Heartbreaking story on 60 minutes - Wilmington Ohio.

[NRaleighLiberal]

Brought home the pain of the Bush recession. Dove it home, actually - and I can only imagine how many other small towns (and big ones, really) are experiencing this across the country. And if you read the daily paper and watch the news, you wouldn't know the depth of the tragedy. It truly broke our heart, made us realize how fortunate we are. And is making us think of ways we can help.

[MichiganVote]

1. Makes me furious. This was ALL avoidable. This did not have to happen.

And so far very little has been done on a scale to that which was done for the very fuckers who started this thing.

Why aren't any of these banking/hedge fund/mortgage lender fuckers in jail?

[bullwinkle428]

9. They're not in jail because the politicians gave them the green light

to do the things that brought about all of this!

[HughBeaumont]

10. Same reason very few of the S&L/80s Finanical swindler fuckers ever went to jail.

Banking and business, by rights, SHOULD be boring.

Somewhere in the early 80s (much thanks to Reagan opening up the floodgates for whiskey-throttle three-card monte thrift deregulation), both turned into glorified casinos in which the house (i.e. the Controlling Elite) always effed the hoi polloi out of their hard-earned cash and mostly got away with it. Outsourcing of jobs. Hostile takeovers. Deregulation. Outspoken marriage of corporation and state.

Stalin once said "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic". I guess finance and business works the same way. For people to start caring, it either has to happen to them or in numbers far too great to ignore (like, say, the massive tab Bernie Madoff screwed his clients to). Right in the middle - we mostly don't talk about this very crucial problem of legalized graft and high unemployment like clockwork every seven years.

There are many Wilmingtons everywhere in this nation, especially in your state and mine.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

22. I know a family member of one of those swindlers...

He lives on a huge yacht and travels from port to port.
I don't know all the details but I'll bet all his money is banked offshore.

[virgogal]

2. It was awful. Heartbreaking.

[Skittles]

3. could you tell us more of the actual story please; thanks

not able to view at this time

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. I will try. Won't be able to do it justice.

Wilmington Ohio is being decimated by the recession. DHL company closed, leading to 10000 layoffs. They got a bit of stimulus money that is targeted for repaving main street - could lead to 100 jobs (100 jobs, 10,000 lost - easy to do the math). People trying to retrain, but one man who was a VP at DHL sent out 123 resumes, and now cleans toilets, etc - he had his house foreclosed, has a family (that he had to move out a few weeks ago). Woman who lost her husband, owned a horse farm - now has to put horses down, no money, no health insurance. But it was sensitively done. And as one said here, stories like these are simply an unnecessary crime.

[Skittles]

8. yes

repeated thousands of times across America :cry:

[FarCenter]

13. Wasn't this the old Airborne Express package delivery business

Bought by DHL and then that was acquired by Deutsche Post. But DP found that it couldn't compete for ground delivery in the US with Fed Ex, UPS and USPS. So it closed most of the operation down and exited the business.

Wilmington's problem is mostly about being a one-employer town when that employer goes belly up. And that would have happened whether there was a recession or not.

[OhioBlue]

30. very accurate

the fact that they were an one employer town and much of the smaller business was built around that employer turned out to be a bad gamble. The recession just exacerbates the problems - b/c now the people of Wilmington and surrounding areas that worked there cannot find other jobs. The State budget is also in the crapper - which makes it harder for the State to help the local Governments mitigate the disaster. The State also can't focus all its efforts on recovery for them as the entire State is in need of recovery.

[northernlights]

14. the animals are helpless

Here in Maine I just learned that 7 horses recently starved to death not from from where I live...1/2 mile down my road, turn left. :cry: :cry: :cry: Actually, they didn't all starve to death...a couple were in such bad shape the county put them down.

The county is requesting donations for the survivors while they try to find them homes. 4-H kids are volunteering their time to care for them.

Last summer the state delivered hay to a horseowner who lost her job. Now the government is asking for donations.

[MichiganVote]

6. Unemployment, loss of 10,000+ jobs, foreclosures,debt, death...hope

You know, all the things the republicans want for the US people and the one thing Obama promises and does not deliver.

[hfojvt]

7. yeah, me either since it is already over

I am seeing Alec Baldwin.

[Brickbat]

4. Deets/context?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

11. Fuck'em Clinton County went 65% for McCain and 70% for Bush 04

They are clearly highly satisfied with their present circumstances, my sympathy for republican voting white trash is greatly diminished.

[NRaleighLiberal]

12. boggles the mind, doesn't it? voting against self interests. I don't get it.

And now you hear that people will return the Pubs to power despite the Pubs trashing the economy in the first place.

Still, I can't help but feeling quite bad for people who get screwed, no matter how they vote. We get one shot at life. It shouldn't be like this.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

17. there is only one reason blue collar, unionized low-skill workers vote republican

Because they are completely consumed by anger and hatred. There is no reaching them and their is no saving them when they choose to put hate first in their lives.

[mod mom]

23. they hate liberals so much that they are willing to vote against their self interest

and to turn a blind eye to the deception & lies of the GOP.

[northernlights]

15. but the horses that will die didn't vote nt

[MichiganVote]

16. Friend, the only people highly satisfied today are bankers, wall street, the ins. industry and

whores during the "climate" festival expected to save the world by people who just aren't paying attention.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DemReadingDU]

20. I'm from this area too.

Spouse is retired union Ironworker. He worked in both the Airborne and GM facilities. He is so angry at the corporate Republicans who have outsourced our middle-class jobs, for greed and profits. Totally sucks to see our country so decimated.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

21. These are people who stood still shaking their fist at a changing world

They vote Republican because their imaginary friend in the sky tells them to, and now they like much of red america reap the whirlwind of being useful idiots to the republican party.

I know the area well, I had family in Mason in Warren Co. who left because it was too fucking depressing.

[AngryOldDem]

25. And the whirlwind also catches those in Blue Moraine in Blue Montgomery County, Ohio, too.

First, let me apologize for calling you out in my now-deleted post. And you really can't compare Warren County to Clinton County. Both are Red, yes, but for entirely different reasons.

State GOP leaders, like Mike Turner (perhaps the only worthwhile thing he has done since being in Congress) as well as Democrats, fought long and hard to keep the hub open, as they did with the Moraine plant. At the end of the day, corporate greed won out and a lot of hard-working folks lost their jobs, and individual political affiliation or imaginary friends really had nothing to do with it.

[DemReadingDU]

32. Corporate greed. NCR is leaving too.

:(

[HughBeaumont]

24. That's how it is everywhere.

Consumed by hatred and drunk on Horatio Alger absinthe, these people are. They refuse to see past their own lives and confront real problems. They want so desperately to believe the myth that it WILL happen for them someday as long as they vote for a "Daddy" figure to lead the way.

We don't need A "Daddy". We need THOUSANDS of LEADERS. And we're not getting ANY.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

27. That's EXACTLY what I was thinking watching the segment...

They're crying the blues now, just like we knew they would.
I feel for the innocent kids and animals but these are the
ones that would vote for Palin given the opportunity,
They're victims of their own hate and ignorance.

[bevoette]

31. me, too. and i felt so bad for them. (nm)

[DemReadingDU]

19. Here's the replay

12/20/09 Wilmington, Ohio's Long Recession
60 Minutes Revists A Town Hit Hard By The Recession; Have Things Improved Nearly A Year Since Our First Report?

Plus, there are additional links to view the segment from last January.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/18/60minutes/main5996883.shtml


It's very devastating for this part of Ohio. Spouse and I were talking that as the economy is not getting better, Wilmington could be the canary for anytown, USA.
:(

[Luminous Animal]

26. I was walking around San Francisco today shopping.

I visited many of the shopping neighborhoods and it was empty store front after store front. These were small owner run businesses that have closed since September. I remember back in September during the meltdown doing a similar shopping tour of the city for a birthday and thinking to myself that many of these small businesses will not survive. Many more will not survive after the holiday season. Prices are being slashed and stock is low. It's a shame and it does break my heart.

[ThatsMyBarack]

28. Tough to watch.

Especially with Survivor: Russell Land following it!

[Blue_In_AK]

29. My hometown.

That's where I was born. Probably some of these people are my relatives.