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Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

nytimes.com

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Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#231

Post by johan_larson »

thrwthrw93223 wrote: post #21
johan_larson wrote: post #13

Maybe we shouldn't be trying to keep these small town alive. Maybe we should focus on shutting them down in an orderly fashion and help the residents move to more dynamic areas, probably in large part by helping them acquire skills that are actually in demand there.

Easy for you to say as an outsider with a comfortable salaried job. A lot of people in these rural communities aren't educated and live paycheck-to-paycheck. Putting them in larger cities for jobs they aren't qualified and wouldn't be hired for probably isn't the solution.

Indeed. But the skills mismatch is one of the things I am proposing to address. People can be retrained, at least if they're on the younger side. Trying to retrain a 55 year old factory worker whose employer moved the plant to Mexico or China probably wouldn't work too well. It might be better to let him retire early.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#232

Post by village-idiot »

nimbius wrote: post #99

speaking as someone who works in a small town in the midwest as an auto mechanic, the people that shot themselves in the foot with this idea were the very ones who proposed it. I got 5 months of free online Python classes from the local government. This was part of some larger state plan to 'revitalize' us as a 'web 2.0' something or other for the 'silicon valley' of the midwest. The whole thing read like snake oil b…

Even for those of us who are male, white, and straight, your state sounds unpleasant. Convincing someone like me to move there is going to be very expensive.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#233

Post by village-idiot »

Glyptodon wrote: post #156
cgoecknerwald wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree with your call-out. If a company has to have a "good culture" to attract talent, then so does a county, city, or state. Since I no longer have to live in a state that fights against my rights, I may very well choose to live (and therefore work) in other states for the rest of my life. However, I do wonder if we are over-conflating "rural" with "conservative." Certainly, they are correlated, but I c…

The big differences between rural California and Rural Mississippi from my experience: 1. Rural California has way fewer black people. 2. Rural California is more geographically wealth-segregated. (The probability that a larger acreage and higher-owner-income rural property is adjacent to trailers is greater in Mississippi than California.) In rural Mississippi people pretend their black neighbors don't exist unless…

The big difference is that urban California outvotes rural California, something that isn’t true in Mississippi.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#234

Post by village-idiot »

badpun wrote: post #157
sidlls wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People drastically understate the infrastructure and other issues you note in places outside of major urban centers of technology. My children do not have a net benefit from a huge home on a huge plot of land if the schools are garbage, there are few or no parks, the politics are very conservative, and diversity is lacking.

As someone coming from Poland, a country that’s pretty much 100% white and Polish, I don’t feel that the lack of “diversity” has negatively impacted my development. It seems to me that people in the US have been brainwashed (in schools, by media etc.) into believing that diversity is always good and lack of diversity is always bad, while in reality it’s not that simple.

Research shows that diverse teams tend to get stuck in group think less, and diverse markets are less prone to bubbles and corrections.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#235

Post by Rotten194 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #230
Rotten194 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In one case, a 39-year old teacher allegedly died after not getting appropriate medical care due to her sexual orientation.9 According to a lawsuit filed by her brother, the teacher’s medical condition was not taken seriously by the EMTs who responded to her 911 call after they “‘became immediately aware’” she was a lesbian. She was abandoned for over an hour after being admitted to the hospital – in violation of pro…

That's a great narrative for a lawsuit, but I'm skeptical it's true. It's possible they were negligent (it happens to straight people too wouldn't you know it!), but it's also equally possible they were making every effort and they're still getting sued because our system has enormous financial rewards available to those who win successful lawsuits, even if they are disproportionate in many cases. At any rate, no, th…

so your second paragraph is justified by the completely baseless speculation in the first? if you actually had read the pdf I linked you would have seen the multitude of other examples of medical discrimination against queer people in it. im queer and have experienced medical discrimination. my queer friends have experienced medical discrimination, in washington state, not even a conservative state. intersex babies still routinely have non-consensual genital reassignment surgery performed, sometimes without their parent's knowledge.

yes, cishet people experience medical malpractice as well. but individual bad experiences is not the same as systemic discrimination. systematic discrimination against queer and intersex people goes on every day in our medical system, as much as people like to pretend it doesn't.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#236

Post by wahern »

jacob019 wrote: post #221
mikestew wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without really needing to know, I'm guessing either Indiana (my home state) or North Carolina (lived there three years). I say that only because we'd never go back to NC because of differences in opinion and politics, and never, ever go back to IN because it appears to have gone even more ( ahem ) divergent from my opinions since we moved out twenty years ago. The things I heard come out of the mouths of clients when…

Most hoosiers are good people. Indianapolis is blue. We don't have these draconian rules.

  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing
People in rural and conservative communities aren't bad people. And IME people in urban and liberal communities aren't even any less racist. The biggest difference is that those with power in urban and liberal communities (i.e. middle-class and whites) are more likely to acquiesce when confronted with claims of prejudice or inequality.

This propensity to acquiesce is considered radical by conservative communities, who view themselves as being principled.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#237

Post by tryptophan »

snackbugs wrote: post #10
fromthestart wrote: post #2

Are these same small towns also insulated from market crashes and recessions? Is there some benefit to greater America from their existence? Edit: apparently people are interpreting my comment negatively. I was seriously asking if these small town communities can act as a sort of buffer during recessions because of their relative isolation, thereby limiting negative effects. I'm not questioning whether they should ex…

The people who lived in towns which thrived long before the economy failed them don't need to justify their existence in economic terms. The question you should be asking is whether or not this economy has any benefit to those people. What an absolutely inhuman comment this is.

>economy failed them

Its everyone else fault that nobody wanted to buy the crap their local industries made?

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#238

Post by addicted »

ep103 wrote: post #174
war1025 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame how much abortion gets pushed as a wedge issue. It's great at riling people up and getting them to cluster into their particular camps, but at that point people who would otherwise be able to agree on other issues and actually make progress decide to just not talk to each other.

abortion and gun control. We can limit the amount of abortion that occurs, without banning abortion (sex education, birth control, health insurance, family planning, adoption center funding, etc). And we can limit the negative impacts of gun ownership on society, without gun bans (NICB, mental health funding, red flag laws, standardized licensing, increased funding for already existing laws, significantly increased p…

I’m sorry, but the left has not only talked about all these things, but they’ve actually pushed legislation for this.

The idea that the US left does not even want to talk about sex Ed, birth control, health insurance...mental health funding, funding research on the effects of guns, licensing, etc... is so out of whack from reality.

You are basically taking what every one on the US left (almost no one in any sort of governmental power on the US left has proposed a gun ban) is pushing for and complaining that no one wants to talk about it.

It’s remarkable how entrenched the idea that the only problem is that both sides are equally wrong is in the US.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#239

Post by cinquemb »

snowwrestler wrote: post #163
weberc2 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What state is this? How do they require minorities to have ID but not whites? Apologies if these questions are naive, I'm not particularly familiar with midwest politics.

> How do they require minorities to have ID but not whites? By only asking minorities to prove they are carrying ID. "The law" is what gets enforced, not what it says on the books. Edit to add: as people are getting all up in arms about rural areas, they should recall that this tactic was broadly applied by the New York City police department too.

>"The law" is what gets enforced, not what it says on the books.

>Edit to add: as people are getting all up in arms about rural areas, they should recall that this tactic was broadly applied by the New York City police department too.

"Organized Democracy" by Melanin 9: `youtube-dl -f mp4 'QPls-Gi_4Ig'` speaks to this very much.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#240

Post by snaky »

Scoundreller wrote: post #116
pesmhey wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone wants to be ‘richer’. That economists push that idea begs the question. I’m not placing a value judgement on either worldview, just pointing out that in one worldview, there’s an assumption of constant growth. I happen to fall into this worldview, but I’ve grown an appreciation for those who don’t. Unbridled growth = cancer.

> Not everyone wants to be ‘richer’. They say that, but if you write them a cheque, they'll cash it. It's the things that come along with wealth that they may disagree with, but certainly not the wealth itself. No doubt, there are pockets (even in Canada#) that refuse government welfare programs like health insurance because they feel that they shouldn't be dependent on others like that, but it's much less than 1%. #…

> if you write them a cheque, they'll cash it

That's why all the great scientists are working in the Fintech industry. (No, they are not)

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