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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
the real welfare state:
WAYNESBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing.
He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course.
”I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner.
Despite broad consensus about coal’s bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.
Trump has promised to revive coal by rolling back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants.
“I have a lot of faith in President Trump,” Sylvester said.
But hundreds of coal-fired plants have closed in recent years, and cheap natural gas continues to erode domestic demand. The Appalachian region has lost about 33,500 mining jobs since 2011, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Although there have been small gains in coal output and hiring this year, driven by foreign demand, production levels remain near lows hit in 1978.
A White House official did not respond to requests for comment on coal policy and retraining for coal workers.
What many experts call false hopes for a coal resurgence have mired economic development efforts here in a catch-22: Coal miners are resisting retraining without ready jobs from new industries, but new companies are unlikely to move here without a trained workforce. The stalled diversification push leaves some of the nation’s poorest areas with no clear path to prosperity.
Federal retraining programs have fared better, with some approaching full participation, in the parts of Appalachia where mining has been crushed in a way that leaves little hope for a comeback, according to county officials and recruiters. They include West Virginia and Kentucky, where coal resources have been depleted.
But in southern Pennsylvania, where the industry still has ample reserves and is showing flickers of life, federal jobs retraining programs see sign-up rates below 20 percent, the officials and recruiters said. In southern Virginia’s coal country, participation rates run about 50 percent, they said.
“Part of our problem is we still have coal,” said Robbie Matesic, executive director of Greene County’s economic development department.
Out-of-work miners cite many reasons beyond faith in Trump policy for their reluctance to train for new industries, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen former and prospective coal workers, career counselors and local economic development officials. They say mining pays well; other industries are unfamiliar; and there’s no income during training and no guarantee of a job afterward.
In Pennsylvania, Corsa Coal opened a mine in Somerset in June which will create about 70 jobs – one of the first mines to open here in years. And Consol Energy recently expanded its Bailey mine complex in Greene County.
But Consol also announced in January that it plans to sell its coal holdings to focus on natural gas. And it has commissioned a recruitment agency, GMS Mines and Repair, to find contract laborers for its coal expansion who will be paid about $13 an hour - half the hourly wage of a starting unionized coal worker. The program Sylvester signed up for was set up by GMS.
The new hiring in Pennsylvania is related mainly to an uptick in foreign demand for metallurgical coal, used in producing steel, rather than domestic demand for thermal coal from power plants, the industry’s main business. Some market analysts describe the foreign demand as a temporary blip driven by production problems in the coal hub of Australia.
Officials for U.S. coal companies operating in the region, including Consol and Corsa, declined requests for comment.
“The coal industry has stabilized, but it’s not going to come back,” said Blair Zimmerman, a 40-year veteran of the mines who is now the commissioner for Greene County, one of Pennsylvania’s oldest coal regions. “We need to look at the future.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Labor has received about $2 million since 2015 from the federal POWER program, an initiative of former President Barack Obama to help retrain workers in coal-dependent areas. But the state is having trouble putting even that modest amount of money to good use.
In Greene and Washington counties, 120 people have signed up for jobs retraining outside the mines, far short of the target of 700, said Ami Gatts, director of the Washington-Greene County Job Training Agency. In Westmoreland and Fayette counties, participation in federal job retraining programs has been about 15 percent of capacity, officials said.
“I can’t even get them to show up for free food I set up in the office,” said Dave Serock, an ex-miner who recruits in Fayette County for Southwest Training Services.
Programs administered by the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal and state partnership to strengthen the region’s economy, have had similar struggles. One $1.4 million ARC project to teach laid-off miners in Greene County and in West Virginia computer coding has signed up only 20 people for 95 slots. Not a single worker has enrolled in another program launched this summer to prepare ex-miners to work in the natural gas sector, officials said.
Greene County Commissioner Zimmerman said he’d like to see a big company like Amazon or Toyota come to southwestern Pennsylvania to build a distribution or manufacturing plant that could employ thousands.
Source
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On November 02 2017 02:54 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2017 02:47 RealityIsKing wrote:
You guys are treating like Mohdoo like crap here and its not a pretty view. I thought he'd get a better pass because he's pure on lib philosophy through it all: 1. He criticizes the makeup of the country, and makes them out to be the bigger group. Show nested quote +Sub-par humans make up most of the voters and sub-par humans don't care about statistics.
What percentage of people you know would you say spend as much time pondering political philosophy? What percentage of people you know have as fleshed out of a worldview as you? I consider you a worthy voter, but you are far from typical. I would say that only about 5% of people in our country fulfill their duty as a voter. Democracy is a gift and most people shit it away by not being involved, educated or spending time developing their own fleshed out worldview. I have maybe 5 or 6 friends who I think should actually be allowed to vote and not all of them are democrats.
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On November 02 2017 02:46 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2017 02:38 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 02 2017 02:28 Mohdoo wrote:On November 02 2017 02:17 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo, you sound like the people who were all about “enhanced interrogation” post 9/11. Styling themselves as realists and not letting virtue holding them back from doing the right thing. But in the end they did more damage to the US and didn’t make us any safer. Maybe don't make policy proposals a hot minute after an attack. Because guess what: this guy isn't a refugee. I see your point, but I don't think they are actually comparable. In the 9/11 case, there is a conscious decision to harm more humans temporarily for the sake of reducing net human suffering. In the scenario I describe, using bullshit numbers, there is *already* 100 people suffering. The guy asking for zero suffering keeps losing. I am saying let's see if we can at least get people on board with 25 people suffering. The distinction you guys aren't seeing is the fact that the zero suffering guy doesn't exist right now. He's never been elected. His seat currently belongs to the 100 suffering guy. Your morals and beliefs are 100% meaningless. You don't help anyone by feeling a certain way. If that 25 guy wins over the 100 guy, we just saved 75 lives no two ways about it. All of this is because the 0 suffering case ***** DOES NOT EXIST*****. You guys are fighting to protect something that isn't even real. It has no physical impact on this country or any of the suffering refugees. There's so much wrong with this I don't even know where to start, but at least realize We're all fully aware there isn't a "0- suffering" elected official, but you're arguing that Democrats become more accepting of people's irrational bigotry than wherever non-zero number, but below Republicans, you would place them now. I know the numbers themselves are meaningless but Republicans are hardly skill capped on their bigotry either. Lot's of room to grow more bigoted for both sides. In my mind, if democrats being more accepting of suffering saves those 75 people's lives, that is a good thing. What is the bad component? Is it that you see it as a case where saving 75 lives now actually harms 100 lives later sort of thing? Your argument makes total sense from an academic philosophy perspective, but I am still struggling to see the real world significance of what you are saying. It feels like what you are saying is "more racism? FULL STOP", which I can certainly understand. But I am asking you to flesh out why exactly the 25 instead of 100 scenario is a net negative. Saying "omg this is so dumb i can't even" is a not super great argument.
The person who wants 75 is more likely to go with 100 than 0. If they go with 0, they weren't really about 75 in the first place - they just thought they were or convinced themselves they were.
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On November 02 2017 02:58 brian wrote:
interesting point of contention from Danglars’ earlier post. are red states not relatively the poorer states? my understanding was that, again relatively, they were.
In general yes. The classic “urban liberal” lives in states that have more active economies and commerce. States like Missouri and Kentucky are so economically strapped for revenue that they rely on the federal government to pay for most of their services. Which is amazing since the recent wave of tea party candidates have pushed to end that federal assistance, which will screw over their own state.
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On November 02 2017 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:+ Show Spoiler +the real welfare state: WAYNESBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing.
He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course.
”I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner.
Despite broad consensus about coal’s bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.
Trump has promised to revive coal by rolling back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants.
“I have a lot of faith in President Trump,” Sylvester said.
But hundreds of coal-fired plants have closed in recent years, and cheap natural gas continues to erode domestic demand. The Appalachian region has lost about 33,500 mining jobs since 2011, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Although there have been small gains in coal output and hiring this year, driven by foreign demand, production levels remain near lows hit in 1978.
A White House official did not respond to requests for comment on coal policy and retraining for coal workers.
What many experts call false hopes for a coal resurgence have mired economic development efforts here in a catch-22: Coal miners are resisting retraining without ready jobs from new industries, but new companies are unlikely to move here without a trained workforce. The stalled diversification push leaves some of the nation’s poorest areas with no clear path to prosperity.
Federal retraining programs have fared better, with some approaching full participation, in the parts of Appalachia where mining has been crushed in a way that leaves little hope for a comeback, according to county officials and recruiters. They include West Virginia and Kentucky, where coal resources have been depleted.
But in southern Pennsylvania, where the industry still has ample reserves and is showing flickers of life, federal jobs retraining programs see sign-up rates below 20 percent, the officials and recruiters said. In southern Virginia’s coal country, participation rates run about 50 percent, they said.
“Part of our problem is we still have coal,” said Robbie Matesic, executive director of Greene County’s economic development department.
Out-of-work miners cite many reasons beyond faith in Trump policy for their reluctance to train for new industries, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen former and prospective coal workers, career counselors and local economic development officials. They say mining pays well; other industries are unfamiliar; and there’s no income during training and no guarantee of a job afterward.
In Pennsylvania, Corsa Coal opened a mine in Somerset in June which will create about 70 jobs – one of the first mines to open here in years. And Consol Energy recently expanded its Bailey mine complex in Greene County.
But Consol also announced in January that it plans to sell its coal holdings to focus on natural gas. And it has commissioned a recruitment agency, GMS Mines and Repair, to find contract laborers for its coal expansion who will be paid about $13 an hour - half the hourly wage of a starting unionized coal worker. The program Sylvester signed up for was set up by GMS.
The new hiring in Pennsylvania is related mainly to an uptick in foreign demand for metallurgical coal, used in producing steel, rather than domestic demand for thermal coal from power plants, the industry’s main business. Some market analysts describe the foreign demand as a temporary blip driven by production problems in the coal hub of Australia.
Officials for U.S. coal companies operating in the region, including Consol and Corsa, declined requests for comment.
“The coal industry has stabilized, but it’s not going to come back,” said Blair Zimmerman, a 40-year veteran of the mines who is now the commissioner for Greene County, one of Pennsylvania’s oldest coal regions. “We need to look at the future.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Labor has received about $2 million since 2015 from the federal POWER program, an initiative of former President Barack Obama to help retrain workers in coal-dependent areas. But the state is having trouble putting even that modest amount of money to good use.
In Greene and Washington counties, 120 people have signed up for jobs retraining outside the mines, far short of the target of 700, said Ami Gatts, director of the Washington-Greene County Job Training Agency. In Westmoreland and Fayette counties, participation in federal job retraining programs has been about 15 percent of capacity, officials said.
“I can’t even get them to show up for free food I set up in the office,” said Dave Serock, an ex-miner who recruits in Fayette County for Southwest Training Services.
Programs administered by the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal and state partnership to strengthen the region’s economy, have had similar struggles. One $1.4 million ARC project to teach laid-off miners in Greene County and in West Virginia computer coding has signed up only 20 people for 95 slots. Not a single worker has enrolled in another program launched this summer to prepare ex-miners to work in the natural gas sector, officials said.
Greene County Commissioner Zimmerman said he’d like to see a big company like Amazon or Toyota come to southwestern Pennsylvania to build a distribution or manufacturing plant that could employ thousands. Source
This is exactly what I'm talking about. The super-corporations with a boatload of money should spend some investing in these "risky" areas (yes the infrastructure is not there yet, but if you invest in the workforce you'll basically have whole towns loyal to your company).
Or, IMO, this is exactly the type of situation where government should step in and help provide better wages to incentivize the modernization of the workforce in these areas.
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William Tweed would be so proud of the votes being secured for the coal mining industry and the party that supports it.
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On November 02 2017 03:02 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2017 02:58 brian wrote:
interesting point of contention from Danglars’ earlier post. are red states not relatively the poorer states? my understanding was that, again relatively, they were. In general yes. The classic “urban liberal” lives in states that have more active economies and commerce. States like Missouri and Kentucky are so economically strapped for revenue that they rely on the federal government to pay for most of their services. Which is amazing since the recent wave of tea party candidates have pushed to end that federal assistance, which will screw over their own state.
"When i voted for you I thought you meant lazy liberals welfare, not my own"
The ability of Republicans to get people to vote against their own basic interests is impressive.
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On November 02 2017 03:07 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2017 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:+ Show Spoiler +the real welfare state: WAYNESBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing.
He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course.
”I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner.
Despite broad consensus about coal’s bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.
Trump has promised to revive coal by rolling back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants.
“I have a lot of faith in President Trump,” Sylvester said.
But hundreds of coal-fired plants have closed in recent years, and cheap natural gas continues to erode domestic demand. The Appalachian region has lost about 33,500 mining jobs since 2011, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Although there have been small gains in coal output and hiring this year, driven by foreign demand, production levels remain near lows hit in 1978.
A White House official did not respond to requests for comment on coal policy and retraining for coal workers.
What many experts call false hopes for a coal resurgence have mired economic development efforts here in a catch-22: Coal miners are resisting retraining without ready jobs from new industries, but new companies are unlikely to move here without a trained workforce. The stalled diversification push leaves some of the nation’s poorest areas with no clear path to prosperity.
Federal retraining programs have fared better, with some approaching full participation, in the parts of Appalachia where mining has been crushed in a way that leaves little hope for a comeback, according to county officials and recruiters. They include West Virginia and Kentucky, where coal resources have been depleted.
But in southern Pennsylvania, where the industry still has ample reserves and is showing flickers of life, federal jobs retraining programs see sign-up rates below 20 percent, the officials and recruiters said. In southern Virginia’s coal country, participation rates run about 50 percent, they said.
“Part of our problem is we still have coal,” said Robbie Matesic, executive director of Greene County’s economic development department.
Out-of-work miners cite many reasons beyond faith in Trump policy for their reluctance to train for new industries, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen former and prospective coal workers, career counselors and local economic development officials. They say mining pays well; other industries are unfamiliar; and there’s no income during training and no guarantee of a job afterward.
In Pennsylvania, Corsa Coal opened a mine in Somerset in June which will create about 70 jobs – one of the first mines to open here in years. And Consol Energy recently expanded its Bailey mine complex in Greene County.
But Consol also announced in January that it plans to sell its coal holdings to focus on natural gas. And it has commissioned a recruitment agency, GMS Mines and Repair, to find contract laborers for its coal expansion who will be paid about $13 an hour - half the hourly wage of a starting unionized coal worker. The program Sylvester signed up for was set up by GMS.
The new hiring in Pennsylvania is related mainly to an uptick in foreign demand for metallurgical coal, used in producing steel, rather than domestic demand for thermal coal from power plants, the industry’s main business. Some market analysts describe the foreign demand as a temporary blip driven by production problems in the coal hub of Australia.
Officials for U.S. coal companies operating in the region, including Consol and Corsa, declined requests for comment.
“The coal industry has stabilized, but it’s not going to come back,” said Blair Zimmerman, a 40-year veteran of the mines who is now the commissioner for Greene County, one of Pennsylvania’s oldest coal regions. “We need to look at the future.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Labor has received about $2 million since 2015 from the federal POWER program, an initiative of former President Barack Obama to help retrain workers in coal-dependent areas. But the state is having trouble putting even that modest amount of money to good use.
In Greene and Washington counties, 120 people have signed up for jobs retraining outside the mines, far short of the target of 700, said Ami Gatts, director of the Washington-Greene County Job Training Agency. In Westmoreland and Fayette counties, participation in federal job retraining programs has been about 15 percent of capacity, officials said.
“I can’t even get them to show up for free food I set up in the office,” said Dave Serock, an ex-miner who recruits in Fayette County for Southwest Training Services.
Programs administered by the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal and state partnership to strengthen the region’s economy, have had similar struggles. One $1.4 million ARC project to teach laid-off miners in Greene County and in West Virginia computer coding has signed up only 20 people for 95 slots. Not a single worker has enrolled in another program launched this summer to prepare ex-miners to work in the natural gas sector, officials said.
Greene County Commissioner Zimmerman said he’d like to see a big company like Amazon or Toyota come to southwestern Pennsylvania to build a distribution or manufacturing plant that could employ thousands. Source This is exactly what I'm talking about. The super-corporations with a boatload of money should spend some investing in these "risky" areas (yes the infrastructure is not there yet, but if you invest in the workforce you'll basically have whole towns loyal to your company). Or, IMO, this is exactly the type of situation where government should step in and help provide better wages to incentivize the modernization of the workforce in these areas.
Except super corporations aren't going to attempt to invest if it's deemed too risky and there's no returns to be seen. Case and point: What many experts call false hopes for a coal resurgence have mired economic development efforts here in a catch-22: Coal miners are resisting retraining without ready jobs from new industries, but new companies are unlikely to move here without a trained workforce.
There are exactly those government programs you're talking about in place in those areas but people are too rigid and don't want to adapt. They bought the idea that coal is going to make a comeback hook, line, and sinker when in reality, coal is never coming back to state it was a century ago. Trump quite literally pandered to miners about coal coming back and it does nothing to help their situation.
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On November 02 2017 02:58 brian wrote:
interesting point of contention from Danglars’ earlier post. are red states not relatively the poorer states? my understanding was that, again relatively, they were.
I don't think Danglars is necessarily arguing against that assertion; it seemed to me that his contention came from the liberal idealization of red states being horrible places to live, populated by pitiable trailer-hicks. Poorer state =/= worthless, unlivable state.
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On November 02 2017 02:58 brian wrote:
interesting point of contention from Danglars’ earlier post. are red states not relatively the poorer states? my understanding was that, again relatively, they were.
the red states are the poorer states, relatively.
in some consolation, they also tend to have a lower cost of living.
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On November 02 2017 03:15 NeoIllusions wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2017 03:07 Ryzel wrote:On November 02 2017 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:+ Show Spoiler +the real welfare state: WAYNESBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing.
He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course.
”I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner.
Despite broad consensus about coal’s bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.
Trump has promised to revive coal by rolling back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants.
“I have a lot of faith in President Trump,” Sylvester said.
But hundreds of coal-fired plants have closed in recent years, and cheap natural gas continues to erode domestic demand. The Appalachian region has lost about 33,500 mining jobs since 2011, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Although there have been small gains in coal output and hiring this year, driven by foreign demand, production levels remain near lows hit in 1978.
A White House official did not respond to requests for comment on coal policy and retraining for coal workers.
What many experts call false hopes for a coal resurgence have mired economic development efforts here in a catch-22: Coal miners are resisting retraining without ready jobs from new industries, but new companies are unlikely to move here without a trained workforce. The stalled diversification push leaves some of the nation’s poorest areas with no clear path to prosperity.
Federal retraining programs have fared better, with some approaching full participation, in the parts of Appalachia where mining has been crushed in a way that leaves little hope for a comeback, according to county officials and recruiters. They include West Virginia and Kentucky, where coal resources have been depleted.
But in southern Pennsylvania, where the industry still has ample reserves and is showing flickers of life, federal jobs retraining programs see sign-up rates below 20 percent, the officials and recruiters said. In southern Virginia’s coal country, participation rates run about 50 percent, they said.
“Part of our problem is we still have coal,” said Robbie Matesic, executive director of Greene County’s economic development department.
Out-of-work miners cite many reasons beyond faith in Trump policy for their reluctance to train for new industries, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen former and prospective coal workers, career counselors and local economic development officials. They say mining pays well; other industries are unfamiliar; and there’s no income during training and no guarantee of a job afterward.
In Pennsylvania, Corsa Coal opened a mine in Somerset in June which will create about 70 jobs – one of the first mines to open here in years. And Consol Energy recently expanded its Bailey mine complex in Greene County.
But Consol also announced in January that it plans to sell its coal holdings to focus on natural gas. And it has commissioned a recruitment agency, GMS Mines and Repair, to find contract laborers for its coal expansion who will be paid about $13 an hour - half the hourly wage of a starting unionized coal worker. The program Sylvester signed up for was set up by GMS.
The new hiring in Pennsylvania is related mainly to an uptick in foreign demand for metallurgical coal, used in producing steel, rather than domestic demand for thermal coal from power plants, the industry’s main business. Some market analysts describe the foreign demand as a temporary blip driven by production problems in the coal hub of Australia.
Officials for U.S. coal companies operating in the region, including Consol and Corsa, declined requests for comment.
“The coal industry has stabilized, but it’s not going to come back,” said Blair Zimmerman, a 40-year veteran of the mines who is now the commissioner for Greene County, one of Pennsylvania’s oldest coal regions. “We need to look at the future.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Labor has received about $2 million since 2015 from the federal POWER program, an initiative of former President Barack Obama to help retrain workers in coal-dependent areas. But the state is having trouble putting even that modest amount of money to good use.
In Greene and Washington counties, 120 people have signed up for jobs retraining outside the mines, far short of the target of 700, said Ami Gatts, director of the Washington-Greene County Job Training Agency. In Westmoreland and Fayette counties, participation in federal job retraining programs has been about 15 percent of capacity, officials said.
“I can’t even get them to show up for free food I set up in the office,” said Dave Serock, an ex-miner who recruits in Fayette County for Southwest Training Services.
Programs administered by the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal and state partnership to strengthen the region’s economy, have had similar struggles. One $1.4 million ARC project to teach laid-off miners in Greene County and in West Virginia computer coding has signed up only 20 people for 95 slots. Not a single worker has enrolled in another program launched this summer to prepare ex-miners to work in the natural gas sector, officials said.
Greene County Commissioner Zimmerman said he’d like to see a big company like Amazon or Toyota come to southwestern Pennsylvania to build a distribution or manufacturing plant that could employ thousands. Source This is exactly what I'm talking about. The super-corporations with a boatload of money should spend some investing in these "risky" areas (yes the infrastructure is not there yet, but if you invest in the workforce you'll basically have whole towns loyal to your company). Or, IMO, this is exactly the type of situation where government should step in and help provide better wages to incentivize the modernization of the workforce in these areas. Except super corporations aren't going to attempt to invest if it's deemed too risky and there's no returns to be seen. Case and point: Show nested quote +What many experts call false hopes for a coal resurgence have mired economic development efforts here in a catch-22: Coal miners are resisting retraining without ready jobs from new industries, but new companies are unlikely to move here without a trained workforce. There are exactly those government programs you're talking about in place in those areas but people are too rigid and don't want to adapt. They bought the idea that coal is going to make a comeback hook, line, and sinker when in reality, coal is never coming back to state it was a century ago. Trump quite literally pandered to miners about coal coming back and it does nothing to help their situation.
Question - why is coal mining a course in a jobs retraining program?
I think "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" describes this scenario perfectly.
I guess the next step would be for a public private partnership of some sort. Get a big tech company like Microsoft or something to step up and guarantee x number of jobs in the community (government can throw some tax breaks, grants or other financial incentives at them). I can understand some of the skepticism about taking a compsci class and worrying about being able to turn it into a living in these sort of places.
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On November 02 2017 03:18 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2017 02:58 brian wrote:
interesting point of contention from Danglars’ earlier post. are red states not relatively the poorer states? my understanding was that, again relatively, they were. I don't think Danglars is necessarily arguing against that assertion; it seemed to me that his contention came from the liberal idealization of red states being horrible places to live, populated by pitiable trailer-hicks. Poorer state =/= worthless, unlivable state.
As a Midwesterner, I'll say that inaccurate idealizations abound on both sides of the aisle when it comes to places like Michigan and Ohio. Consider the fact that an observant Muslim named Abdul is polling really well here in Michigan as he makes a run for governor. You'd never think such a thing possible with the way some people talk about the Rust Belt.
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On November 02 2017 03:15 NeoIllusions wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2017 03:07 Ryzel wrote:On November 02 2017 03:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:+ Show Spoiler +the real welfare state: WAYNESBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing.
He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course.
”I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner.
Despite broad consensus about coal’s bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.
Trump has promised to revive coal by rolling back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants.
“I have a lot of faith in President Trump,” Sylvester said.
But hundreds of coal-fired plants have closed in recent years, and cheap natural gas continues to erode domestic demand. The Appalachian region has lost about 33,500 mining jobs since 2011, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Although there have been small gains in coal output and hiring this year, driven by foreign demand, production levels remain near lows hit in 1978.
A White House official did not respond to requests for comment on coal policy and retraining for coal workers.
What many experts call false hopes for a coal resurgence have mired economic development efforts here in a catch-22: Coal miners are resisting retraining without ready jobs from new industries, but new companies are unlikely to move here without a trained workforce. The stalled diversification push leaves some of the nation’s poorest areas with no clear path to prosperity.
Federal retraining programs have fared better, with some approaching full participation, in the parts of Appalachia where mining has been crushed in a way that leaves little hope for a comeback, according to county officials and recruiters. They include West Virginia and Kentucky, where coal resources have been depleted.
But in southern Pennsylvania, where the industry still has ample reserves and is showing flickers of life, federal jobs retraining programs see sign-up rates below 20 percent, the officials and recruiters said. In southern Virginia’s coal country, participation rates run about 50 percent, they said.
“Part of our problem is we still have coal,” said Robbie Matesic, executive director of Greene County’s economic development department.
Out-of-work miners cite many reasons beyond faith in Trump policy for their reluctance to train for new industries, according to Reuters interviews with more than a dozen former and prospective coal workers, career counselors and local economic development officials. They say mining pays well; other industries are unfamiliar; and there’s no income during training and no guarantee of a job afterward.
In Pennsylvania, Corsa Coal opened a mine in Somerset in June which will create about 70 jobs – one of the first mines to open here in years. And Consol Energy recently expanded its Bailey mine complex in Greene County.
But Consol also announced in January that it plans to sell its coal holdings to focus on natural gas. And it has commissioned a recruitment agency, GMS Mines and Repair, to find contract laborers for its coal expansion who will be paid about $13 an hour - half the hourly wage of a starting unionized coal worker. The program Sylvester signed up for was set up by GMS.
The new hiring in Pennsylvania is related mainly to an uptick in foreign demand for metallurgical coal, used in producing steel, rather than domestic demand for thermal coal from power plants, the industry’s main business. Some market analysts describe the foreign demand as a temporary blip driven by production problems in the coal hub of Australia.
Officials for U.S. coal companies operating in the region, including Consol and Corsa, declined requests for comment.
“The coal industry has stabilized, but it’s not going to come back,” said Blair Zimmerman, a 40-year veteran of the mines who is now the commissioner for Greene County, one of Pennsylvania’s oldest coal regions. “We need to look at the future.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Labor has received about $2 million since 2015 from the federal POWER program, an initiative of former President Barack Obama to help retrain workers in coal-dependent areas. But the state is having trouble putting even that modest amount of money to good use.
In Greene and Washington counties, 120 people have signed up for jobs retraining outside the mines, far short of the target of 700, said Ami Gatts, director of the Washington-Greene County Job Training Agency. In Westmoreland and Fayette counties, participation in federal job retraining programs has been about 15 percent of capacity, officials said.
“I can’t even get them to show up for free food I set up in the office,” said Dave Serock, an ex-miner who recruits in Fayette County for Southwest Training Services.
Programs administered by the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal and state partnership to strengthen the region’s economy, have had similar struggles. One $1.4 million ARC project to teach laid-off miners in Greene County and in West Virginia computer coding has signed up only 20 people for 95 slots. Not a single worker has enrolled in another program launched this summer to prepare ex-miners to work in the natural gas sector, officials said.
Greene County Commissioner Zimmerman said he’d like to see a big company like Amazon or Toyota come to southwestern Pennsylvania to build a distribution or manufacturing plant that could employ thousands. Source This is exactly what I'm talking about. The super-corporations with a boatload of money should spend some investing in these "risky" areas (yes the infrastructure is not there yet, but if you invest in the workforce you'll basically have whole towns loyal to your company). Or, IMO, this is exactly the type of situation where government should step in and help provide better wages to incentivize the modernization of the workforce in these areas. Except super corporations aren't going to attempt to invest if it's deemed too risky and there's no returns to be seen. Case and point: Show nested quote +What many experts call false hopes for a coal resurgence have mired economic development efforts here in a catch-22: Coal miners are resisting retraining without ready jobs from new industries, but new companies are unlikely to move here without a trained workforce. There are exactly those government programs you're talking about in place in those areas but people are too rigid and don't want to adapt. They bought the idea that coal is going to make a comeback hook, line, and sinker when in reality, coal is never coming back to state it was a century ago. Trump quite literally pandered to miners about coal coming back and it does nothing to help their situation.
Right, I agree that Trump fucked up royal by pandering to false hopes. I also understand that the super-corporations are not going to take a course of action that adversely affects their bottom line. I'm stupid and don't know much about economic theory, but letting corporations/businesses/individuals free to pursue money without any form of oversight (I guess that's free market?) is a bad idea, because having money makes it easier to make money and keep money and since money is a zero-sum game the eventual conclusion will be a few having a lot of the money.
The government should be the force that controls money somewhat and uses that control to lead those pursuing money to do the right thing. Fund work retrainings at $30/hour in areas heavy-hit by the coal industry loss. That will not only incentivize people to train, but increase the population when tons of others who want high wages swarm the area. Or if you want to keep it local, require proof of residence in the area before being allowed to retrain there. Create a deal where super-corporations that invest in economically suffering areas get beefy tax write-offs or trade benefits or something.
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On November 02 2017 02:55 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2017 02:47 RealityIsKing wrote:
You guys are treating like Mohdoo like crap here and its not a pretty view. I don't see how Mohdoo is being treated like crap. Unless you consider the fact that liberal posters are actually willing to engage intellectually with other liberal posters that they disagree with "treating them like crap", rather than just ignoring them when they go off the deep end. Kind of how someone like Danglars never responds to you unless he's agreeing with you.
Kind of like how random folks come in and cast ignorant aspersions.
There's like two or three people that agree with me. All my responses are basically with people that disagree. Are you really this out of touch?
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On November 02 2017 03:35 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2017 02:55 TheYango wrote:On November 02 2017 02:47 RealityIsKing wrote:
You guys are treating like Mohdoo like crap here and its not a pretty view. I don't see how Mohdoo is being treated like crap. Unless you consider the fact that liberal posters are actually willing to engage intellectually with other liberal posters that they disagree with "treating them like crap", rather than just ignoring them when they go off the deep end. Kind of how someone like Danglars never responds to you unless he's agreeing with you. Kind of like how random folks come in and cast ignorant aspersions. There's like two or three people that agree with me. All my responses are basically with people that disagree. Are you really this out of touch?
i think he meant within conservatives
as the topic began with libs disagreeing with other libs
granted as mentioned, the pool is relatively shallow here.
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On November 02 2017 03:35 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2017 02:55 TheYango wrote:On November 02 2017 02:47 RealityIsKing wrote:
You guys are treating like Mohdoo like crap here and its not a pretty view. I don't see how Mohdoo is being treated like crap. Unless you consider the fact that liberal posters are actually willing to engage intellectually with other liberal posters that they disagree with "treating them like crap", rather than just ignoring them when they go off the deep end. Kind of how someone like Danglars never responds to you unless he's agreeing with you. Kind of like how random folks come in and cast ignorant aspersions. There's like two or three people that agree with me. All my responses are basically with people that disagree. Are you really this out of touch?
He's saying you only quote RiK when you agree with him, and that's true.
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the insinuation is that the right is more party loyalty over actually holding true to beliefs. the evidence is libs being willing to disagree in-party rather before they’d blindly get in line to support a turd sandwich.
i don’t agree. the simplest explanation here is that a conservative in the thread need not disagree with every subjectively wrong conservative opinion because it would only get lost in the noise of all the libs already saying so
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There's a difference between being against open borders and being pro white grievance politics. I'm for closed borders, but also immigration reform to make it easier (not absurdly easy though). If people are legal then it won't drive down wages by letting them be paid below minimum wage.
There's also a lot of muddied waters. People are railing against white men, but white young males are probably going to be worse off than white women within a decade. Fewer college degrees and a shift to a service based economy that they typically are worse at. So a young white guy who dropped out of college after a semester of fairly bullshit classes (let's be real about freshman college classes here : they're mostly pointless) can't find a job except at a grocery store and is hearing about how advantaged he is to not be a woman or black is probably thinking "that's bullshit". Or they may have to join the forces to pay off a student loan for a degree they didn't get.
That doesn't change the fact that most of the people in positions of power are old white men. The key part is OLD white men. I have some sympathy and understand why some types of people may want to go back in time a bit and will find certain types of sound bites about how women/minorities are so much worse off than them to be especially loathsome.
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EPT
