Has anyone seen a viable plan for creating jobs for rural America? Over the past 30 years we've seen industries consolidate and manufacturing moved overseas. Small factories seem to be a dying breed and even if we can attract more large manufacturing plants into the US, will they end up In cities like Beattyville, Kentucky? Is the plan ultimately to have people move to where the jobs are?
It doesn't exist and will not exist unless rural america changes. And it won't. The infrastructure to support factories and distribution isn't there. The ....uhh....trainability of the locals is not great. It's just huge areas of population where the people have never adapted with the times and improved themselves.
Clinton said as much and it cost her a presidency. The truth hurts, but it doesn't mean it's wrong.
Manufacturing plants will not realistically bring a large number of jobs (to the US) these days, since automation will handle everything and human labor in the US is too expensive. Consolidation is natural and will continue. If you aren't a farmer, you should probably move. Eventually this won't work either, and we'll either have some kind of base income, or dystopia.
Conservatives pay huge sums of money to make sure they never get in touch with reality.Exactly, but do the people out in rural America know this? I’m worried they think the jobs are going to come flooding in any day. I know there are a lot of angry people out in rural America but who exactly are they mad and why. I don’t blame them for being mad, most in their position would be but hope they are in touch with reality.
Exactly, but do the people out in rural America know this? I’m worried they think the jobs are going to come flooding in any day. I know there are a lot of angry people out in rural America but who exactly are they mad and why. I don’t blame them for being mad, most in their position would be but hope they are in touch with reality.
There is no legitimate "plan" that doesn't require removal of their "bubble". There's a reason metropolitan areas are growing, and it's not tax cuts. Ghost/boom towns of the modern era.
Manufacturing plants will not realistically bring a large number of jobs (to the US) these days, since automation will handle everything and human labor in the US is too expensive. Consolidation is natural and will continue. If you aren't a farmer, you should probably move. Eventually this won't work either, and we'll either have some kind of base income, or dystopia.
You mention Beattyville. Kentucky has (had?) a system that allows folks to go on welfare more or less permanently if they can't find a job in their home county. Counties in Kentucky range from city park sized to really small. The economic reasons for living in many of these small towns (and in some cases, entire counties) are long gone (coal, garment factories). State government has created a perverse incentive for folks to remain in poverty in areas that will never recover. It is decades past time for folks to move.
That's one of the reasons I left the last place I lived. I was in Peoria, IL which was the home of Caterpillar corporate headquarters. They have a very large corporate office and ton of factory operations around central, IL. If Cat up and left that area is another rust belt victim. Well...just recently they announced they are pulling corporate from Peoria and moving to Chicago. They were in Peoria for 90 years. It's "Only" 300 corporate jobs, but those are very high paying incomes that inject a decent amount into local property taxes in the area. Plus you have the travel brought in from execs and other visitors to the headquarters. They are slowly divesting manufacturing from the area and moving that. Eventually they'll withdrawal most of the production and there's another hole of 12,000+ jobs plus all of the ancillary support that it provides. Peoria will be a shell of it's former self. I was expecting it to happen and left the region before it did.
That's just what is happening across all of much of the midwest.
Exactly, but do the people out in rural America know this? I’m worried they think the jobs are going to come flooding in any day. I know there are a lot of angry people out in rural America but who exactly are they mad and why. I don’t blame them for being mad, most in their position would be but hope they are in touch with reality.
I thought the plan was to remove illegals so that rural Republicans will work in the fields all day for subsistence wages?
I think the honest situation is anyone currently in manufacturing is screwed. Going forward people should not pursue that work and need to go to university for a useful degree. Even that will not stave off the inevitable when STEM fields and similar are saturated.
At that point it is population control and reduction. Or socialism will be needed on a much larger scale than it currently is with universal guaranteed incomes.
Manufacturing is over and going forward even some highly technical skilled fields will be automated. Once AI takes hold, even R&D and innovation may be automated.
I thought the plan was to remove illegals so that rural Republicans will work in the fields all day for subsistence wages?
You mention Beattyville. Kentucky has (had?) a system that allows folks to go on welfare more or less permanently if they can't find a job in their home county. Counties in Kentucky range from city park sized to really small. The economic reasons for living in many of these small towns (and in some cases, entire counties) are long gone (coal, garment factories). State government has created a perverse incentive for folks to remain in poverty in areas that will never recover. It is decades past time for folks to move.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/02/kentucky-opioids/515775/
Fun facts: Clay City is 20,000 people. They filled 2.2 million doses of hydrocodone. That's 110 doses for every man, woman and child there. Who wants to put any capital into an area like that?
Farm consolidation is an interesting social issue. The various homesteading acts were designed to create a large class of freeholders and they worked very well in the Midwest. Now consolidation is replacing that social structure with a handful of large corporate farmers which either contract the farming out or have landless employees work the farms. While this model has been the norm in California and the southwest, it is new to the Midwest. Eventually it change how Midwesterners view themselves and their communities.What everyone else said. The writing is on the wall for smalltown, USA (that isn't just a general shithole with one gas station and a walmart) because there's nothing to keep money there, except for farming (which is also being consolidated).
All the company towns remaining that aren't part of a larger metro will eventually meet the same fate. The talk around here is about who will be next...John Deere is the name that comes up the most.