6 ms·

It is interesting that the people who are losing jobs aren't retraining. What exactly is Trump/Republican party going to do to help with that? Bring back Coal w

by retbull 10y ago

It is interesting that the people who are losing jobs aren't retraining. What exactly is Trump/Republican party going to do to help with that? Bring back Coal when renewable is cheaper?

te_chris 10y ago
Probably dead nothing and then blame liberals and Mexicans again in 4 years when everything has got worse.
- knieveltech 10y ago
  You assume that blame would be misplaced? Liberals tossed workers and organized labor overboard ~30 years ago: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/23/yes-democratic-party-did-abandon-working-class http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/23/yes-democratic-...
  - ben_w 10y ago
    I would assume that the Democrats (as a non-American, what's up with calling them 'liberals'?) being out of power for four years will make them literally incapable of being why Trump fails to solve these problems.
    - knieveltech 10y ago
      Meh. The Democratic party coopted the term liberal and use it in all of their marketing. So much so that their opponents now use the term as a naked slur. shrug Politics in the US is stupid and getting dumber and scarier by the day.
    - diyorgasms 10y ago
      The Democrats are absolutely liberals in the European sense of the word. They are pro-capitalism and have abandoned any pretense of pro-worker or leftist thought. HRC was George W. Bush reincarnate, Bill Clinton was as far right as any pre-Reagan Republican. Obama is a bit to the left of the Clintons, but he's still staunchly center-right and you'll notice that Obamacare is not single-payer nor does it allow for the government to compete in the marketplace.
droopyEyelids 10y ago
It's hard to retrain when you live in a town with no higher education facilities, don't have any peers or role models in those careers, and there aren't employers in the area that require those skills.
- sanderjd 10y ago
  And you have been living paycheck to paycheck. Education is extremely expensive. So is relocation to places with booming industries.
  - monk_e_boy 10y ago
    And all your friends, colleagues, contacts, family are where you live at the moment. Moving cities is moving away from all that help. In the Uk these social ties are too much to break away from, its easier to stay put and look for work. Unemployment creaps up, zero hour contracts drive wages down. Deprivation sets in. Its a slow downward spiral.
jerkstate 10y ago
When will renewable be cheaper, though?
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Already is: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/world-energy-hits-a-turning-point-solar-that-s-cheaper-than-wind https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/world-ene... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-03/for-cheapest-power-on-earth-look-skyward-as-coal-falls-to-solar https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-03/for-cheap...
  - syshum 10y ago
    That is not a complete Electrical system, just the panels which are only cheaper in area's with ideal solar output. Go north where there is less sun, and more clouds and the cost starts to rise fast, further Electrical Storage is a major concern since solar only works at most 12 hours a day, you have to something about the other 12. So no Solar is not cheaper when looked at in total cost to supply useable power to people 24/7 Further the cost of Coal is higher today largely because of artificial fees places on it in the form of Carbon Taxes, EPA regulations, etc. While I agree many of these are needed and benifitial to the long term it is this has to be factored in to the statement that Solar is "cheaper" if the government adds all kinds of fees to everything but solar of course solar will be cheaper, but that is an Artificial Result created by government intervention in the market place not technology. The draw back of this is that increases the price of power for everyone and that hits poor people the hardest when their power bills double because of some new EPA Regulations
    - the8472 10y ago
      > Carbon Taxes, EPA regulations, etc few countries have effective carbon taxes. the EU emissions trading system isn't doing its job for example because they handed out too many credits which deflated their price. Regulations also apply to renewables. especially wind and the necessary cross-country powerlines suffer from nimbyism.
    - 10y ago
ProAm 10y ago
What good is a planet when you cant afford to live on it? (/s sort of)
- tajen 10y ago
  I like your sentence, it's a philosophical study which requires an economics analysis. If we take the hypothesis that we can't afford living here because we're limited by artificial abnormalities, like the wealth being abnormally concentrated, then wouldn't the rich actually employ those people (under various forms, like purchasing more goods/houses, directly hiring servants, making use of hotels/restaurants, etc) ? It could happen that the rich are so rich that they can't consume the money they have or even invest it, but again, that would lead in a depreciation of money which would adjust it until everyone could act as if the rich people's unused stash didn't exist at all. If we take the opposite hypothesis, which is that we can't afford living here because we're limited by actual resources, it means there are too many people on Earth. If USA were strictly equally divided, each person would have 32,000 square meters to produce wealth. While that seems enough to grow carrots for one person, it may not be enough to grow enough of them to exchange with televisions, meat, health care, education and store for retirement. The average human's footprint is higher than their share. In this case, it's not too much mechanization or automation, it's that both the rich's footprint and the poor's footprint are distortedly higher than the goods they've produced. Here you go: The money we have isn't worth what we believe, USA can only exist through the slavery of Chinese workers, and we shall see some sharp adjustment for the rich in the future. Unless they keep on distorting the economy in their favor.
  - VLM 10y ago
    Your analysis is good but static. There is a bigger dynamic problem where your economic system relies on eternal compounded growth and anything less will result in utter collapse. The planet is a fixed size. Therefore the only question is when is the collapse, not if they'll be one. A side issue is recent history over the past couple centuries has revolved around replacing old forms of energy with new ones orders of magnitude cheaper. So far its worked out well. Because we haven't collapsed yet isn't a justification for it always working in the future. And now we're pretty well done with oil and coal with nothing to replace them, certainly not something orders of magnitude better to continue the trend of growth. Another interesting exponential is the economy seems to do better with exponential growth in native population. Those aren't growing because economic conditions are awful. That leads to even worse economic conditions, leading to even lower population birth rates...
wagecuck 10y ago
Why don't these coal miners just become data scientists?
jethro_tell 10y ago
What are you going to retrain as? A 50 year old programmer with no experience and 50,000 in school loans? I was a carpenter, I retrained at 28 and it was rough. I can't even imagine being older. Most of the guys I worked with out in the field didn't even own computers. They were just getting real phones. It's a brain rewiring not just picking up a couple new skills.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  I think most people underestimate the amount of time and effort involved in retraining. People are good with technology grew up with it their entire lives. There are exceptions, but if anything, they prove the rule.
  - jethro_tell 10y ago
    I think people also underestimate the amount of lifestyle change that goes with that sort of thing. You're not going to go to school and retrain to be a programmer or some type of professional in a small town where there are 2 web devs and a little ISP two towns over. You're not going to move a family to a tech hub at that stage of your life so you can start over in an entry level job.
cryoshon 10y ago
i'd say it's not so much that they aren't retraining versus can't retrain due to constrained resources it's tough to retrain. now add kids, low savings, and a mortgage. then you re-start at the bottom of the salary ladder. now it's time to retire. my prediction: trump does nothing to address this problem whatsoever.
ThomPete 10y ago
Billons where spent in Denmark doing that. The results where void. The problem is that the kind of skills you need require much more than what retraining can do.
hibikir 10y ago
Spain had to deal with major cuts to their coal industry too: Loss of competitiveness closed mines that employed tens of thousands of people directly, and entire towns indirectly. Asturias, the region with the most mines went from being near the top of Spain's GDP to the bottom third, and has never recovered. What was done then, and it's still in progress in the few mines that are already open, was to provide amazing early retirement deals: Instead of laying off young workers, anyone over 50 gets to retire with full pay. While that minimized the pain to secondary industries, as the retirees still kept their income, The region ultimately produced less, and massive emigration followed. This doesn't make me wish for this solution on anyone. The best solutions, which I don't think are practical in US rural communities for cultural issues, is to incentivize replacement industries: For instance, St Louis hollowed out for decades, just like Detroit, but the city is doing better lately by fostering technology startups near its universities. This is revitalizing areas of the city that were slums for decades. It seems difficult for American rural areas to do this though, if just because of the big culture clash between the old school America and people that create companies imitating San Francisco culture.

by retbull 10y ago

It is interesting that the people who are losing jobs aren't retraining. What exactly is Trump/Republican party going to do to help with that? Bring back Coal when renewable is cheaper?

te_chris 10y ago

Probably dead nothing and then blame liberals and Mexicans again in 4 years when everything has got worse.

knieveltech 10y ago
You assume that blame would be misplaced? Liberals tossed workers and organized labor overboard ~30 years ago: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/23/yes-democratic-party-did-abandon-working-class http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/23/yes-democratic-...
- ben_w 10y ago
  I would assume that the Democrats (as a non-American, what's up with calling them 'liberals'?) being out of power for four years will make them literally incapable of being why Trump fails to solve these problems.
  - knieveltech 10y ago
    Meh. The Democratic party coopted the term liberal and use it in all of their marketing. So much so that their opponents now use the term as a naked slur. shrug Politics in the US is stupid and getting dumber and scarier by the day.
  - diyorgasms 10y ago
    The Democrats are absolutely liberals in the European sense of the word. They are pro-capitalism and have abandoned any pretense of pro-worker or leftist thought. HRC was George W. Bush reincarnate, Bill Clinton was as far right as any pre-Reagan Republican. Obama is a bit to the left of the Clintons, but he's still staunchly center-right and you'll notice that Obamacare is not single-payer nor does it allow for the government to compete in the marketplace.

droopyEyelids 10y ago

It's hard to retrain when you live in a town with no higher education facilities, don't have any peers or role models in those careers, and there aren't employers in the area that require those skills.

sanderjd 10y ago
And you have been living paycheck to paycheck. Education is extremely expensive. So is relocation to places with booming industries.
- monk_e_boy 10y ago
  And all your friends, colleagues, contacts, family are where you live at the moment. Moving cities is moving away from all that help. In the Uk these social ties are too much to break away from, its easier to stay put and look for work. Unemployment creaps up, zero hour contracts drive wages down. Deprivation sets in. Its a slow downward spiral.

jerkstate 10y ago

When will renewable be cheaper, though?

toomuchtodo 10y ago
Already is: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/world-energy-hits-a-turning-point-solar-that-s-cheaper-than-wind https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/world-ene... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-03/for-cheapest-power-on-earth-look-skyward-as-coal-falls-to-solar https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-03/for-cheap...
- syshum 10y ago
  That is not a complete Electrical system, just the panels which are only cheaper in area's with ideal solar output. Go north where there is less sun, and more clouds and the cost starts to rise fast, further Electrical Storage is a major concern since solar only works at most 12 hours a day, you have to something about the other 12. So no Solar is not cheaper when looked at in total cost to supply useable power to people 24/7 Further the cost of Coal is higher today largely because of artificial fees places on it in the form of Carbon Taxes, EPA regulations, etc. While I agree many of these are needed and benifitial to the long term it is this has to be factored in to the statement that Solar is "cheaper" if the government adds all kinds of fees to everything but solar of course solar will be cheaper, but that is an Artificial Result created by government intervention in the market place not technology. The draw back of this is that increases the price of power for everyone and that hits poor people the hardest when their power bills double because of some new EPA Regulations
  - the8472 10y ago
    > Carbon Taxes, EPA regulations, etc few countries have effective carbon taxes. the EU emissions trading system isn't doing its job for example because they handed out too many credits which deflated their price. Regulations also apply to renewables. especially wind and the necessary cross-country powerlines suffer from nimbyism.
  - 10y ago

ProAm 10y ago

What good is a planet when you cant afford to live on it? (/s sort of)

tajen 10y ago
I like your sentence, it's a philosophical study which requires an economics analysis. If we take the hypothesis that we can't afford living here because we're limited by artificial abnormalities, like the wealth being abnormally concentrated, then wouldn't the rich actually employ those people (under various forms, like purchasing more goods/houses, directly hiring servants, making use of hotels/restaurants, etc) ? It could happen that the rich are so rich that they can't consume the money they have or even invest it, but again, that would lead in a depreciation of money which would adjust it until everyone could act as if the rich people's unused stash didn't exist at all. If we take the opposite hypothesis, which is that we can't afford living here because we're limited by actual resources, it means there are too many people on Earth. If USA were strictly equally divided, each person would have 32,000 square meters to produce wealth. While that seems enough to grow carrots for one person, it may not be enough to grow enough of them to exchange with televisions, meat, health care, education and store for retirement. The average human's footprint is higher than their share. In this case, it's not too much mechanization or automation, it's that both the rich's footprint and the poor's footprint are distortedly higher than the goods they've produced. Here you go: The money we have isn't worth what we believe, USA can only exist through the slavery of Chinese workers, and we shall see some sharp adjustment for the rich in the future. Unless they keep on distorting the economy in their favor.
- VLM 10y ago
  Your analysis is good but static. There is a bigger dynamic problem where your economic system relies on eternal compounded growth and anything less will result in utter collapse. The planet is a fixed size. Therefore the only question is when is the collapse, not if they'll be one. A side issue is recent history over the past couple centuries has revolved around replacing old forms of energy with new ones orders of magnitude cheaper. So far its worked out well. Because we haven't collapsed yet isn't a justification for it always working in the future. And now we're pretty well done with oil and coal with nothing to replace them, certainly not something orders of magnitude better to continue the trend of growth. Another interesting exponential is the economy seems to do better with exponential growth in native population. Those aren't growing because economic conditions are awful. That leads to even worse economic conditions, leading to even lower population birth rates...

wagecuck 10y ago

Why don't these coal miners just become data scientists?

jethro_tell 10y ago

What are you going to retrain as? A 50 year old programmer with no experience and 50,000 in school loans? I was a carpenter, I retrained at 28 and it was rough. I can't even imagine being older. Most of the guys I worked with out in the field didn't even own computers. They were just getting real phones. It's a brain rewiring not just picking up a couple new skills.

antisthenes 10y ago
I think most people underestimate the amount of time and effort involved in retraining. People are good with technology grew up with it their entire lives. There are exceptions, but if anything, they prove the rule.
- jethro_tell 10y ago
  I think people also underestimate the amount of lifestyle change that goes with that sort of thing. You're not going to go to school and retrain to be a programmer or some type of professional in a small town where there are 2 web devs and a little ISP two towns over. You're not going to move a family to a tech hub at that stage of your life so you can start over in an entry level job.

cryoshon 10y ago

i'd say it's not so much that they aren't retraining versus can't retrain due to constrained resources it's tough to retrain. now add kids, low savings, and a mortgage. then you re-start at the bottom of the salary ladder. now it's time to retire. my prediction: trump does nothing to address this problem whatsoever.

ThomPete 10y ago

Billons where spent in Denmark doing that. The results where void. The problem is that the kind of skills you need require much more than what retraining can do.

hibikir 10y ago

Spain had to deal with major cuts to their coal industry too: Loss of competitiveness closed mines that employed tens of thousands of people directly, and entire towns indirectly. Asturias, the region with the most mines went from being near the top of Spain's GDP to the bottom third, and has never recovered. What was done then, and it's still in progress in the few mines that are already open, was to provide amazing early retirement deals: Instead of laying off young workers, anyone over 50 gets to retire with full pay. While that minimized the pain to secondary industries, as the retirees still kept their income, The region ultimately produced less, and massive emigration followed. This doesn't make me wish for this solution on anyone. The best solutions, which I don't think are practical in US rural communities for cultural issues, is to incentivize replacement industries: For instance, St Louis hollowed out for decades, just like Detroit, but the city is doing better lately by fostering technology startups near its universities. This is revitalizing areas of the city that were slums for decades. It seems difficult for American rural areas to do this though, if just because of the big culture clash between the old school America and people that create companies imitating San Francisco culture.