What needs to happen to make West Virginia great?
It's not what has to happen, it's what has to stop happening. The resistance to change needs to cease.
It won't and it's not.I believe the coal industry will return shortly. It's inevitable
Certainly not if this is accurate:It won't and it's not.
Yes, things are going to blossom after the coal industry has completely died. For the past several months, all we read about are the tax shortfalls and the impact on government services. That is leading to a shrinking population and shrinking school enrollment. It may register just a bit better when the new school year starts up.
WV needs to versify. Translation is to give up payrolls paid by mining companies and payrolls picked up at the Post Office on the 3rd of the month. Which companies are you going to recruit to pay mining level wages. Better yet, which stupid company is going to be willing to risk new start up costs to fight the government and labor that would dismiss an industry that pays up to a hundred thousand dollars per year? WV may get diversification, but not at competitive wages. May possibly find a couple manufacturing concerns to enter into the area to pick up good workers at 150% of minimum wage. The working man who has had some success in the past is going to be the man affected.
I lived in So WV, and there is nothing cheap about it. Gas is higher. Groceries are higher, Utilities are higher. Other cost of living items are not cheaper. Might want to look at your calculations a bit closer. When you gross between 900 and 1300 +, you are not going to bring home 1000 - 1200. Not every home in So WV can the secondary earner gross 36000. Can they make ends meet? Yes, but it will not be a lavish lifestyle. They can probably survive on one salary at a pretty frugal life style.West Virginia does NOT have a high cost of living. So, jobs that would pay $12-18 per hour wouldn't be so bad after all. Most households have two incomes to start with. If the male is bringing home $1000-$1200 every two weeks, and the female bringing home close to that or the same, then in West Virginia, that's not bad. I'm not asking for jobs to come in and demand $65,000 + per year in salary. Just decent jobs, something that will stay for a long time, and something that will be good for the people in that area.
Manufacturing is the wave of the last century, just as is mining - fewer people are working in manufacturing jobs than at any time since the end of World War II, and yet productivity is up. The U.S. economy is moving ever more toward services, and many services are location agnostic, so what West Virginia needs to invest in is the infrastructure that will attract those location-agnostic service companies - think cloud computing, for starters.I lived in So WV, and there is nothing cheap about it. Gas is higher. Groceries are higher, Utilities are higher. Other cost of living items are not cheaper. Might want to look at your calculations a bit closer. When you gross between 900 and 1300 +, you are not going to bring home 1000 - 1200. Not every home in So WV can the secondary earner gross 36000. Can they make ends meet? Yes, but it will not be a lavish lifestyle. They can probably survive on one salary at a pretty frugal life style.
But you still have not come up with the industry that will move to So WV. It will cost a mfg company a bit more to operate. Transportation system is not the best to be desired. If the company can operate cheaper some place else, why are they coming to WV? What is their incentive to move here. Practically every company is more interested in profit over providing a job where needed.
That is exactly what I was told in a Labor Econ or International econ class in college back in 60's. Instructors were very enthusiastic about transferring manufacturing and labor jobs to third world countries who could do the work cheaper, and that country would be able to purchase from the US who would not do anything but service type jobs that didn't get hands dirty or bad backs. All of those little countries would manufacture that product that they had an economic advantage to produce over all other countries.Manufacturing is the wave of the last century, just as is mining - fewer people are working in manufacturing jobs than at any time since the end of World War II, and yet productivity is up. The U.S. economy is moving ever more toward services, and many services are location agnostic, so what West Virginia needs to invest in is the infrastructure that will attract those location-agnostic service companies - think cloud computing, for starters.
I think you missed his point. China is the only country in the world that is ranked higher than us in manufacturing. We manufacture more stuff today than we did decades ago. We do it with more machines and fewer people. Saying that we don't make anything anymore is factually incorrect.That is exactly what I was told in a Labor Econ or International econ class in college back in 60's. Instructors were very enthusiastic about transferring manufacturing and labor jobs to third world countries who could do the work cheaper, and that country would be able to purchase from the US who would not do anything but service type jobs that didn't get hands dirty or bad backs. All of those little countries would manufacture that product that they had an economic advantage to produce over all other countries.
In 1964, I saw problems with that kind of plan. Those third world countries were going to get greedy and start over-charging the US for the needed goods. As those countries became more wealthy, What is to keep the big countries from invading. This was all under the guise of Free-Trade. No barriers. The entire world would operate on the ordered plan that the country who produced widgets best would have lock on that business. It ain't happened yet.
In 2016, the US is to produce nothing but services needed by other countries. Neither has that been a great success. Those economists forgot to provide for those who did not have the tools to enter into the service industries. And equally a very large problem was we have the capacity to produce required services with relatively small group of work force.
They needed to revert to supply and demand models placed on X and Y axis from very basic econ. The intersecting point is going to tell a hell of a different story than what the theory did. Some of the people were just plain left out. In So WV you have left out a few of the people who could retrain to provide a service in demand. Some of the third world countries could not produce a product better than competing countries. Suspect those left out of real life will be able to buy guns on some market.
Never did like the plan for US to be strictly a service industry. Nor did I ever believe the rest of the world to be orderly enough to accept their assigned order in the world.
I like where you're headed with this. You could even expand it to have bears riding bicycles or unicycles, bears drinking a case of beer and ramaging.I'm telling you, wrestling bears are the way to go. WV is overrun with bears. At every rest stop we put up large tents with a ring inside. Up and down the interstates we put up big signs, "Last 3 Rounds With The Rasslin' Bear, Win 5000 Bucks! Next Rest Stop!"
We charge the challenger's 50 bucks for the chance and make them sign an ironclad waiver. Spectators pay 10 bucks a head to get in, kids under 12 free, we screw 'em on concessions as is the norm a the rest areas. We could use that empty football field in Huntington on fall weekends for the big crowds on the I- 64 corridor. Tamarack? A multi-ring bear wresting Mecca. That place is the biggest boondoggle in the state. If we're going to charge folks to go down the Turnpike, we might as well provide them with some real entertainment.
I thought his statements were rather unambiguous. Maybe my reply was not as clearly stated. Tell me where I missed the point. Did he not suggest that manufacturing in WV is looking thru the rear view mirror. The future is in services according to Pop and my college instructors of years gone by.I think you missed his point. China is the only country in the world that is ranked higher than us in manufacturing. We manufacture more stuff today than we did decades ago. We do it with more machines and fewer people. Saying that we don't make anything anymore is factually incorrect.
His point is that manufacturing jobs are going away, period. That's not because we don't make things. We do make things, more things than any other country except China. It's that the way we make things is largely automated, so you don't have a person welding 2 pieces of metal together on an assembly line. You a machine that does that, and a person to service that machine along with all of the other machines on the line. You pay a handful of skilled laborers instead of a lot of less skilled laborers. Manufacturing is going to continue down that path, so manufacturing jobs are going to get more and more scarce. You have experience in mining, if my memory is correct. It's akin to what happened in that industry. Decades ago, you had lots of people with digging tools and dynamite in the mine, maybe other, maybe the same guys setting posts. Now you have machinery that does nearly all of that, and you have operators and maintenance people for that machinery. You mine the same amount or more coal with much fewer people.I thought his statements were rather unambiguous. Maybe my reply was not as clearly stated. Tell me where I missed the point. Did he not suggest that manufacturing in WV is looking thru the rear view mirror. The future is in services according to Pop and my college instructors of years gone by.
Were all mfg jobs moved to those third world countries as the models called for. Regardless of what they were teaching, walls will not be erected to move all mfg to other countries, thus creating a monopoly, and the free enterprise will respect those designated boundries.. In reality, Entrepreneur's will spot a profit potential and develop the industry wherever to reap the rewards. Any time you find excessive demand, the supply will be created to satisfy that demand.
I like where you're headed with this. You could even expand it to have bears riding bicycles or unicycles, bears drinking a case of beer and ramaging.
We have already graduated above that era. Pony driven buggies and chest/breast drills have already been gone by wayside. 75-80 years ago is history. Don't even use carbide lights anymore.His point is that manufacturing jobs are going away, period. That's not because we don't make things. We do make things, more things than any other country except China. It's that the way we make things is largely automated, so you don't have a person welding 2 pieces of metal together on an assembly line. You a machine that does that, and a person to service that machine along with all of the other machines on the line. You pay a handful of skilled laborers instead of a lot of less skilled laborers. Manufacturing is going to continue down that path, so manufacturing jobs are going to get more and more scarce. You have experience in mining, if my memory is correct. It's akin to what happened in that industry. Decades ago, you had lots of people with digging tools and dynamite in the mine, maybe other, maybe the same guys setting posts. Now you have machinery that does nearly all of that, and you have operators and maintenance people for that machinery. You mine the same amount or more coal with much fewer people.
We are going to have a huge problem economically in 10 or 20 years if we don't start prepping for the way the world is going. We should have started 10 or 20 years ago too. As people drop out of the making or getting businesses (manufacturing, mining, etc), we need to figure out how to fill the gaps in employment opportunities. Support people for computing centers like the cloud storage stuff that was mentioned is one place you can do that.
I'll add another point, and it's one that will have a big impact on WV. People are working toward driverless vehicles. How do you think that impacts truck drivers, especially long haul drivers? We have to get ready for this somehow, and I don't mean on the emerging technology side. I'm talking about prepping the work force in a way that it can adapt to the rapidly changing environment of new technology.
I read a book called Megatrends (John Naisbitt) printed in 1984 (there have been others since) that predicted everything that I see now. They were predicting that the U.S. would move toward a more service and information based economy with manufacturing playing less of a role at least as far as employment goes. It predicted that those who didn't prepare for it would be left behind and generally that has happened (or is happening), at least to those in the middle class with lower education levels.We have already graduated above that era. Pony driven buggies and chest/breast drills have already been gone by wayside. 75-80 years ago is history. Don't even use carbide lights anymore.
What Pop and college instructors of 60's was referring to was a switch to a service industry for US and WV in particular. We ain't going there. The world will not have a demand for all the services we could produce. Those with mechanical aptitude will still produce a staple.
There will be a hell of a demand for ditch diggers when we become a service industry.