[Leaning Right]

Good post. In my neck of the woods (a rust-belt state), I'm seeing much of the same thing. There is simmply no middle-class work available for most folks anymore.

[Oatka]

Good post. In my neck of the woods (a rust-belt state), I'm seeing much of the same thing. There is simmply no middle-class work available for most folks anymore.

Back when I was a contract programmer, I went wherever the jobs were, which took me back and forth across the midwest.

What I remember most is that the first time I drove through the rust belt, I saw a lot of closed factories. A few years later I went through there again and noticed those factories were gone - just vast empty spaces. The corporations razed them to the ground as taxes were lower on bare land.

I thought then that I had witnessed the passing of an age, as with all the environmental hoops today, those factories were NEVER coming back.