86=C2=B5=C2=A1=C2=BF=
> =C2=A3=C2=A8=C3=88=E2=80=A1=C2=A3=C2=A9 =C3=80=C3=8B=C3=82=EF=AC=82=C3=96=
> =C2=AE=C2=B6=CF=80 =C3=8A=C2=B1=C3=89=E2=80=B9=C2=B4=C3=B3=C3=81=C2=AC 2/2 =
> Dalian the Capital of Romance and
>>> Fashion.
>>>> 
> = >>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DKI-JCb4i6A0&NR=3D1
> &gt= ;>> 
>>>> Old-style Trams in Dalian China.
>>>> = 
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D9RIspfxAYWU
>>> &= gt; 
>>>> Dalian trams.
>>>> 
>>>> http://= www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Di9i5fWVF7-0
>>>> 
>>>> =C2=
> =B4=C3=B3=C3=9FB=C2=A4=C3=8E=C3=82=C2=B7=C3=83=C3=A6=C3=AB=E2=80=A6=C3=9C=
> =CE=A9 =C3=96=E2=80=B9=E2=80=99=C3=BA.
>>>> 
>>>> htt= p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DZDuZmRuYifw&feature=3Drelated
>>> = >
>>>> Peter Folger
>>>> P.O.Box 1741
>>> = >Biddeford, ME 04005-1741
>>>> transitman at maine.rr.com
> &g= t;> 
>>> 
>>> You might also want to look at some of the= stuff on the internet on the
>>> Chinese high speed railways. That= 's a concept the rest of the world
>>> embraces but we say is impos= sible.
>>> 
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DQ9WEXdn_qV= 0&NR=3D1
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
> &gt= ;> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Herb Brannon
>> In Cuyaho= ga Valley National Park
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>