Consequently, if we really want to bring more manufacturing, we badly need engineers. The choices are educate more engineers and/or hire more foreign engineers. Plain and simple, without more engineers it's pointless to build more production facilities.

But we need those coal mining jobs...

Current number of unemployed Americans = 7.9 million.

There you go again, making things up.

According to the President, there are 96 million people in America not working...

To be more accurate - there are 174,00 blue collar jobs, full time jobs related to the coal industry.

This link shows the tens of thousands of "coal related" jobs, not included in that number: https://www.bls.gov/...nt/naics4_212100.htm

In addition:

(CNSNews.com) - The United States has lost approximately 191,000 jobs in the mining industry since September 2014 including approximately 7,000 that were lost in April, according to data published today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The coal mining industry alone has lost approximately 10,900 jobs since April of last year.

http://www.cnsnews.com/...-jobs-september-2014


Plus, we have companies like Bucyrus that building mining equipment, that employs nearly 8,500 in Milwaukee alone. Then, we need to factor in the folks who make trucks and trains to transport the coal, process the fuel for transportation, etc., etc., etc.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

in any event, it warms my heart to see the compassionate liberal wing of the forum be able to write off these individual people and families as not statistically significant.

Technically, he's correct.

http://www.cnsnews.com/...18-obama-took-office

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

Okay, then triple the number. Now it goes from 4.9% to 5.2%, which assumes that coal goes away and isn't replaced, which we know not to be the case.


The point is, outside of being directly impacted, why care about *these* unemployed people anymore than other unemployed people?


My personal opinion, if we just want to keep people employed, wouldn't it make more sense to employ them doing something that we actually need rather than something that we need to get rid of?

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

The loss of coal jobs isn't even about the jobs....it's about the coal. We need coal for baseload electricity. We are closing the nuclear plants which is one of the other baseload options. Wind and sun just aren't going to cut it in the long run. Everybody wants their clean electric cars.....but that electricity still has to be produced by something on a large scale basis.

If one thread goes south, they are obligated to start a similar one to try and bolster their flawed position.

174,000 is what percent of 7.9 million? Hmm 2%, I did this in my head so I could be way off but let's take a look at this from what we have done to strip citizens of their rights based on much less than 1% even less than .001% but now 2% is a meaningless statistic. Interesting, veeeerrryyyyy interesting.

Fucking Trump, caring about blue collar jobs and keeping campaign promises,,,,,,, what kind of a politician is he?!?

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#WeAreTheForge #BlackGunsMatter

"Look, will you guys at leats accept that you are a bunch of dumb asses and just trust me on this one? Please?" BarryP 7/30/2012

From Tom/Vitus

"That might be the case, but I am all for whatever can be done to protect them for as long as possible"

Wait . . Republicans using protectionist governmental practices to keep jobs going. I thought the Republican party was the party of totally free and open capitalism? A Darwinian economic survival of the fittest model. If you can't keep up too-bad-so-sad! :) Half serious!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

So clearly this isn't about people losing jobs. Its specifically about COAL worker losing jobs (allegedly). So why shedding so many tears for coal miners but not for other industries?

It's about people in an entire industry losing jobs, and what they're going to be able to do instead. No, it's not necessarily about the total number of jobs dispersed throughout the entire nation. Yes, if we shut down the entire coal industry, we'd lose a couple of hundred thousand jobs. If we added 5% more teachers, no net loss in jobs. Awesome. Except for those people in coal mining country, who are all out of jobs, because it's not like they're all going to become teachers, disperse throughout the country, and find work in education. No, what you're going to have is a devastated economy in those areas, with all the attendant suffering.


I'm just curious why the same people who don't want to see minimum raise risen or don't care about teachers losing jobs care so much about an obsolete industry that's pouting the planet purely for the sake of saving THEIR jobs (assuming its not your job that's being cut).

You're conflating issues that aren't necessarily related, as well as attributing positions to people that they might not hold. I've argued in here before for a living wage. At the same time, I see the problems inherent with the idea, and I can see similar pros and cons with raising the minimum wage. And who says I or anyone else doesn't care about teachers losing their jobs? I've often complained about education cuts (though more accurately, budget priorities) that eliminate or reduce education in the art, music, physical education, shop classes, etc. I have no desire to put teachers out of work. I don't need to oppose employment for teachers to favor employment for coal miners.

That isn't to say I'm for just increasing the supply of teaching jobs artificially for it's own sake. Every industry has a need for a certain amount of employees in various capacities, and generally that level has reached its own equilibrium. And just because there are some teachers who can't find work teaching doesn't necessarily mean I think we should create a teaching spot to accommodate each and every one of them. But if we were facing a situation where massive amounts of teaching jobs were being eliminated because, say, they were being replaced by online training, I'd be real interested in preserving those jobs until I was sure the people who lose them have a viable alternative. It's not enough to just say, well, we don't need teachers anymore because we can instruct students online, so see ya later. If it's pretty clear that the majority of them won't be able to find comparable work, we should hold off on the whole internet teaching thing.

Right now the only viable alternative I've heard for people in that position is to take up some kind of trade, and it's not a bad idea. But the world can only employ so many plumbers, you know? You'll come back with "more education," I suppose, but I really don't put much faith in that as a broad solution. A lot of people can't afford to go, and even if we changed that problem, a lot of people just aren't suited for it. Not only that, there just aren't that many jobs that actually require college degrees. Even the ones that do are going to start declining anyway.

I say protect as many of these jobs as possible for as long as possible until someone comes up with some kind of solution. If it ultimately can't be maintained, that's the breaks, but geez, let's not just abandon these people when we have the ability to help. People act as if the fact that coal or manufacturing jobs won't be around 10 or 15 or 20 years from now means it doesn't really matter if we lose them right now. That's crazy.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Wait . . Republicans using protectionist governmental practices to keep jobs going. I thought the Republican party was the party of totally free and open capitalism?

First off, I'm not Republican.

Second, there's long been a protectionist wing of the Republican party. They haven't all always been radical free marketers.

"Protectionist" has been a common smear against some conservatives for years. I myself don't really see what's so objectionable about it.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

So stopping a war on coal by stopping or reducing regulations imposed by a previous administration whose stated purpose was to destroy the industry is now defined as a protectionist governmental practice.

See how I didn't reference Obama there. 😀

'Free and open capitalism' usually doesn't entail job-killing regulatory requirements :) This isn't protectionism, this is reduced regulatory burden.

Taking it a step further though, for a more realistic conversation, it's a bunch of blue collar jobs that disappeared in regions where there's nothing else available. Those regions need to tackle the issue head on and figure out how to bring jobs into the region. But part of electing Trump for these people is bringing jobs to the region, at least that's their belief. It's far more nuanced than that, but in the short term reducing the regulatory burden will likely prompt a bit of a spike in coal jobs for a while.

I share your opinion and, in a perfect world, yes, this would be ideal. But, as I mentioned in the other coal thread - this just isn't a reality for some people in some areas. There are entire segments of the population for whom manual labor really is the only option. Then we must account for their location and determine what manual labor is available to them.

I have a client in northern WI that is desperate to hire welders to work on ships. They even went so far as to fund new welding training centers in a local technical college and in several high schools. They are still forced to hire temp employees to fill the void. Meanwhile, there are tens of thousands of unemployed welders and potential welders in the south and parts of the rust belt. But, upward mobility is not an option for those folks.

So, you have the issue of location, lack of mobility, education, etc., etc.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

Give me a break.

You are being intellectually dishonest and you know it.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I have no desire to put teachers out of work. I don't need to oppose employment for teachers to favor employment for coal miners.



The fact that you have to spell this piece out should let everybody know what it's like arguing with BarryP.

To further JSA's point, the number of workers that would be impacted by this would include all the people that design and manufacture equipment used in mining, transporting, and cleaning. Then you could start to contemplate all the other people that make a living off of supplying the miners with basic necessities and you start eliminating income possibilities in entire swaths of the country. Not just one industry...

So stopping a war on coal by stopping or reducing regulations imposed by a previous administration whose stated purpose was to destroy the industry is now defined as a protectionist governmental practice.


Thank you

I was unaware of this nuanced, but very important detail.

Still - it's a business/industry that is in decline (thankfully) and there really is no big up-side or future in it. So isn't all of this a bit moot?

On a long road-trip last fall driving down to South Carolina for the Hincapie Gran Fondo we drove through a large part of West Virginia. My wife and I kept remarking as the absolutely beautiful scenery kept rolling by, what an amazing looking place it was. We kept wondering where we could pull over and go for a bike ride.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

More intellectual dishonesty.


Its not about it being a small number. Its about asking why THESE 174,000 jobs and not someone else's 174,000 jobs.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Its not about it being a small number. Its about asking why THESE 174,000 jobs and not someone else's 174,000 jobs.

Because THESE 174,000 jobs are heavily concentrated in a particular geographic area, for one thing.

More importantly, because these 174,000 jobs are held by people who have already seen job opportunities dry up, and because they don't have a realistic option to replace those jobs. It's not just about the 174,000 jobs lost now- it's also about all the similar jobs that have already been lost, and are not longer available for them to seek.

If we were looking at the death of teaching in the next 20 years, would you be concerned about all the teachers who were being put out of work? Why or why not?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Again, in the interests of truth and honesty, as I pointed out a couple times, we are talking about well more than 174,000 jobs. If you want to keep claiming intellectual dishonesty in others, then stop being intellectually dishonest yourself.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

All fair and reasonable points.

I personally don't think Make Coal Great Again is the way to go. A slow phase out plan with some sort of plan to help the local economies would make much more sense.


If these towns need coal to survive, then its only inevitable that they are going to fail. That doesn't mean that I suggest ripping the bandaid off, but preparing to phase it out now would certainly be better than ripping it off later.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Forget Coal!

Can Trump bring back the copper industry?

I want to get paid $150,000 a year to drive a huge truck around.
And live in some semi abandoned mining town in Montana, Arizona or Nevada- where I can buy a Victoorian Mansion for $50,000.

That would be a bit of a pay cut.
But the lower cost of living.
And the lower stress would make up for it.

A 60 year old man is on his way out, on the back side of the hill, so to speak. If someone has their foot on his throat, the person who removes said foot from old man's throat isn't putting him on life support but letting nature take it's course.

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#WeAreTheForge #BlackGunsMatter

"Look, will you guys at leats accept that you are a bunch of dumb asses and just trust me on this one? Please?" BarryP 7/30/2012

Absolutely. And a dick to boot. But

I am off today and this is how I am choosing to entertain myself and

I have tried to contribute where I can in addition to just being a dick

How's that for intellectual honesty