My County is 3rd Poorest in America

Originally posted by Misoir
reply to post by randomname

 

Just reading your post almost made me want to cry, it really did.

My grandparents came over here from Central Europe and fell in love with this country, but at the time they had no choice because they were refugees. Anyway they travelled across from Connecticut to Indiana and north into Ontario and Manitoba in Canada. This was during the 1950s when the economy of the area was BOOMING. New homes were being constructed everywhere, factories working overtime, and the cities were experiencing lavish wealth and the world’s highest standard of living bar-none.

Then Nixon signed us off to our death. He ended the US Dollar with gold and normalized relations with PRC. Since the oil crisis and the beginning trade with China in the 1970s the Great Lakes region began to experience economic decline, factories were slowing production and firing workers. By the 1980s it took the turn for the worst, the free-trade deals were being signed and factories were closing every month from Minnesota to New Jersey.

The urban centers in the region; St. Louis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo began to experience “white flight”. All of the wealthier more affluent households left the large cities for the suburbs. Detroit’s population collapsed as all of the wealthier individuals left those cities due to rising crime and poverty from the unemployment and closed businesses.

Under Clinton the kiss of death finally met America; NAFTA and WTO were signed and ever since we have all but lost the region now known as the ‘Rust Belt’. Every urban center in the Great Lakes began losing population to the suburbs as wealthier people fled the crime, depression, and unemployment of the cities. This can be seen in almost every large Great Lakes and to a lesser extent, Northeastern city. Some have fought back hard such as New York, Boston, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh, others have just given up because well there is no hope.

For many in the once wealthiest place in the world, Great Lakes region of US, there is no more hope besides organized crime. The only way to make money is through drugs, sex, robbery, murder, theft, or welfare, because that is all they have left. It’s easy to say “get a job” but there are millions of people who live in a place where there literally are no jobs or ones that pay so little you could never afford to survive.

Simple fact is that we cannot compete with third world slave labor but we are told that we must and it is better for us to do so. How can we compete with a country that performs unfair trade policies and allows their people to be paid less $0.50 an hour? We can’t and those in Washington don’t care, they really just don’t. They leave the White House, the Congress, and they go to their luxurious hotel rooms and meet with their wealthy business friends while dining at a five star restaurant. It doesn’t matter to them because they will never have to live it.

People on the Mexican border are told not to defend their property and the states told not to enforce the laws our federal government refuses to. We have drug gangs roaming our borders, smuggling illegals into our country, kidnapping and abducting people in our country, attacking farmers, and we’re told there’s no problem. A bomb was just put in the street of a city on the Mexico border in southern Texas, probably by drug gangs.

Phoenix, Arizona has the highest abduction rate in the country. Enormous amounts of illegal workers have flooded the economy of the Southwest lowering wages, taking jobs, causing tension, violence, and crime. Ciudad Juarez across the Rio Grande from El Paso, TX has the highest murder rate in the world. Drugs, crime, violence, gangs, and poverty spreading across the Southwest, yet no one has anything to say about it unless you want to be called a bigot, xenophobe, or nativist.

Parts of the Deep South and Appalachian region sit in absolute squalor with unemployment in some areas exceeding 30% even with the official statistics. Entire counties in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania classified as “Depressed”.

Yeah what happened to the wealth? It is socially and geographically concentrated. That’s not because the people have done something wrong, they are just reaching for justice and hope, albeit in the wrong places.

When businesses left the Great Lakes government stepped in to fill the void which required more taxes and regulations to set up a house of cards, that house has collapsed. Business won’t return and even if they considered returning people want them punished for what the international elite have done to them along with Washington.

If you would have come to America 45 years ago you would have thought Buffalo was a vibrant metropolis with a high income and growth, come here now and you will see vacant buildings, broken glass, abandoned homes, and gangs. That is what they have done to us. That is what we have let them do to us.

edit on 4/29/2011 by Misoir because: (no reason given)

That was profound... and nicely put...
you know your craft my friend!
I give you a star

Originally posted by Misoir
reply to post by randomname

 

Simple fact is that we cannot compete with third world slave labor but we are told that we must and it is better for us to do so. How can we compete with a country that performs unfair trade policies and allows their people to be paid less $0.50 an hour? We can’t and those in Washington don’t care, they really just don’t. They leave the White House, the Congress, and they go to their luxurious hotel rooms and meet with their wealthy business friends while dining at a five star restaurant. It doesn’t matter to them because they will never have to live it.

People on the Mexican border are told not to defend their property and the states told not to enforce the laws our federal government refuses to. We have drug gangs roaming our borders, smuggling illegals into our country, kidnapping and abducting people in our country, attacking farmers, and we’re told there’s no problem. A bomb was just put in the street of a city on the Mexico border in southern Texas, probably by drug gangs.

That about sums up what is happening to the country. In the end, it's apparent more so now that they benefit more from allowing this to happen then not(ex. see bank connections to Mexican drug operations). You will only be told continually that everything is fine.

I know how you're feelin'. I'm from Perry County myself, born in Hazard, raised in Happy. All my relatives are still there. When I talk to them, they tell me how bad it's got all over Eastern Ky. Hope things get better for you fast.

Typical "oh those folks collect money, they're scum" response.

Are you sure they aren't just people who can't find work in such a poor part of Kentucky?

reply to post by mayabong


Its nice to meet you as well. I also live in Kentucky, just the northern part. I tend to voice my opinion a little louder than normal when people hop on the bandwagon of the toothless, uneducated, backwards inbred farmer stereotype that most ad lib. Not saying that is what you said by any means, but still. Most Kentuckians, like in any other state, are common folk with one goal in mind. To make the best lives we can for our families and ourselves. With the current state of the economy it is harder for all of us to do this. I guess i should apologize in a sense. Sin sells and maybe the state could work it's way up the financial food chain by popularizing bluegrass porn as you so eloquently stated. HaHa.

I spent some time in Kentucky. I was amazed at how some of the people seemed to be stuck in 1865. It was like modern society never visited the hills they lived in. I think the economy of that state would be stronger if these forgotten people modernized. Education would be the key.

Originally posted by DAVID64
I know how you're feelin'. I'm from Perry County myself, born in Hazard, raised in Happy. All my relatives are still there. When I talk to them, they tell me how bad it's got all over Eastern Ky. Hope things get better for you fast.

I was actually born in Hazard myself, at the "old" hospital
and I do most of my shopping in Hazard... as the shopping choices here in Breahitt suck...
but i'm finding myself seeing Hazard as lacking...
Starting to do more and more business in Morehead or Winchester

Originally posted by The Sword
Typical "oh those folks collect money, they're scum" response.

Are you sure they aren't just people who can't find work in such a poor part of Kentucky?

What? Was that directed at me?

Trust me there is scum here...
I live here... I know
People who wouldnt work even if they had a Million dollars a year job...
Its not that they are lazy... its the fact they have enough drugs and pills in their system
to kill three elephants and a stubborn mule...

Wanna know why there is so many drug users here...
Its an escape from reality...
thats how bad this place sucks...

I myself don't do drugs...
but i enjoy a nice beer once in a while...

Originally posted by earthdude
I spent some time in Kentucky. I was amazed at how some of the people seemed to be stuck in 1865. It was like modern society never visited the hills they lived in. I think the economy of that state would be stronger if these forgotten people modernized. Education would be the key.

Education... well we have a great education program...
We even have modernization where I am from...

My family get togethers are starting to become Iphone conventions...
with everyone lost in their apps...


the problem here is not education...
the problem here is no jobs..
we can do about any kind of work
we just need a chance

Originally posted by mayabong
reply to post by EvolEric

 

How you make money? porn? Bluegrass Porn?

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAA OLOLOLOLOLLOOLLOL

Sorry that is awesome

Originally posted by Misoir
I just checked the US Census data to see how my county stacks up and was actually shocked to see the results. My county’s median income is $67,000 a year with only 8% poverty rate. I always thought it was actually pretty bad around here, I guess it can be a hell of a lot worse. Especially considering our cost of living is 9% lower than the national average.

My friend I feel for your situation, I do hope it improves. It must be asked, has the region always been this impoverished? Is it only since the 80s like the Rust Belt that the economy in the Appalachian region has collapsed? I know your part of the country used to have vast coal resources so you would assume that would equate with wealth generation.

if 1 person makes 5 million and a 100 people make 10 thousand a year...that is 101 people that make 6 million a year....that works out to approx. 59 thousand average per year, per person....statistics are a bitch.