Posted on 02/27/2024 11:30:04 AM PST by george76
That’s a change in technology. Greater ability to ship products world wide.
Lol, they're "dead" in the way that zombie hoards are "dead."
What’s the point? That it’s sad for these towns? Yeah, this sad story has been happening to towns for over a 100 years. There’s really not much we can do about it. The company went from 10,000 employees to 900 to 0. There’s no 1 factor, even no 1 factor anybody can change, that causes that. That’s a company that wound up on the wrong side of some curves, trade, technology, mobility. It sucks for the town, I feel bad for the people. But this trend has existed for longer than any of them have been alive. If you are in a company town you need to recognize that and either try to get the town to expand its foundation by voting for or even becoming smart candidates. Or get out. Because the handwriting has been on the wall for every single company town in the world for a long time: the bottom WILL fall out. Plan accordingly.
BS. We need a 20% across the board import tariff. Sorry if Free Traitors don't like that.
Scumy Free Traitors are what ruined America. We can’t even make a tin cans.....
That would only be one factor. NAFTA went into place 30 years ago. The town had an opportunity to expand, lure other companies. Other industries. Not be a company town. Sorry if your addiction to insults keeps you from seeing basic reality.
Shouldn't there be some sort of medal or badge for that?
The one idea would lead someone to train for a career, get a job, buy a house, get married and start a family, and set down roots.
The other idea would lead someone to remain mobile and agile, i.e. stay single, rent, and be ready to move where the new opportunities await.
Maybe it's the pace of change. Before, someone could work for the same company his entire career because even though creative destruction was happening, it wasn't happening so fast that he had to move on. Maybe it only meant that his sons had to change professions and locations.
Maybe it's a good thing that wealth is being transferred from the West's Middle Class to the Third World's desperately poor due to unequal enforcement of environmental and labor laws. Since the fabulously rich will always be with us, it naturally follows that the great equalizing of standards of living will happen among the Middle and Lower Classes.
Adam Smith's notion that free trade allows countries to focus their efforts on creating those products and services that they are best at, and buying the rest from other countries doesn't make sense anymore. Since most wealth is generated either in factories or offices, and since central AC and heat is available across the globe, the only thing that distinguishes one country from another is the cost of the workforce and regulations. Two attributes in which poorer countries will always excel.
Since politicians are selected to help THEIR citizens, and not the citizens of the World, if tariffs are needed to even the playing field so that American workers can keep their jobs then sobeit, even if this somehow increases the overall inefficiency of "The Market".
And as far as towns not becoming "company towns". Many of the rust belt states made major efforts to lure companies in with tax breaks, etc. There were some success stories, but there were also massive failures that put those towns into even greater debt. Corporations are very nimble and can start-up, shut-down, and relocate factories and offices more quickly that established communities can respond.
Maybe we should listen to our masters at the WEF, own nothing, always have a packed suitcase at hand, be ready to relocate at a moment's notice, be single, be childless, and be happy... oh so unbelievably happy.
And yet, how many of those people voted for the people who are forcing the closures by their policies?
I don’t think there is any disconnect. You just have to remember that while one group of people are achieving the American Dream they are changing the marketplace. And some of that is going to destroy other companies. And internationalization doesn’t play as big a part of it as people like to think. Competition is competition.
And there’s nothing new in any of this. Look at what happened to the textiles industry in the North of England in the late 19th century. New technology came to be, more fabric could be made faster by fewer people. But demand didn’t climb as much as supply COULD. Mills started slashing output to prop up their market, which meant slashing hours, but even with that a lot of mills went out of business.
I’m seeing another one of these cycles happening now. A chunk of my roof blew off, once all the insurance stuff got settled out my tarpaper roof got replaced by a foam roof. And I’ll tell you right now foam roofs are going to replace tarpaper and probably even shingle. It took them half as long to put the new roof on as it took them to take the old stuff off. It’s supposed to be easier to repair (cut out damaged chunk, spray a little foam), and it’s slashed my utility bills. Right now the foam costs about 30% more than paper (really not sure how we got the insurance company to be cool with that), but that will come down. And meanwhile it’s dramatically better insulating so my utility bills have dropped by a 1/3. And it’s guaranteed for 25 years.
So that’s the future, and everybody in the tarpaper and shingle industries needs to be ready for that. I don’t think it will effect the more decorative roof options cause it ain’t pretty (it gets coating so it’s plain) but the “I just want my roof to keep the outside out” section of the industry will be foam. Which means everybody in the industries that make and support tarpaper and shingles are on the clock. Might be 10 years, might be 20, not sure how fast the price will come down and regular people will be able to do it. But at some point, those classic plain roofs most of us probably have and we all see all over will be foam. And if there’s a town whose sole industry is making tarpaper they’re hosed.
“Greater ability to ship products world wide.”
Yes, and that includes packaging massive amounts of goods, concentrating them on the ships, and then distributing them at their destination.
“Three months before his last visit to this country, Nikita Khrushchev said, ‘We can’t expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find they have communism.’”
That is NEVER a good thing!! MAGA!!!!
Lol, he’s won a chest-full.
Asphalt shingles in the northeast look horrible after a few years—black streaks that the shingle industry attributes to blue green algae. They’re adding copper granules to combat this but that is incompatible with aluminum gutters which eventually are destroyed with the runoff from the copper granules. In fact, the shingle warranties warn, in tiny print, that they will not be liable for any damage to your aluminum gutters.
So, my family has installed EcoStar which is a composite shingle that looks like slate and can be recycled. It’s made out of different materials including, believe it or not, baby diaper materials. It looks wonderful and is so tough hail won’t damage it and a truck can run over the slates without any damage to them. So far, we’re very pleased with them.
EcoStar is an expensive roof, but it is made to last much longer than asphalt shingles so we shouldn’t have to replace the roof ten years from now. The asphalt shingle industry is on its last legs. According to several roofers we talked to, the warranties are a joke and the quality of asphalt shingles has deteriorated significantly in the last ten years. Good riddance.
Well, West Virginia has been voting Republican lately. I believe every county voted for Trump. And Weirton Steel was one of the steel companies that produced steel for the weapons for the arsenal of democracy FDR wanted the U.S. to become. My dad was an Army liaison officer at Weirton Steel during WWII. He earned a medal for expediting the production of weapons at Weirton, specifically a trench mortar bomb for Great Britain.
I deeply admire the towns and the people in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia who worked in the mills that made our weapons. I despise anyone who diminishes their contributions to our country and who looks down on their descendants as relics unworthy of our interest or compassion.
Lol you use insults because you know you don’t have facts. Thanks for proving me right. Again
And no insults from me, just observations.
Wrong. Freepers do not care for your assessment of a burger going up 25cents, care to revisit?
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.