191–200 of 346 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clinton did campaign on a jobs and retraining program specifically for these people. But how can you compete with someone saying they'll hand-wave away your problems and return your old way of life?
It is a tough sell to take away an $80k/year job and replace it with slightly above minimum wage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/30/business/energy-environme...
(edit: I finished it,as I should have the first time. Not that i change my point of view though) I couldn't finish the article, not because it was too heartbreaking, but because of the stupidity of the author. ..."went to the already-crowded Dollar Store and Dollar General and bought dog food, dog treats, Slim Jims, three six-packs of Milwaukee’s Best, pruners for digging roots and a backpack to carry it all." I have…
I have been there, I grew up not knowing where each meal was coming from. I have lived next to and interacted with people who can't make logical decisions about what to do.
I have seen people pull themselves from there, to actually attain something worthwhile, (I'd like to believe I am one of those people), and I have seen and interacted with those who will use any excuse to avoid actually working, or bettering themselves.
So again, would you like to have a discussion about it? I'm more than willing.
I am disappointed about the downvotes without a good reason though, this is why we come to hn after all.
Logan County, West Virginia, where this article is set, voted 80% in favor of Trump, giving him 10,000 additional votes. [1] The entire state of West Virginia went to Trump. If Democrats want to change the current political landscape in this country, they might start by addressing some of these peoples' problems while they're campaigning on everyone else's problems too. Trump (and conservatives) aren't going to do a…
Clinton did campaign on a jobs and retraining program specifically for these people. But how can you compete with someone saying they'll hand-wave away your problems and return your old way of life?
But for most people outside the beltway and campuses, the economy and their daily expenses were a more pressing issue.
Thus that the Democrats decides to hitch their horse with Clinton, even though her campaign focus seemed off target or ill focused, and she already had a negative reputation from the Obama years, and being the wife of a former President, effectively sunk the campaign from the word go.
Even afterwards it seems like the main way Democrats can find to attack Trump is on trying to tar him as a misogynist. Of all the things that the guy can be attacked for, that is what they decided to focus on???
(edit: I finished it,as I should have the first time. Not that i change my point of view though) I couldn't finish the article, not because it was too heartbreaking, but because of the stupidity of the author. ..."went to the already-crowded Dollar Store and Dollar General and bought dog food, dog treats, Slim Jims, three six-packs of Milwaukee’s Best, pruners for digging roots and a backpack to carry it all." I have…
So to the downvoters, do you actually have a logical response, or just a knee jerk reaction? I have been there, I grew up not knowing where each meal was coming from. I have lived next to and interacted with people who can't make logical decisions about what to do. I have seen people pull themselves from there, to actually attain something worthwhile, (I'd like to believe I am one of those people), and I have seen an…
Back in '07 got laid off. Company shut down. Lots of us tried to scramble to get jobs, and all the quick low paying jobs filled up. I got into unemployment and started collecting the $207/week. And this, obviously, wasn't enough. It certainly didn't equal to the part that was taken out of my paycheck for "unemployment insurance".
2 weeks turned into a month. Which turned into months, then into a year. Then the '08 recession hit. I saw people with graduate science degrees working at McDonalds. There was no fucking way I could get a job, even with blanketing my resumes and filling out webforms that are never responded (Thank you for submitting your application. You will never hear from us).
And im still struggling with the $207/week. So I start hustling on craigslist, doing odd jobs. Of course I'm supposed to report this. Well, guess what.... I used this money to relocate myself to a better location, and got a job.
Ideally, if you make 1$ on unemployment, you are supposed to report it, and you get $1 less. And if you do work a low paying job, then you get worked to the bone for 30 hours, and get minimum wage which is $187 after taxes. And minus gas, minus lunch, and too tired to look elsewhere. So you hold out for a better one that can get you out of the hole.
Yeah, it's just a bad situation all around. And it turns everyone into criminals.
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We spent the last few decades dismantling whatever shambles of a social safety net we had, and we don't give a shit about people who can't afford to live. We say "get a job", and we just don't care.
Speak for yourself, I care deeply about the less fortunate - I just don't think that the social safety net is well designed or cost effective and I think pouring more money into it will just incentivize preying on the people caught in the net. I think there are solid ways to help people but that usually means investment in them, rather than increased dependence on the system. I'd gladly chip in for this lady to get a…
(edit: I finished it,as I should have the first time. Not that i change my point of view though) I couldn't finish the article, not because it was too heartbreaking, but because of the stupidity of the author. ..."went to the already-crowded Dollar Store and Dollar General and bought dog food, dog treats, Slim Jims, three six-packs of Milwaukee’s Best, pruners for digging roots and a backpack to carry it all." I have…
I'm just guessing but the author may be referring to ginseng roots, which my low-income friends occasionally collect here in Appalachia. They could make hundreds of dollars in a single day.
Planted ginseng takes 2+ years until you can harvest it. I asked them about planting/cultivating, which they said wasn't really viable but they did try to harvest the wild ginseng in a sustainable way.
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And plenty of people in these areas have not idea what life is like outside of their rural areas. My brother recently told me a story of talking to two 20 somethings in rural Pennsylvania (not Amish). They had never traveled anywhere outside of their town and had no concept of what it was like to live anywhere else.
I currently live in rural upstate New York. When a longtime friend of mine found out that I would soon be leaving to live in a big city in the south he yelled at me, called me an idiot, and said I would get raped and murdered there. This is a guy in his mid-30's who has only ever visited a place with more than 10,000 people once, so his entire perception of what it's like in urban America is based off of the salaciou…
Not sure why this is an article. This is just normal life in many parts of rural America from Pennsylvania to Washington to Arizona. When I lived in West Virginia, I did note that the Washington Post had a weird fascination with the place. Whenever things got slow, you could expect some big exposé about what a bunch of uneducated, dirty bumpkins we were. WaPo even once held a contest to come up with a new slogan for…
Yet, when someone does write an article, it's seen as offensive.
Is there a right way to report on what's going on?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coal was viable as a fuel until a few years ago. Then the environmental regulations hit full force, and forced many of these companies under. I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but worth repeating. Decisions have consequences. Deciding that you will enforce a particular tax/regulation policy based upon perceived (real or otherwise) environmental harm means that the people who depend upon those industries for their…
I think you're making a lot of good points here, but: > Coal is still cheaper... This is only true when you socialize the long-term costs incurred by coal. Regulation is an attempt to push some of those costs back onto the companies that incur them, and then it turns out that coal isn't so cheap after all. I suppose that since "regulation" is becoming a dirty word in politics, and especially with the influence from f…
It's a shame that the focus is on conservation - energy abundance is better for humanity.