Small Town Rural America Has Been Screwed

[DukeU]

Jobs have been leaving since the 70's. Long before any "global warming policies" and Reagan cut taxes and the jobs still left.

Why are jobs leaving?

 

[BrokeLoser]

Great post Dana! I saw the same thing on a road trip over to Boise to see my daughter for Thanksgiving. Took the backroads to Sunriver, OR to meet a friend and stay for a few nights. Went through a lot of tiny Oregon towns. Saw two Trump Parades (AFTER the election believe it or not) with disgruntled looking souls with guns in the backs of pickups flying ginormous MAGA flags. But other than that, these little towns looked deserted and run down. They are not run by Democrats - guaranteed. But yep, they've been ignored and in some cases forgotten entirely by our federal government for many years.

Hold on a minute....so you hate poor people today?
Doesn’t filthy as fuck, bright blue Mexifornia prove that big city GDP = Poor quality of life for the masses?
I thought we were all chasing a higher quality of life...no?

 

[pknopp]

Jobs have been leaving since the 70's. Long before any "global warming policies" and Reagan cut taxes and the jobs still left.

Why are jobs leaving?

Greed

 

[BrokeLoser]

Jobs have been leaving since the 70's. Long before any "global warming policies" and Reagan cut taxes and the jobs still left.

Why are jobs leaving?

Greed

Consumer greed?
Consumers have been conditioned to want to pay less for everything.

 

[pknopp]

Jobs have been leaving since the 70's. Long before any "global warming policies" and Reagan cut taxes and the jobs still left.

Why are jobs leaving?

Greed

Consumer greed?
Consumers have been conditioned to want to pay less for everything.

All around. We like the low prices and we will do nearly anything to boost stock prices. Well, anything but cut CEO pay.

 

[colfax_m]

Consumer greed?

Greed is good. It’s the bedrock of capitalism.

Blaming consumers for the actions of corporations is such a pathetic sell out.

 

[Mac-7]

I've been on a road trip that I've wanted to do for a very long time.

I drove east to Illinois then am driving southwest to the Pacific Ocean on what's left of Route 66.

That road, or what's left of it, goes through small town rural America.

I've gone through ghost town after ghost town. The towns that aren't abandoned are so deeply depressed it's painful and shameful to see.

Small town rural America has been totally screwed and abandoned by both our government and our citizens.

I understand now why so many republicans are so angry. I don't understand why they can't see why they have been screwed so badly and by whom.

Most of the states and all of the towns are controlled by republicans. People keep voting for them because of social issues like gay marriage and because they don't make much money and wrongly seem to believe that tax cuts are the answer to their financial problems.

Tax cuts have only totally screwed small town rural America. Their roads are so bad. I mean so bad that there were times the rough road and wind has my car literally bouncing down the road. When was the last time their roads were paved? The poverty is just terrible.

This is the result of keeping wages low, no regulation on business and trillions in tax cuts for the rich and big business.

Capitalism is making it worse because there's no money to be made in those areas so they are abandoned by business which results in more depressed economic conditions.

Raising wages will help these people a lot. Not just by increasing their own pay but by increased business from others being paid more. No little tax cut that is temporary will be a solution to such poverty. Higher wages will.

Better education will help a lot. So people don't have to take low wage jobs that require public assistance to be able to survive.

Small town rural America needs to stop electing politicians who don't give a damn about them and won't invest in the people and the areas they live in.

I was in one place that the water coming out of the faucet was a light brown and cloudy. I didn't wash my hands, I used hand sanitizer instead.

I have gone through countless towns that are totally abandoned. I've gone through farming areas that there aren't houses on the land. Just farming. People don't live in those areas anymore so the towns are turning into ghost towns.

The air in Oklahoma and Texas was so polluted it has caused a sinus infection. And people live in those areas. I can only imagine the health problems of the people in those areas but they don't have any hospital or medical facilities to go to. They have to travel hundreds of miles to get medical help.

Younger people who weren't alive before Reagan think this is normal.

It's not.

America wasn't like this before the conservatives convinced Americans that taxes, regulations, worker protections, a livable wage and investing in our nation was a horrible thing.

I totally understand now why so many in small town rural America voted for trump. He was the first republican who actually vocalized the problems the Republican Party was creating.

Only he either went about fixing the problem wrong or just didn't do anything. Which is what he mostly did. Nothing. In fact, things got worse for small town rural America.

I don't know what the solution is to help these people see that voting for republicans got them in this mess and won't get them out of it.

But I finally saw for myself the reasons why republicans voted for trump.

I dont think you understand anything about rural, small town America

communities along Route 66 are depressed because of the interstate highway system bypassing them

and they look no worse than many parts of detroit or cleveland

the thing that has hurt small town America the most is globalization

factories used to be located in those towns but not anymore

and there is no substitute for jobs

 

[progressive hunter]

Jobs have been leaving since the 70's. Long before any "global warming policies" and Reagan cut taxes and the jobs still left.

Why are jobs leaving?

Greed

why not tell the whole reason???

they moved the jobs because the government made it to expensive to have them here,,

 

[pknopp]

Consumer greed?

Greed is good. It’s the bedrock of capitalism.

Blaming consumers for the actions of corporations is such a pathetic sell out.

Maybe someday someone will actually practice capitalism and then we could find out.

 

[pknopp]

Jobs have been leaving since the 70's. Long before any "global warming policies" and Reagan cut taxes and the jobs still left.

Why are jobs leaving?

Greed

why not tell the whole reason???

they moved the jobs because the government made it to expensive to have them here,,

Wrong. You say stopping a factory from emitting their waste into the rivers is expensive. I say it is expensive to not stop it.

 

[progressive hunter]

Consumer greed?

Greed is good. It’s the bedrock of capitalism.

Blaming consumers for the actions of corporations is such a pathetic sell out.

wrong again,,

providing a good product or service for a good price is the bedrock of free market capitalism,,

government ran capitalism runs on greed,,

 

[Papageorgio]

Interesting thread, we just sold our home and are moving to rural America and the housing prices are going through the roof because the inventory is low. Many people have the same idea that we do. Now that there is an ability to work remotely, people seem to be moving out of large cities. The company my son works for has been working remote since March 2020 because of the pandemic, now they announced that they are going to go remote permanently. So, my son is leaving violent, riot riddled Seattle and is finding a small rural town where it is less dangerous.

Hopefully, this will cause a resurgence to rural America.

 

[BrokeLoser]

Consumer greed?

Greed is good. It’s the bedrock of capitalism.

Blaming consumers for the actions of corporations is such a pathetic sell out.

Demand creates supply...what came first, the chicken or the egg?
Think logically once.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

Right wingers come out in hives when you mention higher wages. Higher wages are communism because they reduce the profits that their masters make. Its the big right wing con.

I do not disagree with paying someone a living wage as long as they are worth the pay.

You want me to pay someone no matter their worth which is wrong in my eyes!

Well thats not quite what I am saying. Valuing what somebody does is a complex issue. And I am not arguing for everyone to be paid the same. But if someone works at a job all week they should at least be able to enjoy a reasonable standard of living. We can discuss what that is if you want to start another thread.

 

[progressive hunter]

Consumer greed?

Greed is good. It’s the bedrock of capitalism.

Blaming consumers for the actions of corporations is such a pathetic sell out.

Maybe someday someone will actually practice capitalism and then we could find out.

I've been doing it for 30 yrs,,

 

[Dogmaphobe]

These rural folks are very confusing. They seem to want help, on one hand, and then want, on the other hand, to live apart from the rest of their fellow Americans, blaming their fellow citizens all the way when nobody else is actually treating them badly.

The ruralists need to get out more, meet more people, acknowledge that people who are different from themselves exist. They somehow expect that the rest of the U.S. cater to their desire to live in a bubble. The closer you live to a population center, the more different people you interact with. I grew up right outside of NYC, and live in the DC suburbs. I've known people from all over the world. I've really enjoyed it. I can't imagine living any other way.

The anger that these ruralists exhibit toward others is entirely unfounded. Nobody owes them anything. They have no one else to blame for their failure to participate in society.

Or maybe you can just go fuck yourself, you ignorant bigot.

I realize you are utterly stupid, but this broadbrushing of yours is beyond the pale.

Nobody wants to live in a bubble. They simply want to live - preferably free from the dictates of uneducated morons such as yourself who have no idea what their lives are like, yet impose your myopic urban standards upon them.

 

[progressive hunter]

Jobs have been leaving since the 70's. Long before any "global warming policies" and Reagan cut taxes and the jobs still left.

Why are jobs leaving?

Greed

why not tell the whole reason???

they moved the jobs because the government made it to expensive to have them here,,

Wrong. You say stopping a factory from emitting their waste into the rivers is expensive. I say it is expensive to not stop it.

youre only focusing on one aspect when its a many things that contribute,,

 

[pknopp]

Consumer greed?

Greed is good. It’s the bedrock of capitalism.

Blaming consumers for the actions of corporations is such a pathetic sell out.

Maybe someday someone will actually practice capitalism and then we could find out.

I've been doing it for 30 yrs,,

You are irrelevant. Selling ice tea on the sidewalk really doesn't prove anything.

 

[Dekster]

It happened because of President William Jefferson Clinton's 300+ "great" trade deals that absolutely destroyed small manufacturing in America.

How did those trade deals destroy small manufacturing in America?

NAFTA’s Impact on U.S. Workers

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NATFA) was the door through which American workers were shoved into the neoliberal global labor market. By establishing the principle that U.S. corporations could relocate production elsewhere and sell back into the United States, NAFTA undercut the...

www.epi.org

So the corporations are the ones that shipped jobs overseas, no?

Seems like the capitalism is biting y’all in the ass.

The government made it possible for corporations to do this. Seems like Bill Clinton is still biting us in the ass,

 

[DukeU]

Greed

Explain please.

Also, Everyone is greedy.