It's politics but I see it more as a commentary on southern WV.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/20/polit...ald-trump-kaiser-family-foundation/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/20/polit...ald-trump-kaiser-family-foundation/index.html
Have not seen this posted (from CNN)
- Thread starter Gurby
- Start date
I seriously don't understand the mentality of Southern WV. The coal barons made all the money at the expense of hard-working men of southern WV, left them without health insurance to pay for the ill-effects of black lung because they robbed their health plans, filed for bankruptcy cheating them out of pensions and they turn around and vote for a disgusting slime-ball con artist like Trump, who does some of the same tactics as the coal barons.
What else would you expect with 100 years of corrupt Democrat State Legislature control. The idiots who voted Dem all those years happened deserve what has happened.
It's pretty simple, killing coal killed the state. Every economy in WV has suffered because of coal's demise. While I understand coal has been on the decline for quite a while and there were other contributing factors, the Obama administration and by extension, Hillary kind of kicked it off the cliff.
It was a contributor, no question, but the EPA regs with the ridiculous solinium levels played a factor as well. That was the part about kicking it off the cliff.
If you want to blame the EPA then point at CO2 emission regs. Most companies can modify their permit applications to mine even with elevated Selenium and pyritic sulfur concentrations in coal seams and other formations to be disturbed. It's been kind of a perfect storm for the coal industry.
Keep in mind that Obama thought he was going to build a "green energy" to replace fossil fuels and create an industry where everyone could work without getting their hands dirty. He fell on his *** there.
If he would have promoted "all the above" and utilized the stimulus packages on infrastructure, we would be living in a modern world with strong paying jobs and we would even have been able to get our hands black and tell EPA it will wash off. With a little looking into the future, The economy would have been stronger with people making fair wages and not afraid to spend. Factories would be built to produce and sell their product to capure the additional spending. A strong imagination is not required to see where country would be and WV in the center of the economic growth.
But that is not as strong a need as a plan to stop the continent from overheating. What the hell were you people thinking while you were at the voting booth? And then you doubled down.
How many of those applications are being approved? I honestly don't know. I do know the companies that are still in business have spent the money on the scrubbers required but it's significantly increased their costs.
Again, I'm not blaming the EPA. I'm saying it was a contributor. That's all. I acknowledged in my first post on it that there were other contributors. Regardless, it wasn't until the EPA regs happened that companies started closing their doors. Now, like you said, it could have just been the perfect storm and timing of other events.
Regardless, people think Justice will thumb his nose at the EPA and get people working again. The state desperately needs it, or some other alternative because it's impacted every other market within the state. Real estate, banking/loan officers, car sales, restaurants, retail sales, all of the coal support businesses (machinery/hydraulics/trucking), timber, and construction are all impacted negatively. Education is being impacted by smaller budgets and a reduced tax base.
Bottom line, coal dying has severely impacted the entire state's economy. I don't care what side of the aisle you support, I guarantee you, unless you work for the Gov't in some capacity, the demise of coal has not been good for you and you would rather have it back than not have some alternative. The state was setup to run with a strong coal centered economy.
I'd say that less than 40 new permit applications will be submitted this year and it takes over a year to get one approved. Also just because a mining permit gets approved does not mean that they'll ever mine a ton of coal there. I think Justice will be the next governor and you can safely assume that his mines will do well and there will be pressure to expedite any permit applications that he has pending.
Damn, boy you are in bad need of an econ class, acct, management, finance or other business models.
The mentality of the Southern WV people in the coal industry worked to feed their families and have a damned good life with wages competitive to any industry. The coal barons invested their capital for the chance to get into extraction. It ain't cheap and there are no guarantees for millions required up front in an industry that has a history of hit/miss. Some made big money and others spent big money for the opportunity to get into the game after they invested a bunch of money. Some small operators also made some money after they invested everything the family had - Not Just One Time. Most went broke at one time or the other and frequently. Accumulate a little and then plow it back into the business after a bad month or two. The hourly men enjoyed the same ride up and down with the operator, but only the operator had to continuously making sacrifice of everything accumulated to give it another round. Hourly man put all of earnings into his pocket and finished with a little money in his pocket if he managed. The operator lived with the job over a 100 hours per week for a long time to give the company the best opportunity to survive.
You are doubly dumb in blaming the operator for leaving workers without benefits. Like Social Security, all of these benefits are funded on pay as you go. UMWA had the responsibility to fund these retirement benefits. Operator paid into union fund for hours worked and tons mined. What the hell do you thing $15 - 20,000 per year was paid to UMWA in Washington, DC for each employee every year was for. Hint: It was not because the operator was fond of the shysters heading UMWA. Let me help you, it was for future health and retirement payments to the workers.
Black Lung was a laughable comment. That too was on a pay- as-you-go paid into the state and federal governments to provide for any worker affected with the dreaded disease. Those payments were in the $100,000s to the government agencies each pay period - monthly or quarterly. That plan was for government to get paid and as man became ill, the government passed those accumulated funds from the operators paying into the fund. Honestly the government didn't earn that money and pay the worker, but the process was OPERATOR PAY GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNMENT HOLDS THE FUNDS AND SENDS MONEY ON TO THE WORKER AND SURVIVOR.
Government actually has no way to earn money, but they are rather adept at taking it from the businesses and forwarding some portion of those funds on to whomever was intended to get it. Government is good at removing their cut before passing it on.
Govt is good at stealing our money and then telling us we need to let them steal more!
Jim will be impacted more at Fed level. WV going Repub. If Hillary gets in, Jim loses. Obama made flat statement and Hillary will see it thru for those who want to be in the coal industry. Justice may have more luck with his mining operations in Ky than the WV holdings.
There is nothing in this that I disagree with.
My issue with the whole mess is that the state let itself get in this situation because of the corruption in politics. Coal was king and it's like nothing was ever permitted to come in as an alternative.
Coal jobs have been declining and declining and declining for decades. I don't understand how people couldn't look at Mingo and McDowell counties and extrapolate that out to apply to the entire state when the coal ran out. I do understand it actually ... they were paid to turn a blind eye to it.
WV has been last in everything good and 1st in everything bad for a long long long time. Well before coal was "kicked off the cliff" or whatever it was you said. It should have been apparent even then that coal wasn't enough anyway. If it was, we wouldn't be last in everything, even when coal was strong.
If the demise of coal would have been solely it just running out, maybe they could have seen it coming and done something ... but this was more sudden. As you stated, for multiple reasons, and our leadership has been left just holding their dicks.
Too much stupidity to address. The miner AND the company paid into the retirement pension funds. The company robbed the retirement pension funds. Now, the miner is left without a job and without a retirement pension.
How did the company get hold of those funds. When I was involved in mining industry, I signed a check to the UMWA Funds every period. The company did not have access to the funds after they were mailed to Washington, DC. What do you think I did wrong to mail those checks. Black Lung, I signed those checks and mailed them also.
Now how can that be too much to address? Two items - check to UMWA and checks to government - should not put too much strain on you. If you are too damned dumb to know what you are talking about, that would be a bit difficult to address. Miner contribution to his fringes, I doubt. There were dues that were withheld and forwarded on to UMWA, but that was to belong to the union. I do not think anything was withheld for pensions or benefits - not 100% sure, but 95% sure about no deduction to pay for benefits.
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Wow, I don't know who fed you that, but that's not even close to accurate. Although cleaner, gas historically had taken the back seat to coal. It's Market driven. Regulation plays a significant role in marketability. Because costs of directional drilling in the Devonian Shell came down while emission standards on coal become more cost prohibitive, gas is currently in an up tick. No worries, China et. al. will burn enough coal for the rest of the planet. China: "What's an air scrubber?"
You haven't forgot about our wager have you? I could really use the $100 around Thanksgiving. [winking]
I'm not sure that fed regs would get any more stringent but they do get involved in regards to NPDES or USACOE permits. WV administers their own mining reg program.
No, you placed a $100.00 bet that Duke will get more republican votes in the general election. Not that either of us could prove how many whoevers voted in a secret ballot, I saved the string anyway. Would you care to wager as to whether I can produce the string? How much? Care to offer any other wagers? I'm a gambling man.
One other factor is technology - same as with manufacturing. You can produce more coal with fewer people now than you could a couple of decades ago. So the problem isn't simply with regulations or the number of mines. The problem is also that you don't need as many individuals to get that coal out of the ground. We produce more now with 20k or so miners than we did in 1980 with about 60k miners.
I have a screenshot of the posts. You may be right, it may impossible for either of us to provide proof on the number of votes.
You have heard the saying though, not all Republicans are racists but all racists are Republicans?
Is that a statement or a question? A questment? My personal observation has been that the most fervent racists are democrats from the deep south. Wouldn't/doesn't surprise me that they no longer align with a party that doesn't want borders. In the end, that dying breed will not get what they want; for that, democrats, republicans and independents can all be thankful.
