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Re: (erielack) Alco Farewell / Economy Changes
It's the New Homeless Economy as here in CT and NY of No Jobs and nowhere to live.
As you pointed of jobs there that pay little more than minimum wage which cannot pay today's rent and other living expenses
Jerome
Jim,
I think you made some good points. The good news in Youngstown is that the
air is 25% cleaner. The bad news is that there are no jobs and the jobs
that are left pay just a little more than minimum wage. I guess this is the
"New Economy" or the "New Normal".
Rick Fleischer
Cortland, OH.
In a message dated 12/13/2010 11:01:15 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
graytrainpix_@_hotmail.com writes:
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
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