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Giving money is not the issue in rural America. It's not social welfare such as health insurance or anything of the sort. If anything I'd say there's a lot of d

by jbhatab 10y ago

Giving money is not the issue in rural America. It's not social welfare such as health insurance or anything of the sort. If anything I'd say there's a lot of disgust with how many rural Americans live off the system. It's lack of opportunity. What is your answer to that? Tesla isn't opening up a factory in New Hampshire anytime soon. There certainly isn't as many amazing colleges such as UC berkley there. Throwing money into unemployment and welfare won't solve the problem at all. Trump literally said I will fight to get you jobs back. Ignore if that is true. Ignore if he is an idiot. Ignore if that works in the long term. He was the only candidate that actually said a single idea that was directly aimed at helping them.

w1ntermute 10y ago
> It's lack of opportunity. What is your answer to that? Tesla isn't opening up a factory in New Hampshire anytime soon. In generations past, Americans picked up and moved to where the opportunity was, rather than staying put. Why is it unreasonable to expect the same now? The economy has permanently changed - those jobs are never coming back. On the other hand, moving is far, far easier in 2017 than it was for those on the Oregon Trail or the Mayflower.
- mc32 10y ago
  Presumably the cost of living in cities with growing economies disincentivizes poor people from moving.
  - tomrod 10y ago
    To cities, perhaps, but not to areas of opportunities (even fleeting). Consider South Dakota.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      What exactly is drawing people to South Dakota?
      - tomrod 10y ago
        Oy. It was too late at night for me when I wrote this. I meant North Dakota, referencing fracking jobs.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        tomrod 10y ago
        But by happy circumstance, it seems Sioux Falls is booming. So I wasn't completely wrong.
        protomyth 10y ago
        I figured that was the case, but Sioux Falls also does a lot of advertising in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis / St. Paul MN) to convince businesses to move. Sioux Falls is actually a pretty nice town. SD is a bit strange because the capital of the state is such a small town. SD also has no state income taxes for individuals or businesses.
      - knz 10y ago
        Sioux Falls is booming after a decade of investment by the financial and medical industries. Sanford Health is particularly noticeable - there are multiple hospitals and research centers there or under construction. I believe the banking is mostly credit card companies and cheque printing. It's got a surprising number of amenities for a small city and if you can stand the location and politics it's got relatively high wages and low cost of living.
- jbhatab 10y ago
  Yes so you want to have every move to the city where the opportunities are. Which may be fine, but imagine for a second someone telling you that 'you should just move from where you are because where you were born isn't good enough'. Not very considerate. Also, they would be thrown into an environment that is wildly different than there own with far less money than everyone else and lack of skillets and knowledge to thrive. They would be an extreme disadvatantage. Now I don't disagree that that may be a solution, but seriously take a step back. Ask yourself if you think you just said is empathatic towards people in rural America? Ask yourself if you had said that about other issues in America. 'Why can't black people just start learning how to code to catch up?' 'Why can't gays just get over not being able to be officially married?' Basically what you're saying is 'why cant people that aren't me adapt to how I operate?'
  - TuringNYC 10y ago
    > imagine for a second someone telling you that 'you should just move from where you are because where you were born isn't good enough' Now imagine telling a corporation that 'you must build your factory only in City X' -- why should they? They will build where they find space at good rents and an industrial ecosystem and workers. What if the factory owner lives in California. So he has to move his life across the country and build in New Hampshire because a rural worker in New Hampshire didn't want to move themselves? How does this make sense?
    - dukeluke 10y ago
      Capitalism is blind to political movements, wealth inequality, and full employment. All that matters is the bottom line. This is leading to globalism, automation, and use of illegal immigration which is gutting the lower and middle classes. Would it be best for the corporation? No, of course not. But there needs to be a balance between the lower and upper classes, and right now that balance is not there. A rising economy should benefit everyone. This lack of balance is why populist politicians were so popular this election.
      - TuringNYC 10y ago
- blusterXY 10y ago
  In a vibrant economy, jobs move to where there are workers. That is the reason so many factories were built out of the major cities in the first place. Trump is right to identify insufficient aggregate demand as the cause of unemployment in the midwest and underemployment pretty much everywhere. The culprit is much more China than Mexico. If the administration can significantly reduce the trade deficit it will have very positive effects on US employment and income.
  - prodmerc 10y ago
    Workers move where there are jobs. I haven't seen anything else, anywhere. Factories were built where it was cheap or where the founders decided, but to be fair, as close to people as possible.
  - azemetre 10y ago
    The culprit is neither China or Mexico, it's automation [1]. To say anything else is to deny reality. You can accomplish far more today with the advances in robotics and logistics than you could 30 or even 20 years ago. This is an example of a brewery working at full capacity with a total of 6 people per shift. If this brewery was operated 35 years ago it would be 600 people per shift. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tLim5pkfOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tLim5pkfOw So how exactly are you going to stop these owners of capital that are so rightfully praised in the United States? You have entire cities that will offer free electricity, massive tax incentives, and looser regulations for what? A couple hundred jobs? What about the tens of thousands of people that are out of work? Are we really going to subsidize hundreds of thousands of tax dollars for jobs that barely pay $15/hour? I don't know what the solution is but I do know it will require massive amounts of tax dollars and it won't be the poor paying it. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs-killer-is-not-china-its-automation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs...
    - dukeluke 10y ago
      The problem now is automation, but that's because all of the jobs that couldn't be automated have already been shipped overseas. I argue that automation, globalization, and arguably illegal immigration are the three largest factors gutting the lower and middle classes in America. Also, you don't have to give better jobs to everyone, just a big chunk. There are ~10 million illegal immigrants in the US, which has a population of ~300 million. Right or wrong, shipping them out or giving some sort of work visa(to require at least minimum wage pay) would raise demand for lower class jobs to the point where lower and middle class wages may finally start rising again. Edited to recognize the open debate on illegal immigration. I don't understand how illegal immigration could lead to a better job outlook for the lower class. If anyone has some info on that, I'd appreciate it.
- BrailleHunting 10y ago
  Ask any dairy farmer in the US: it's mostly Latinos whom do the dirty work that in-country people scoff at. If you want something done in the US, it's usually immigrants whom do the hard work. If people are willing to schlep they have the opportunity to feel purpose and a sense of accomplishment, but if they're going to sit idle and/or get wasted, that's the surest path to rusty irrelevancy. Folks need to bootstrap themselves and find/invent useful contribution to society that can turn a profit, rather than expecting someone to show up and hand it to them.
  - pmorici 10y ago
    At what wage? Pretty sure if shoveling cow shit paid an executives salary you would have no problem finding people willing to do it w/o turning to under the table labor.
    - tomrod 10y ago
      Mike Rowe is often an interesting one to follow for this kind of information, regardless of one's political leanings. http://mikerowe.com/2016/02/stopignoringskillsgap/ http://mikerowe.com/2016/02/stopignoringskillsgap/
      - pmorici 10y ago
        Yeah, I like Rowe's stuff on the skills gap but I don't think what he is talking about in that article, skilled trades, and what the op is discussing, unskilled farm hand and factory labor, is the same labor market.
- VLM 10y ago
  The last people to the pyramid game are the suckers, so there's little motivation to commit financial suicide so a boomer can cash in and retire in wealth by selling to you. Also the overall standard of living is lower in cities than in rural areas for non-1% job categories. You'll make maybe 10% more money while paying 20% more and living in higher crime and worse conditions as a welder, for example. Its not even clear for "computer people" that the overall standard of living is better in a city. We all know there's only one politically correct thing to say about urbanism, but there's a difference between being required to say under social duress vs actually is.
  - dashundchen 10y ago
    >¤We all know there's only one politically correct thing to say about urbanism, but there's a difference between being required to say under social duress vs actually is. I'm not sure what this means, can you expand on this?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- malandrew 10y ago
  The difference is decades of economic policy that encouraged people to dump their life savings into owning their own home. When you've invested heavily in something, you tend to suffer from sunk costs fallacy. Add to that the fact, that those that own the homes and the land are typically the leaders in their community and you have those invested in a place encouraging others to stay there as it dies. Those that own the home can move out, but if enough do so, then the only prospect for the laggards is abandoning the home and losing it all. I agree that people should move, but circumstances are different today. I'd love to see more sociology and economic research in how towns die and recover. Tons of money studies urban poverty and decay, and I suspect rural poverty and decay doesn't get nearly the same attention because it's out of sight and out of mind for those funding the research.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  Why is it unreasonable to expect the same now? The economy has permanently changed - those jobs are never coming back. On the other hand, moving is far, far easier in 2017 than it was for those on the Oregon Trail or the Mayflower. Transportation is easier - but lets face it, it takes money to move now just like it took money to move back then. This is the entire reason we can't expect folks to just be able to move. There aren't jobs coming back, so they have no income. If they are lucky, they make minimum wage. And to make more money, they have to save up first month's rent, deposit, utility deposits, plus the actual moving expenses. All this for a city likely to be more expensive than their rural location. It isn't much wonder why folks aren't moving more often. Sure, one could find work in the nearest town, but that takes commute money. If one has a friend they can live with, that helps, but many don't.
loeg 10y ago
> Giving money is not the issue in rural America. Ok, but, if you take away the wealth redistribution, rural Americans' taxes go up and they have even less income. It's even harder to pay for school or move to the city for work. Or just to put food on the table. > It's lack of opportunity. What is your answer to that? Move where the jobs are? It sucks to move away from home, but it's not like every city-dweller is born in the city where they work. Plenty of people move to other cities for work. NH is within spitting distance of plenty of great schools. > Trump literally said I will fight to get you jobs back. ... He was the only candidate that actually said a single idea that was directly aimed at helping them If you think Trump was the only candidate promising to create jobs, you're simply weren't listening to the debates or other campaign messaging: http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary_Clinton_Jobs.htm http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary_Clinton_Jobs.htm
- jbhatab 10y ago
  I listened to the debates many times. Trump brought up jobs for rural America over and over because he knew how badly it effected many Americans. Hillary brought up jobs much less. I should just do a tally on how many times Trump mentioned jobs vs Hilary in the election race. I'm confident it would lean towards Trump. PS. I am 100% not a Trump supporter. See how this devolves into assuming I'm a Trump supporter? I'm just stating things based on what they said. I never even attacked Hilary and her claims.
  - swang 10y ago
    i'm guessing you mean hillary didn't bring up jobs in rural america vs jobs in general? because hillary literally had outlined how we as a country would move ahead and sustain our jobs/economy (basically: more education, investment in technology, encouraging startups). all trump has talked about is how jobs are fleeing america. he even criticized ford for moving jobs from michigan when in fact they weren't. so please, if you're going to say trump brought up jobs, at least address the fact that he didn't offer any solutions then, nor has he offered any now. that Carrier "job save" of 1000 was due to the state of indiana offering them incentives to keep the jobs here. that's not a very sustainable idea (also, although i'm not necessarily opposed to states giving companies incentives like this at tax-payer expense, that move seems very anti-free market all things considered).
CrippledTurtle 10y ago
Er, Hillary had a $30 billion plan directly aimed at helping coal communities [0]. I happen to not support much of that plan but the claim "He was the only candidate that actually said a single idea that was directly aimed at helping them" is demonstrably false. [0]http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-idUSKCN0T120520151112 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-idUSK... edit - Include link
nostrademons 10y ago
Curious what you think of relocation financing. One common theme I hear in interviews with rural Americans is that there are no opportunities where they are, but they can't move to the city because the cost of living is such that they could never afford security deposit + 1st month's rent. OTOH, I know a few founders who have tried to start relocation financing companies, and it just doesn't seem to work. Too much risk on the loans, and not enough demand from the people who would be helped most by them.
- jbhatab 10y ago
  I think that's interesting. I'd be curious what the economics behind it would be to make it work, but I think that could be a step in the right direction. Realistically, it may come up with the issues you just mentioned of it just not being economical.
- tomrod 10y ago
  Are people moving to San Francisco or Manhatten only? Is $2k or $3k crazy? Are there groups of people who could room together? Do they have no friends they could temporarily room with while they get on their feet? I came from this life. This is a copout for people afraid to leave their comfort zone. When I moved to Austin, I had plenty of people warn me I would get mugged every time I set foot on the street. Similar outrageous claims have been made regarding every place I've ended up. Nuts to that. We can't let fear rule our lives.
  - IslaDeEncanta 10y ago
    >Is $2k or $3k crazy? For most people here, $500 is crazy. People in rural America tend to be poor.
    - tomrod 10y ago
      I know people in rural America can have limited means. That's my stomping grounds--I lived it. People can stock away $50/month, $30/month, you name it. Low amounts. It adds up quick. And even then, you can get 4 or 5 people in an area who want to move to the city to go, and go. Or a person can join the military to get out, in most cases. Maybe because its late at night, but I feel like I'm coming across unsympathetic. I'm not--I know it's hard to leave. It's not as easy as up and leaving one day. What concerns me is the idea of an apparent lack of desire to put into action the wistfulness of wanting to leave by grandparent comment and other comments in this thread. Rural America is caught in a spiral of increasing costs that it can't dig itself out of. Most everyone knows that. Is it kinder to continue giving sustenance living to people wanting to stay or to open the valve for transferring to cities through housing projects?
tomrod 10y ago
Rural America exists today due to the explosion of Rail in the late 1800s to 1930s. the Interstate Highway System, and DOD strategically building highways between bases that avoided large population centers. That infrastructure allowed many small towns to spring up manufacturing, factories, processing, etc. as practically speculation on what areas would become denser over time. As the infrastructure has crumbled, as cheaper substitutes came along from overseas or in other areas, and as temporarily wealthier areas sent their best and brightest to denser areas for better educational opportunities, the resources available to these areas have dwindled. Unless we find some way for rural areas to be reinvigorated though government-funded infrastructure building and private arbitrage as we have in times past, we're going to have to let nature run its course. This kind of outcome has happened time and again in the past, to cultures now long since dead. Rural America doesn't like that, and of course neither does MSA America, since it means the underdog doesn't win. So give a figure. How much does cost of living as a percentage of income need to be before we as a society can stage an intervention to say "No, we can no longer support your way of life. It's become too expensive. You need to figure out how to be productive or your seat at the table is no longer open."?
- dukeluke 10y ago
  Would you say the same to a homeless person? Why should we just let the interior of our country become economically baren just so the top 20 percent of people in cities can reap the rewards of globalism? That's millions of people that you're saying should either suck it up or die.
  - tomrod 10y ago
    I'm not saying die, I'm saying move forward. Rural America is a happy unintended outcome of previous laws, policies, and such that has become prohibitively expensive with a low ROI. Questioning whether help should be given in the form of subsistence handouts or expensive infrastructure shifts isn't taboo--it's at the heart of demand from Rural America. "Bring Jobs Back!" How? Government has two methods: coerce jobs to be opened there (fascism or socialism, which most Rural Americans claim to be against) or to design policy to encourage growth (no guarantee jobs will come back, especially the old jobs people are trained for). We must ask ourselves the question whether we want collectivism or similar types of job-making programs, shown to be fairly fragile depending on who is in charge, or whether we want to move forward with the techno-liberal/libertarian march that has been ongoing since the Industrial Revolution. If saving Rural America is a zero-sum outcome with the long-run survival of the species through colonizing the solar system and beyond, which do we invest in as a society? As a last point, isn't leaving Rural America to it's own devices to figure things out what Rural America has been voting for since Nixon, anyhow?
dragonwriter 10y ago
> It's lack of opportunity. What is your answer to that? There is none. The entire history of civilization is a shift of economic activity from outside of cities to cities, and, in terms of long term trends, is unlikely that ever changes in the foreseeable future. "Rural America" can't, really, have it's fortunes reversed any more than obsolete industries in urban America can; all that can be done in either case is to help people transition out of them. That's perhaps not the answer people want to hear, but anyone saying anything else is lying to exploit their pain and probably facilitating their destruction.
- jbhatab 10y ago
  I respect the honesty here. Basically we are moving towards cities and we need to move faster. Maybe that is the answer and we start a migration plan? Not sure. But I'd at least like to see some people in the cities say 'we honestly don't care about rural people and they need to adapt'. That would sit better with me.
  - TuringNYC 10y ago
    I dont know many people in cities who would say they dont care about rural populations. Most city-folks (i hate the false dichotomy here, but lets continue with it) I know care very much, but realize there are no quick fixes. The longer-term fixes are to improve education and increase mobility by de-linking health-care from employers. I hung out with plenty of 1%er conservatives (rural Connecticut hedge fund) and plenty of progressives (in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.) I rarely saw any empathy amongst wealthy, elite sub-urbanite hedge fund crowds. As for quick-fixes, the only quick fix I've seen so far is one that will come at a huge cost -- deregulating environmental controls. I agree this will seriously increase rural job opportunities, but it will come at a long-term cost as those factories dump chemicals into local areas. Now that the EPA is being gutted, I can see that happening.
    - dukeluke 10y ago
      >The longer-term fixes are to improve education... Being highly educated does not matter if you can't get a job. Also, a balanced economy shouldn't require everyone to be highly educated.
analog31 10y ago
Getting jobs back is a form of redistribution, because it is ultimately funded by subsidies, higher consumer prices, or both. With that said, I favor redistribution, but am flexible about what form it takes.
TuringNYC 10y ago
>> Tesla isn't opening up a factory in New Hampshire anytime soon. There certainly isn't as many amazing colleges such as UC berkley there. That is because of economies of scale. It is not possible to get a U.C. Berkeley in every one of the 17,000 towns the US has. Not even big cities will be getting U.C. Berkeley. Aside from NYC and Boston and Pittsburgh, there isn't any other city that has a comparable Top-5 engineering school. Same for Tesla factories, you cant have a factory in every one of the 17,000 towns. I'm not sure how Trump is helping these towns, but the Dems did offer solutions, more fundamental solutions. Like better access to education so new graduates could qualify for better jobs. These problems have been created over a generation and wont be solved with a simple travel ban or what not, they will be solved with education and empowerment. Secondly, Dems have tried hard to get a better health-care system. Being an entrepreneur I understand how critical this is -- without healthcare I would not take risks, not with a family. I'd stick to my job to just get health benefits. Having a portable health plan is also critical to allowing people mobility, hopefully upward mobility.
- jbhatab 10y ago
  What part of this has to do with the problem I brought up? Rural white America which is a large portion of America has a lack of opportunities. I'm not talking health care. And I 100% know that it is not reasonable to bring those schools to rural America. But where is the dialog around helping them? At least a conversation around fixing the heroin problem and finding them jobs. If you have that conversation that was brought up during the election in big debates during the election, please link it. there are countless examples of Trump at least putting together a plan, even if its stupid, to help them.
  - TuringNYC 10y ago
    Access to medical care, therapy, especially for the poor have always been a top-3 Democrat platform item. Here is one plan HRC had: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/29/clinton-proposes-plan-to-address-mental-health-treatment.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/29/clinton-proposes-plan-to-addr... w/r/t the Heroin problem, for a generation, Republicans have pushed an agenda of criminalizing drug addiction, labeling it a moral issue and throwing victims into prison. That worked to their agenda when it was a big urban problem affecting swaths of minorities. As a bonus, it also ups private for-profit prison populations, another Republican agenda. Now that it is a rural scourge amongst white Americans, Republicans are having a difficult time reconciling their previous lack of empathy, so they are mostly silent. I'm a "city-dweller" and while I'm registered Republican I generally vote Democratic. My taxes go up as a 1%-er, but i'm 100% to have my taxes go up to support my fellow Americans.
maxerickson 10y ago
I wonder if people are as disgusted with all the indirect subsidies as they are with the direct ones.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Rural is, by definition, constrained to a few economic activities such as farming and logistics. You mentioned a Tesla factory, but if you look at the "Gigafactory" you will see it is in a rather rural place. But it is reasonably close to materials and logistics. As far back as the 1800's towns have "died" when the rail road went a different way. That isn't a new phenomena. But looking at what works historically and what doesn't, the 'new' thing now is the Internet which makes a lot of things possible that weren't before. If you can get 40 gbits of capacity pulled into a 'rural town' then you can build an office building where everyone can connect pretty seemlessly to an office anywhere else. You can build customer support there, you can build logistics tracking systems, you can build R&D facilities. If you do this a there will be a complaint that you are 'ruining' the town. A complaint I hear often is people want to work in tech but they want a place where they can buy a house and raise a family. That could be the lure of rural America if the state would fund fiber infrastructure to the town.
- ianai 10y ago
  Yep, it could also be a great way to lower the cost of living in already over populated cities. People living in smaller localities and close to work would also diminish commute times - lowering carbon emissions. I wonder how costly a fiber "plant" is? What's stopping the US from a "roll out the fiber" New Deal-style project?
  - jpindar 10y ago
    For one thing, cable TV companies (who are the only practical ISP in many areas) don't want competition and have no reason to do it themselves.
    - ianai 10y ago
      They're not going to exist in every locality. My relatives are still on satellite and dial up.
    - gwright 10y ago
      It is worse than that. Of course they don't want competition but the the monopoly services areas are an artifact of legislative deal making. So the current situation is codified in law and would need to be changed. Monopoly service areas for universal service offering was the deal.
mannykannot 10y ago
>Throwing money into unemployment and welfare won't solve the problem at all. [my emphasis.] That's not what loeg wrote. There are other ways of spending money, such as infrastructure projects - when I visited Oregon, I noticed how much of the infrastructure was from New Deal projects, which, of course, is the epitome of everything that fiscal conservatives are fighting against. If you are opposed things like that, and you don't have an alternative solution to offer, get off your high horse about other peoples' lack of empathy.
_acme 10y ago
Dartmouth is in New Hampshire, and neighboring VT has Middlebury, ME has Bowdoin, Bates and Colby and MA has Williams, all in rural environments.

by jbhatab 10y ago

w1ntermute 10y ago

> It's lack of opportunity. What is your answer to that? Tesla isn't opening up a factory in New Hampshire anytime soon. In generations past, Americans picked up and moved to where the opportunity was, rather than staying put. Why is it unreasonable to expect the same now? The economy has permanently changed - those jobs are never coming back. On the other hand, moving is far, far easier in 2017 than it was for those on the Oregon Trail or the Mayflower.

mc32 10y ago
Presumably the cost of living in cities with growing economies disincentivizes poor people from moving.
- tomrod 10y ago
  To cities, perhaps, but not to areas of opportunities (even fleeting). Consider South Dakota.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    What exactly is drawing people to South Dakota?
    - tomrod 10y ago
      Oy. It was too late at night for me when I wrote this. I meant North Dakota, referencing fracking jobs.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - tomrod 10y ago
        But by happy circumstance, it seems Sioux Falls is booming. So I wasn't completely wrong.
        protomyth 10y ago
        I figured that was the case, but Sioux Falls also does a lot of advertising in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis / St. Paul MN) to convince businesses to move. Sioux Falls is actually a pretty nice town. SD is a bit strange because the capital of the state is such a small town. SD also has no state income taxes for individuals or businesses.
    - knz 10y ago
      Sioux Falls is booming after a decade of investment by the financial and medical industries. Sanford Health is particularly noticeable - there are multiple hospitals and research centers there or under construction. I believe the banking is mostly credit card companies and cheque printing. It's got a surprising number of amenities for a small city and if you can stand the location and politics it's got relatively high wages and low cost of living.
jbhatab 10y ago
Yes so you want to have every move to the city where the opportunities are. Which may be fine, but imagine for a second someone telling you that 'you should just move from where you are because where you were born isn't good enough'. Not very considerate. Also, they would be thrown into an environment that is wildly different than there own with far less money than everyone else and lack of skillets and knowledge to thrive. They would be an extreme disadvatantage. Now I don't disagree that that may be a solution, but seriously take a step back. Ask yourself if you think you just said is empathatic towards people in rural America? Ask yourself if you had said that about other issues in America. 'Why can't black people just start learning how to code to catch up?' 'Why can't gays just get over not being able to be officially married?' Basically what you're saying is 'why cant people that aren't me adapt to how I operate?'
- TuringNYC 10y ago
  > imagine for a second someone telling you that 'you should just move from where you are because where you were born isn't good enough' Now imagine telling a corporation that 'you must build your factory only in City X' -- why should they? They will build where they find space at good rents and an industrial ecosystem and workers. What if the factory owner lives in California. So he has to move his life across the country and build in New Hampshire because a rural worker in New Hampshire didn't want to move themselves? How does this make sense?
  - dukeluke 10y ago
    Capitalism is blind to political movements, wealth inequality, and full employment. All that matters is the bottom line. This is leading to globalism, automation, and use of illegal immigration which is gutting the lower and middle classes. Would it be best for the corporation? No, of course not. But there needs to be a balance between the lower and upper classes, and right now that balance is not there. A rising economy should benefit everyone. This lack of balance is why populist politicians were so popular this election.
    - TuringNYC 10y ago
blusterXY 10y ago
In a vibrant economy, jobs move to where there are workers. That is the reason so many factories were built out of the major cities in the first place. Trump is right to identify insufficient aggregate demand as the cause of unemployment in the midwest and underemployment pretty much everywhere. The culprit is much more China than Mexico. If the administration can significantly reduce the trade deficit it will have very positive effects on US employment and income.
- prodmerc 10y ago
  Workers move where there are jobs. I haven't seen anything else, anywhere. Factories were built where it was cheap or where the founders decided, but to be fair, as close to people as possible.
- azemetre 10y ago
  The culprit is neither China or Mexico, it's automation [1]. To say anything else is to deny reality. You can accomplish far more today with the advances in robotics and logistics than you could 30 or even 20 years ago. This is an example of a brewery working at full capacity with a total of 6 people per shift. If this brewery was operated 35 years ago it would be 600 people per shift. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tLim5pkfOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tLim5pkfOw So how exactly are you going to stop these owners of capital that are so rightfully praised in the United States? You have entire cities that will offer free electricity, massive tax incentives, and looser regulations for what? A couple hundred jobs? What about the tens of thousands of people that are out of work? Are we really going to subsidize hundreds of thousands of tax dollars for jobs that barely pay $15/hour? I don't know what the solution is but I do know it will require massive amounts of tax dollars and it won't be the poor paying it. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs-killer-is-not-china-its-automation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs...
  - dukeluke 10y ago
    The problem now is automation, but that's because all of the jobs that couldn't be automated have already been shipped overseas. I argue that automation, globalization, and arguably illegal immigration are the three largest factors gutting the lower and middle classes in America. Also, you don't have to give better jobs to everyone, just a big chunk. There are ~10 million illegal immigrants in the US, which has a population of ~300 million. Right or wrong, shipping them out or giving some sort of work visa(to require at least minimum wage pay) would raise demand for lower class jobs to the point where lower and middle class wages may finally start rising again. Edited to recognize the open debate on illegal immigration. I don't understand how illegal immigration could lead to a better job outlook for the lower class. If anyone has some info on that, I'd appreciate it.
BrailleHunting 10y ago
Ask any dairy farmer in the US: it's mostly Latinos whom do the dirty work that in-country people scoff at. If you want something done in the US, it's usually immigrants whom do the hard work. If people are willing to schlep they have the opportunity to feel purpose and a sense of accomplishment, but if they're going to sit idle and/or get wasted, that's the surest path to rusty irrelevancy. Folks need to bootstrap themselves and find/invent useful contribution to society that can turn a profit, rather than expecting someone to show up and hand it to them.
- pmorici 10y ago
  At what wage? Pretty sure if shoveling cow shit paid an executives salary you would have no problem finding people willing to do it w/o turning to under the table labor.
  - tomrod 10y ago
    Mike Rowe is often an interesting one to follow for this kind of information, regardless of one's political leanings. http://mikerowe.com/2016/02/stopignoringskillsgap/ http://mikerowe.com/2016/02/stopignoringskillsgap/
    - pmorici 10y ago
      Yeah, I like Rowe's stuff on the skills gap but I don't think what he is talking about in that article, skilled trades, and what the op is discussing, unskilled farm hand and factory labor, is the same labor market.
VLM 10y ago
The last people to the pyramid game are the suckers, so there's little motivation to commit financial suicide so a boomer can cash in and retire in wealth by selling to you. Also the overall standard of living is lower in cities than in rural areas for non-1% job categories. You'll make maybe 10% more money while paying 20% more and living in higher crime and worse conditions as a welder, for example. Its not even clear for "computer people" that the overall standard of living is better in a city. We all know there's only one politically correct thing to say about urbanism, but there's a difference between being required to say under social duress vs actually is.
- dashundchen 10y ago
  >¤We all know there's only one politically correct thing to say about urbanism, but there's a difference between being required to say under social duress vs actually is. I'm not sure what this means, can you expand on this?
deleted 10y ago
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malandrew 10y ago
The difference is decades of economic policy that encouraged people to dump their life savings into owning their own home. When you've invested heavily in something, you tend to suffer from sunk costs fallacy. Add to that the fact, that those that own the homes and the land are typically the leaders in their community and you have those invested in a place encouraging others to stay there as it dies. Those that own the home can move out, but if enough do so, then the only prospect for the laggards is abandoning the home and losing it all. I agree that people should move, but circumstances are different today. I'd love to see more sociology and economic research in how towns die and recover. Tons of money studies urban poverty and decay, and I suspect rural poverty and decay doesn't get nearly the same attention because it's out of sight and out of mind for those funding the research.
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
Why is it unreasonable to expect the same now? The economy has permanently changed - those jobs are never coming back. On the other hand, moving is far, far easier in 2017 than it was for those on the Oregon Trail or the Mayflower. Transportation is easier - but lets face it, it takes money to move now just like it took money to move back then. This is the entire reason we can't expect folks to just be able to move. There aren't jobs coming back, so they have no income. If they are lucky, they make minimum wage. And to make more money, they have to save up first month's rent, deposit, utility deposits, plus the actual moving expenses. All this for a city likely to be more expensive than their rural location. It isn't much wonder why folks aren't moving more often. Sure, one could find work in the nearest town, but that takes commute money. If one has a friend they can live with, that helps, but many don't.

loeg 10y ago

> Giving money is not the issue in rural America. Ok, but, if you take away the wealth redistribution, rural Americans' taxes go up and they have even less income. It's even harder to pay for school or move to the city for work. Or just to put food on the table. > It's lack of opportunity. What is your answer to that? Move where the jobs are? It sucks to move away from home, but it's not like every city-dweller is born in the city where they work. Plenty of people move to other cities for work. NH is within spitting distance of plenty of great schools. > Trump literally said I will fight to get you jobs back. ... He was the only candidate that actually said a single idea that was directly aimed at helping them If you think Trump was the only candidate promising to create jobs, you're simply weren't listening to the debates or other campaign messaging: http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary_Clinton_Jobs.htm http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary_Clinton_Jobs.htm

jbhatab 10y ago
I listened to the debates many times. Trump brought up jobs for rural America over and over because he knew how badly it effected many Americans. Hillary brought up jobs much less. I should just do a tally on how many times Trump mentioned jobs vs Hilary in the election race. I'm confident it would lean towards Trump. PS. I am 100% not a Trump supporter. See how this devolves into assuming I'm a Trump supporter? I'm just stating things based on what they said. I never even attacked Hilary and her claims.
- swang 10y ago
  i'm guessing you mean hillary didn't bring up jobs in rural america vs jobs in general? because hillary literally had outlined how we as a country would move ahead and sustain our jobs/economy (basically: more education, investment in technology, encouraging startups). all trump has talked about is how jobs are fleeing america. he even criticized ford for moving jobs from michigan when in fact they weren't. so please, if you're going to say trump brought up jobs, at least address the fact that he didn't offer any solutions then, nor has he offered any now. that Carrier "job save" of 1000 was due to the state of indiana offering them incentives to keep the jobs here. that's not a very sustainable idea (also, although i'm not necessarily opposed to states giving companies incentives like this at tax-payer expense, that move seems very anti-free market all things considered).

CrippledTurtle 10y ago

Er, Hillary had a $30 billion plan directly aimed at helping coal communities [0]. I happen to not support much of that plan but the claim "He was the only candidate that actually said a single idea that was directly aimed at helping them" is demonstrably false. [0]http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-idUSKCN0T120520151112 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-clinton-idUSK... edit - Include link

nostrademons 10y ago

Curious what you think of relocation financing. One common theme I hear in interviews with rural Americans is that there are no opportunities where they are, but they can't move to the city because the cost of living is such that they could never afford security deposit + 1st month's rent. OTOH, I know a few founders who have tried to start relocation financing companies, and it just doesn't seem to work. Too much risk on the loans, and not enough demand from the people who would be helped most by them.

jbhatab 10y ago
I think that's interesting. I'd be curious what the economics behind it would be to make it work, but I think that could be a step in the right direction. Realistically, it may come up with the issues you just mentioned of it just not being economical.
tomrod 10y ago
Are people moving to San Francisco or Manhatten only? Is $2k or $3k crazy? Are there groups of people who could room together? Do they have no friends they could temporarily room with while they get on their feet? I came from this life. This is a copout for people afraid to leave their comfort zone. When I moved to Austin, I had plenty of people warn me I would get mugged every time I set foot on the street. Similar outrageous claims have been made regarding every place I've ended up. Nuts to that. We can't let fear rule our lives.
- IslaDeEncanta 10y ago
  >Is $2k or $3k crazy? For most people here, $500 is crazy. People in rural America tend to be poor.
  - tomrod 10y ago
    I know people in rural America can have limited means. That's my stomping grounds--I lived it. People can stock away $50/month, $30/month, you name it. Low amounts. It adds up quick. And even then, you can get 4 or 5 people in an area who want to move to the city to go, and go. Or a person can join the military to get out, in most cases. Maybe because its late at night, but I feel like I'm coming across unsympathetic. I'm not--I know it's hard to leave. It's not as easy as up and leaving one day. What concerns me is the idea of an apparent lack of desire to put into action the wistfulness of wanting to leave by grandparent comment and other comments in this thread. Rural America is caught in a spiral of increasing costs that it can't dig itself out of. Most everyone knows that. Is it kinder to continue giving sustenance living to people wanting to stay or to open the valve for transferring to cities through housing projects?

tomrod 10y ago

Rural America exists today due to the explosion of Rail in the late 1800s to 1930s. the Interstate Highway System, and DOD strategically building highways between bases that avoided large population centers. That infrastructure allowed many small towns to spring up manufacturing, factories, processing, etc. as practically speculation on what areas would become denser over time. As the infrastructure has crumbled, as cheaper substitutes came along from overseas or in other areas, and as temporarily wealthier areas sent their best and brightest to denser areas for better educational opportunities, the resources available to these areas have dwindled. Unless we find some way for rural areas to be reinvigorated though government-funded infrastructure building and private arbitrage as we have in times past, we're going to have to let nature run its course. This kind of outcome has happened time and again in the past, to cultures now long since dead. Rural America doesn't like that, and of course neither does MSA America, since it means the underdog doesn't win. So give a figure. How much does cost of living as a percentage of income need to be before we as a society can stage an intervention to say "No, we can no longer support your way of life. It's become too expensive. You need to figure out how to be productive or your seat at the table is no longer open."?

dukeluke 10y ago
Would you say the same to a homeless person? Why should we just let the interior of our country become economically baren just so the top 20 percent of people in cities can reap the rewards of globalism? That's millions of people that you're saying should either suck it up or die.
- tomrod 10y ago
  I'm not saying die, I'm saying move forward. Rural America is a happy unintended outcome of previous laws, policies, and such that has become prohibitively expensive with a low ROI. Questioning whether help should be given in the form of subsistence handouts or expensive infrastructure shifts isn't taboo--it's at the heart of demand from Rural America. "Bring Jobs Back!" How? Government has two methods: coerce jobs to be opened there (fascism or socialism, which most Rural Americans claim to be against) or to design policy to encourage growth (no guarantee jobs will come back, especially the old jobs people are trained for). We must ask ourselves the question whether we want collectivism or similar types of job-making programs, shown to be fairly fragile depending on who is in charge, or whether we want to move forward with the techno-liberal/libertarian march that has been ongoing since the Industrial Revolution. If saving Rural America is a zero-sum outcome with the long-run survival of the species through colonizing the solar system and beyond, which do we invest in as a society? As a last point, isn't leaving Rural America to it's own devices to figure things out what Rural America has been voting for since Nixon, anyhow?

dragonwriter 10y ago

> It's lack of opportunity. What is your answer to that? There is none. The entire history of civilization is a shift of economic activity from outside of cities to cities, and, in terms of long term trends, is unlikely that ever changes in the foreseeable future. "Rural America" can't, really, have it's fortunes reversed any more than obsolete industries in urban America can; all that can be done in either case is to help people transition out of them. That's perhaps not the answer people want to hear, but anyone saying anything else is lying to exploit their pain and probably facilitating their destruction.

jbhatab 10y ago
I respect the honesty here. Basically we are moving towards cities and we need to move faster. Maybe that is the answer and we start a migration plan? Not sure. But I'd at least like to see some people in the cities say 'we honestly don't care about rural people and they need to adapt'. That would sit better with me.
- TuringNYC 10y ago
  I dont know many people in cities who would say they dont care about rural populations. Most city-folks (i hate the false dichotomy here, but lets continue with it) I know care very much, but realize there are no quick fixes. The longer-term fixes are to improve education and increase mobility by de-linking health-care from employers. I hung out with plenty of 1%er conservatives (rural Connecticut hedge fund) and plenty of progressives (in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.) I rarely saw any empathy amongst wealthy, elite sub-urbanite hedge fund crowds. As for quick-fixes, the only quick fix I've seen so far is one that will come at a huge cost -- deregulating environmental controls. I agree this will seriously increase rural job opportunities, but it will come at a long-term cost as those factories dump chemicals into local areas. Now that the EPA is being gutted, I can see that happening.
  - dukeluke 10y ago
    >The longer-term fixes are to improve education... Being highly educated does not matter if you can't get a job. Also, a balanced economy shouldn't require everyone to be highly educated.

analog31 10y ago

Getting jobs back is a form of redistribution, because it is ultimately funded by subsidies, higher consumer prices, or both. With that said, I favor redistribution, but am flexible about what form it takes.

TuringNYC 10y ago

>> Tesla isn't opening up a factory in New Hampshire anytime soon. There certainly isn't as many amazing colleges such as UC berkley there. That is because of economies of scale. It is not possible to get a U.C. Berkeley in every one of the 17,000 towns the US has. Not even big cities will be getting U.C. Berkeley. Aside from NYC and Boston and Pittsburgh, there isn't any other city that has a comparable Top-5 engineering school. Same for Tesla factories, you cant have a factory in every one of the 17,000 towns. I'm not sure how Trump is helping these towns, but the Dems did offer solutions, more fundamental solutions. Like better access to education so new graduates could qualify for better jobs. These problems have been created over a generation and wont be solved with a simple travel ban or what not, they will be solved with education and empowerment. Secondly, Dems have tried hard to get a better health-care system. Being an entrepreneur I understand how critical this is -- without healthcare I would not take risks, not with a family. I'd stick to my job to just get health benefits. Having a portable health plan is also critical to allowing people mobility, hopefully upward mobility.

jbhatab 10y ago
What part of this has to do with the problem I brought up? Rural white America which is a large portion of America has a lack of opportunities. I'm not talking health care. And I 100% know that it is not reasonable to bring those schools to rural America. But where is the dialog around helping them? At least a conversation around fixing the heroin problem and finding them jobs. If you have that conversation that was brought up during the election in big debates during the election, please link it. there are countless examples of Trump at least putting together a plan, even if its stupid, to help them.
- TuringNYC 10y ago
  Access to medical care, therapy, especially for the poor have always been a top-3 Democrat platform item. Here is one plan HRC had: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/29/clinton-proposes-plan-to-address-mental-health-treatment.html http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/29/clinton-proposes-plan-to-addr... w/r/t the Heroin problem, for a generation, Republicans have pushed an agenda of criminalizing drug addiction, labeling it a moral issue and throwing victims into prison. That worked to their agenda when it was a big urban problem affecting swaths of minorities. As a bonus, it also ups private for-profit prison populations, another Republican agenda. Now that it is a rural scourge amongst white Americans, Republicans are having a difficult time reconciling their previous lack of empathy, so they are mostly silent. I'm a "city-dweller" and while I'm registered Republican I generally vote Democratic. My taxes go up as a 1%-er, but i'm 100% to have my taxes go up to support my fellow Americans.

maxerickson 10y ago

I wonder if people are as disgusted with all the indirect subsidies as they are with the direct ones.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Rural is, by definition, constrained to a few economic activities such as farming and logistics. You mentioned a Tesla factory, but if you look at the "Gigafactory" you will see it is in a rather rural place. But it is reasonably close to materials and logistics. As far back as the 1800's towns have "died" when the rail road went a different way. That isn't a new phenomena. But looking at what works historically and what doesn't, the 'new' thing now is the Internet which makes a lot of things possible that weren't before. If you can get 40 gbits of capacity pulled into a 'rural town' then you can build an office building where everyone can connect pretty seemlessly to an office anywhere else. You can build customer support there, you can build logistics tracking systems, you can build R&D facilities. If you do this a there will be a complaint that you are 'ruining' the town. A complaint I hear often is people want to work in tech but they want a place where they can buy a house and raise a family. That could be the lure of rural America if the state would fund fiber infrastructure to the town.

ianai 10y ago
Yep, it could also be a great way to lower the cost of living in already over populated cities. People living in smaller localities and close to work would also diminish commute times - lowering carbon emissions. I wonder how costly a fiber "plant" is? What's stopping the US from a "roll out the fiber" New Deal-style project?
- jpindar 10y ago
  For one thing, cable TV companies (who are the only practical ISP in many areas) don't want competition and have no reason to do it themselves.
  - ianai 10y ago
    They're not going to exist in every locality. My relatives are still on satellite and dial up.
  - gwright 10y ago
    It is worse than that. Of course they don't want competition but the the monopoly services areas are an artifact of legislative deal making. So the current situation is codified in law and would need to be changed. Monopoly service areas for universal service offering was the deal.

mannykannot 10y ago

>Throwing money into unemployment and welfare won't solve the problem at all. [my emphasis.] That's not what loeg wrote. There are other ways of spending money, such as infrastructure projects - when I visited Oregon, I noticed how much of the infrastructure was from New Deal projects, which, of course, is the epitome of everything that fiscal conservatives are fighting against. If you are opposed things like that, and you don't have an alternative solution to offer, get off your high horse about other peoples' lack of empathy.

_acme 10y ago

Dartmouth is in New Hampshire, and neighboring VT has Middlebury, ME has Bowdoin, Bates and Colby and MA has Williams, all in rural environments.