I cried at the banks of the Lehigh River Sunday

[AllentownJake]

On Sunday, I went to the banks of the Lehigh River across from where the old Steel Mill operated. A Steel Mill that literally built this country and employed thousands of middle class in my town. Where men once did honest labor and produced a product that built my country a giant sign reading "The Sands" stood.

The old Steel Mill had been silent for over 20 years. In its place today stands a Casino. Black buses take senior citizens from all over the area to spend their limited income inside on slots. Card games aren't there yet, but it is only a matter in time. We must be competitive.

The old Steel Mill buildings are mostly there, except for where the Casino has been erected. A poignant symbol of what has happened to my country overall. Sure the casino employs people, and I'm sure the patrons have a good time...however I cry for the loss of manufacturing in this country and gambling taking its place as an employer.

Mr. Potter has won.

[Dennis Donovan]

1. Recommended. I hail from a old manufacturing town in upstate NY...

A town in which, when I was growing up in the late 60's/early 70's, everyone had a job and everyone could feed their families. Almost all of the factories are gone now, save a few non-Union shops that don't pay shit, anyway. The street I grew up on, once a quiet, middle-class neighborhood of old homes and old friends, is now crime-ridden.

The America I remebmer is gone...:(

[msedano]

2. Fontana CA, Kaiser

I worked the plate mill, the soaking pits, and the slabber, churning out steel for the California Aqueduct. The last glimpse of the place anyone saw was Terminator2 where the silver guy and Arnie get melted in tubs of molten steel. It was nothing like that. Then the Chinese sent in a dismantling crew and took away the whole kit and kaboodle. In the 1950s, from the heights in Redlands, we'd see Kaiser's red air gradually moving east and learned a new word, "smog." Ave atque vale, steel industry.

[RufusTFirefly]

3. We could resurrect industry and manufacturing in the U.S. with a Works Green Administration

We could create millions of new jobs retrofitting homes with wind and solar and creating new energy technologies. In the same vein, the Apollo Alliance is "a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs."



Of course, the main person who pushed for this kind of goal during the last election is short and kind of funny looking, so I guess there's no point. Better to have a good-looking president than a rescued economy and a restored industrial infrastructure.

[AllentownJake]

4. Unfortunately Dennis was never really running

He was there to try to shape the debate and as a threat....Denis himself would tell you that.

[amandabeech]

6. What I don't understand is why those manufacturing jobs won't end up in China

or someplace similar with no labor or environmental protections.

I'm serious about my question. I've thought about it, but I can't come up with a good reason why these jobs would stick around any more than any others that can be outsourced.

[RufusTFirefly]

49. A good question. Thanks for asking. The short answer is: carrots and sticks

It helps that the Apollo Alliance has the strong backing of the domestic labor movement, so I think it's unlikely that the jobs will be off-shored. We've become way too used to scenarios where businesses call all the shots, labor be damned.

My understanding of the Apollo Alliance is that it is designed so that businesses will find it beneficial to keep jobs at home instead of outsourcing them to developing countries, where labor and environmental standards are negligible to non-existent. Obviously, this element will need to remain intact if the Apollo Alliance is to be successful.

[DarthDem]

5. Rec'd.

Great post. I know the spot.

One of the saddest things that Saint Ronnie visited on this country, out of a host of many, was the implementation of policies that led to a steady erosion of American manufacturing. Clinton did nothing to stop it (some will argue that he assisted it), and of course the last imbecile need not even be mentioned.

America needs manufacturing and industry again. One of our three automotive manufacturers is bankrupt and another is owned by, of all things, a company in Italy. I like the green jobs idea discussed upthread; we have simply got to do something about this problem. I think Obama is on the right track with the stimulus and investments in infrastructure - - if he can find the time he should really, really, try to extend that concept to the private sector. I'm tired of being a service economy.

[BlooInBloo]

7. Heh. I'll always remember my days in da burgh. Go yinzers.

[AllentownJake]

8. Bethlehem

Bethlehem Steel...once the biggest company in the country.

[RobinA]

57. Yep...

Went to college only a few miles from there, fell in love in the shadow of a steel mill. Used to cruise around town in the BF's Dodge Charger. I always liked to to drive through Homestead (not really near where he lived), where that giant flame lit up night and the mill parking lot was full.

[Hannah Bell]

9. k/r.

[JHB]

10. Your Reagan Tax Cuts at Work.

Reagan & co. pitched his tax cuts as a way to save these industries. The "conventional wisdom" was that we weren't competitive because so many of our factories dated from before WW2, whereas or competitors had to rebuild after the war, so they had more modern facilities.

The money from the tax cuts were supposed to be used to invest in modernization and reinvigorate those industries. Then Whoops! "Nobody could have predicted" that instead the money went to inflating prices on Wall Street and going on merger sprees while shifting production to Mexico, Central America, southeast Asia, etc.

And another myth is that all those industries couldn't compete with foreign sources and had become unprofitable. The truth is, most were profitable, just not profitable enough to suite the new generation of MBAs in management for whome "the line" was what they drew on their ROI charts, not a place where people worked and where the company made its products.

[AllentownJake]

13. MBAs

Those greedy fuckers have ruined America....

[Mopar151]

50. That's

INCOMPETENT greedy fuckers to you, pal....:mad:

[Hannah Bell]

21. The US produces about the same amount of steel it ever did - just with a workforce reduced by ~90%.

it's profitable.

[JHB]

54. I wasn't just talking about the steel industry

A whole host of profitable manufacturing companies were liquidated after they were loaded up with debt thanks to mergers or leveraged buy-outs.

[Mopar151]

60. I used to work for one n/t

[AllentownJake]

11. This is what this song was about....just as an FYI old Billy Joel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K62DdoFoNeg

[TuxedoKat]

14. I never saw that music video

and I always loved that song -- thanks for sharing that.

[AllentownJake]

17. Your welcome

The pictures are from my hometown..back in the day.

[invictus]

12. That's "free trade" at work. nt

[Selatius]

15. When this nation finds itself in another world war, there will be no manufacturing to save it.

Manufacturing capacity is what won the last world war. The United States and the Soviet Union had the greatest manufacturing capacities of any country involved in that war, and the United States was blessed with geographic isolation from the worst of the fighting in Europe and Asia.

However, simply having a robust manufacturing capacity isn't the only key to victory. The United States had the labor force with the skills necessary to win. Machinists, mechanics, engineers, designers, physicists, chemists--these were the guys fighting the war on the home front, while the rest fought overseas, and we had the manpower to wage the war and lead the armies.

Today, our manufacturing capacity has withered, and its workers are now unemployed or are now occupied with things that amount to a little more than pushing around paper. America has become a service economy dependent upon other economies for its manufacturing needs.

If there came a day when the United States is forcibly cut off from its manufacturing centers overseas, in places like China, by a future power that rivals our own, the United States will be without the means to wage a full-scale war over the period of several years. It would have to rebuild everything that had been left to rust, and it would have to reteach the manufacturing and machining skills that left when the factories were moved overseas, and in times of war, fate rarely gives us the opportunity to learn and then apply something necessary to victory. Often, there is no time; you either were prepared for the hit or you weren't.

The people who push free trade would dismiss issues of national security saying that nations that trade with each other would be too interdependent to wage war without inflicting self-harm. Let us say that they are correct. If that is the case, we have nothing to worry about, but what if we do what they say, and they are wrong?

[Laelth]

16. Let oil hit $200/barrel.

As soon as it's too expensive to transport good from China, manufacturing will return to the United States.

Oh, and repeal NAFTA.

:dem:

-Laelth

[AllentownJake]

18. Don't worry, I'm sure Goldman Sachs is working on that as we speak

[Ikonoklast]

53. Oil could be $1000 a barrel, it wouldn't matter.

You have no idea how cheap it is to ship containerized freight on a boat.

Nothing compares to it.

And as oil prices rise, it becomes increasingly more economical to manufacture overseas and then ship finished goods here.

If it can be put on a container ship, and made by cheap labor, it WILL be.

[Laelth]

55. Really? I assumed shipping was quite expensive. Hmm ... n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[Javaman]

58. Cargo ships run on Bunker C fuel. It's the cheapest crap left over

after oil has been refined. It's ignition rate is so low that other fuel needs to be ignited just to light it.

Hoverer, even though this sludge like oil is the bottom scrapings after refinement, it's still a small part of the total output from refinement.

So therefore, it's price will go up proportionately to the demand and it's availability.

So if a barrel of oil goes up, so will Bunker C. The overhead for cargo ships will go up.

However, due to CO2 emission standards being enforced and engines being upgraded, cargo ships (the newer ones) run more cleanly and efficiently.

So, right off the bat the if the price of a barrel of oil sky rockets over a period of 5-6 months like last year, initially, the costs attributed to shipping will be nominal, however, if the price hike persists, then the effects upon the costs of shipping will most definitely be reflected in the prices we pay for over seas items.

[Doremus]

19. Here in Cleveland we have a Wal-Mart where a steel mill stood.

I kid you not.

BTW, after the PTB told us for decades about how outdated and inefficient the mill was and that we couldn't possibly compete with antiquated equipment like that, you're probably thinking they bulldozed and buried all that useless trash. NOPE.

The mill was sold, disassembled and shipped to China. Again I kid you not.

[AllentownJake]

20. I remember a Kurt Vonnegut quote in times like this

"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward." Kurt Vonnegut

Somehow I still end up crying.

[Doremus]

30. Pitchforks are much more satisfying.

;)

:hug:

[NNN0LHI]

22. Look at these links

http://www.opacity.us/site63_studebaker_stamping_plant.htm

http://www.opacity.us/gallery107_around_the_bend.htm

http://www.opacity.us/image3867_the_stamping_room.htm

Studebaker Stamping Plant History - Abandoned Photography : opacity.us

Photographs, history, news and information about Studebaker Stamping Plant, located in South Bend, IN

[slipslidingaway]

23. kick #17 nt

[bbinacan]

24. It's been replaced by

smarter US companies. Take NC based Nucor for example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucor

[AllentownJake]

25. Not really the point

Steel is what built the 3 cities in my area. Steel is gone. A casino sits where the factory once stood. There is a certain amount of depression that takes over you seeing old people getting off buses many spending their pension money from that plant, in a slot parlor.

[bbinacan]

26. I understand

Though my permanent home is in NC, I'm on a work assignment south of Pittsburgh. I understand the heartache, but the Pennsylvania steel industry blew it by not modernizing.

[AllentownJake]

28. There is a mixture of management and union blame to go there

However, management was more than happy to head where there was a lack of organized labor.

[bbinacan]

29. Yes but it

seems labor as been well taken care of. Even (gasp) without a union.

[AllentownJake]

32. Labor existed in those mills

because at one time...they were not well taken care of.

I'm the great grandson of a Molly MaGuire in the PA Coal Mines and the Great Grandson of a Textile mill owner.

I know both sides...

[bbinacan]

35. I went to college

at UNC-Chapel Hill, home of the Tarheels. One of my favorite bars in Chapel Hill was named Molly MaGuire's. That is so cool.

[AllentownJake]

36. I went to school for two years at App State

Partied a few times in Chapel Hill. One of the most beautiful campuses in all of America...actually both of them.

[bbinacan]

37. Yes they are. n/t

[AllentownJake]

34. I also would love to remind you of your formerly great Textile Mills

In North Carolina...your lack of organized labor protected those sooooo well. Friendly reminder...your factories that exist now can disappear overnight like they did up north.

I lived in North Carolina for 2 years. It is a beautiful state. I'm happy to have 2 years of my college education from there.

[amandabeech]

27. Non-union, too. n/t

[varelse]

31. "I cry for the loss of manufacturing in this country and gambling taking its place as an employer."

My tears dried up and burned away in the rage that resulted when I realized that the real high stakes gambling is done in Wall Street, and that taxpayers are paying off the lost bets for millionaire welchers.

Oh yeah. On fucking McJobs wages because that's all that is left for most of us. If we can even find those. :grr:

[AllentownJake]

33. I have a thread you might like on Goldman

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6059234&mesg_id=6059234

[varelse]

40. Thank you!

I recc'd it :evilgrin:

[MadMaddie]

38. How do we revive the manufacturing industry?

I think that by destroying the manufacturing industry on US soil the Cabal was able to crush the middle class. I firmly believe this was their goal from the beginning.

[AllentownJake]

39. Two very easy things to do but difficult things to get changed in our current Congress

Revisit Free Trade Agreements with nations that don't have our standards for workers
Force Financial Institutions to focus on Finance and not derivative gambling.

[zagging]

41. Were ya drinkin beer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGKgCAKnzYo

[AllentownJake]

42. First person who got my reference

:-)

[KoKo]

43. Thanks for the post...many of us here know exactly what you mean about "Our Home Towns"

That Bruce Springsteen song comes into my head that says it all. Now I will have an ear worm keeping me up all night.

K&R...

My Hometown
I was eight years old and running with a dime in my hand
Into the bus stop to pick up a paper for my old man
I'd sit on his lap in that big old Buick and steer as we drove through town
He'd tousle my hair and say son take a good look around this is your hometown
This is your hometown
This is your hometown
This is your hometown

In '65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights between the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night in the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed in a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come to my hometown
My hometown
My hometown
My hometown

Now Main Street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back to your hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown

Last night me and Kate we laid in bed
talking about getting out
Packing up our bags maybe heading south
I'm thirty-five we got a boy of our own now
Last night I sat him up behind the wheel and said son take a good look around
This is your hometown



Link to Springsteen Lyrics and You Tube has the song:

http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/MyHometown.html

[Ilsa]

44. Casino? blech. I could never get comfortable gambling for fun. Nervewracking.

The real estate went from making something tangible that could be resold to trading money and "fun". Yeah. That's the way of the USA!

[KoKo]

46. It's "Reality Tee Vee to Quell the Masses. Let 'em Gamble..and feel like they made Millions on Wall

Street like the BIG GUYS they are BAILING OUT!

Perfect World in today's politics. "Bread and Circuses." It's been done before...a thousand and more years ago. Nothing ever changes.

[scheming daemons]

45. You just described Pittsburgh 30 years ago... but we rebuilt ourselves into a different type of city

since then. Now an education- and medical-based economy. The two largest employers in Pittsburgh are a university and a hospital conglomerate (UPMC).


We've transitioned and are a city that is surviving this recession better than most ... so can Allentown.

[Hannah Bell]

51. yes, we'll all give each other heart transplants. or sell antiques to each other.

[AllentownJake]

59. Happened to Allentown 30 years ago

We survived. Service economy bullshit..about to collapse. Only can be sustained with a huge trade deficit and large national debt.

[KoKo]

47. Pittsburgh got lots of money to do that...plus Mellon-Scaife Millions...n/t

[Canuckistanian]

48. Mr. Potter was an amateur

Today's robber barons are much more powerful, sophisticated and ruthless than Mr. Potter ever was.

And they've organized.

The George Baileys of this world are now working at Walmart.

[progressoid]

56. Sad, but true.

I'd be happy to have some one less ruthless like Henry Potter as my banker today.

[old mark]

52. AJ: I once worked in one of those steel mills, a fabrication shop

making parts for bridges and building framing steel.
The company never put a dime back into maintaining or improving conditions for the workers or improving manufacturing processes or techniques. Our shop had windows that had been broken before WWII started, and probably stil are today. I was amazed that there was as much good quality steel coming from that plant as there was - the company clearly was getting ready for a shutdown as early as the mid 60's, and without doubt had heavy investments in Japanese and European steel companies.

I have always regarded gambling as a stupidity tax, and I am sorry to see PA plunging into legal casinos, but I suppose it had to happen given the greed and lack of ability of our elected officials, from Fast Eddie through the legislature. They found a great new way to enrich themselves and of course it just had to be.

A shame they can't balance the budget without cutting or stopping State Employee's pay, and a shame they can't find a means to bring new real jobs to PA.
But I guess that would be too hard.....

markO8)
formerly of Allentown, now near Reading.