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(erielack) Alco Farewell / Economy Changes

I'm catching up on the list this AM and just wanted to add a quick response to Dr. Paul B's comments from last Thursday (Dec 9) on Alco's passing and the changes in the American economy over the past four decades.  I realize that this is going away from the EL content scope, but then again, if you really want to appreciate the EL, it's good to know something about the times that it lived in.  

The main point is that the 60's and early 70's were very different from today, in terms of the economy.  Ditto, in many ways, for social norms and social factors.  Being an old guy, I sometimes think back to the manufacturing economy that the EL served, and how that economy slipped away over time such that the EL was no longer needed (and what remained of industrial and distributional infrastructure was better served by waterways and interstate highways).  You can't help but ask, as Dr. B is doing, was this all really an improvement?  I remember back in those days all the concern about how terrible manufacturing was for the environment, and how boring and unfulfilling were the jobs in manufacturing plants.  But was it all replaced with something better?  

Well, plenty of pros and cons to that, but with 10% unemployment that ain't going away anytime soon, and a growing spread between the wealthy and the poor that is undercutting the middle class, there is room for doubt.  But yea, you might say in response, what could anyone have done?  How could we have held on to some of those steel plants and chemical plants and assembly plants and distribution networks along the EL, when the world and the technology and leadership driving it were changing so quickly?

Well, one idea is that better public education makes all sectors of a nation's economy more competitive (and maybe even helps on the political and social ends).  No, this is not the magic bullet that could have saved Ford Mahwah and Youngstown Sheet and Tube and Firestone in Akron, but the trends in US education today are pretty scary, especially when you put them up against what's going on in the rest of the world.  I thought that Dr. Paul and anyone else interested in this economic stuff would be interested in an article that I just read, about how a recent global student testing project that found Canadian children to be doing quite a bit better, on average, than US kids.  

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/canada-is-not-becoming-outclassed/article1831853/

If you're an old railfan like me, you might remember the days when Canada was "like the US, only 5 to 10 years ago".   Remember how long steam lasted there, how long the classic passenger trains lasted, how you could find mixed trains in service almost to 1980, how there were still many towers and train-order depots along main lines that in the USA would be under CTC, how the 40 foot boxcar lingered on, how dedicated TOFC trains were all over the place in the USA by 1963 but hard to find back then in Canada.

And now, it looks like the situation might be reversing itself, with Canada poised to play a more prosperous role in the world economy than the USA will over the coming years.   Can't help but wonder if any of you Canadian expatriates ever think of going back . . . even if it is all look-alike CN and CP stuff up there now.  (And colder!)  Jim Gerofsky

* Subject: Re: (erielack) ALCO plant farewell
    * From: "Paul Brezicki" <doctorpb__@__bellsouth.net>
    * Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 06:10:08 -0500

Acknowledging that this is off-topic: I've seen this hundreds of times. 
Former industrial facilities demolished to make way for condos, retail, and 
in this case, a marina. Granted, this factory has not been active for over 
40 years, but this scenario begs the question: how long can we keep 
replacing productive activity with consumptive ones? This project (assuming 
it actually happens; the commercial real estate vacancy rate nationwide is 
approximately 20% and growing, and upstate NY is not exactly a growth 
region) will create some short-term construction jobs, but is not going to 
produce an ounce of material that we can sell overseas and thus add to the 
wealth of our nation. We'd rather get rid of those nasty-looking, polluting 
factories and let the Chinese make the stuff to place under the Christmas 
tree, so we can spend the afternoon shopping and then sip wine when we're 
done. Maybe this has something to do with our trillion-dollar deficits, 
state governments cutting back on police and fire services, and our 
(official) 10% unemployment rate? Paraphrasing what you said Rick, we've 
"matured" from an industrial economy to a "service" economy, and now a 
"finance-based" economy, and where has this gotten us? And what's going to 
happen when China, holding a huge chunk of our national debt, pulls the plug 
if we dare to do more than, say, wag our finger at N Korea? Do you get the 
feeling we've been sold a bill of goods and now we're left holding the bag?

Paul B

 		 	   		  

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