Rural America is the new "inner city"

DiogenesTheWiser said:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/05/26/rural-america-is-new-inner-city-2.html

I used the fox business site because the Wall Street Journal requires a subscription to read their shit. Fox business news reprinted the article, linked above.

I currently live in rural America and have since 2010 once my prison outreach organization got off the ground and I began coordinating field work. Since I work at prisons with prisoners, this has taken me to several rural communities from West Virginia to Georgia, and now, finally, in Louisiana. I'll be in Texas by this time next year if our deals with state government pan out.

Louisiana's rural communities in the northern part of the state are hopelessly backward. Few jobs exist here, and most of the people here, white and black, are impoverished and they work. Yes, they work, upward of 50 to 60 hours or more a week at usually two part-time jobs that both pay $8/hour if they're lucky.

The major industries here are gaming, poultry processing, paper mill work, agricultural labor. Gaming pays well, but the casinos aren't hiring and they've staffed their skilled positions with mostly trained workers from other gambling communities like Atlantic City, North Mississippi, or St. Joe, MO.

The poultry processing is the worst of the worst--very low pay. Usually at $7.50/hour for the first year, and the first raise is $.25. No benefits.

People here tend to be hopeless. If folks are smart, they get an education and get out and only return to visit family on holidays. Walking my dog every day, I see spent condoms on the streets alongside broken crack pipes and the little containers that hold crystal meth (and a lot of cigarette butts). I also see lotto cards and receipts. The typical convenience store trip here takes a moment or two because the person in front of you is buying lotto tickets because they're hoping, and praying, that they can get some money to get out of this hell.

Louisiana's rural communities along I-20 are filled with hopeless people. Thanks GOP state and local governments for this.

Click to expand...

dagwood45431 said:

So disappointing (poverty/borderline poverty in general). It's 2017? I'm not quite naive enough to expect utopia, but aren't we supposed to be doing a lot better than this at this juncture in our history? What's holding us back? Conservatism is Enemy #1, IMHO.

Click to expand...

DiogenesTheWiser said:

I used the fox business site because the Wall Street Journal requires a subscription to read their shit. Fox business news reprinted the article, linked above.

I currently live in rural America and have since 2010 once my prison outreach organization got off the ground and I began coordinating field work. Since I work at prisons with prisoners, this has taken me to several rural communities from West Virginia to Georgia, and now, finally, in Louisiana. I'll be in Texas by this time next year if our deals with state government pan out.

Louisiana's rural communities in the northern part of the state are hopelessly backward. Few jobs exist here, and most of the people here, white and black, are impoverished and they work. Yes, they work, upward of 50 to 60 hours or more a week at usually two part-time jobs that both pay $8/hour if they're lucky.

The major industries here are gaming, poultry processing, paper mill work, agricultural labor. Gaming pays well, but the casinos aren't hiring and they've staffed their skilled positions with mostly trained workers from other gambling communities like Atlantic City, North Mississippi, or St. Joe, MO.

The poultry processing is the worst of the worst--very low pay. Usually at $7.50/hour for the first year, and the first raise is $.25. No benefits.

People here tend to be hopeless. If folks are smart, they get an education and get out and only return to visit family on holidays. Walking my dog every day, I see spent condoms on the streets alongside broken crack pipes and the little containers that hold crystal meth (and a lot of cigarette butts). I also see lotto cards and receipts. The typical convenience store trip here takes a moment or two because the person in front of you is buying lotto tickets because they're hoping, and praying, that they can get some money to get out of this hell.

Louisiana's rural communities along I-20 are filled with hopeless people. Thanks GOP state and local governments for this.

Click to expand...

ttystikk said:

The FIRE industries; finance, insurance and real estate have captured our government and use it to enslave the rest of us;
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/06/michael-hudson-students-class.html

Click to expand...

bundee1 said:

Sounds like my hood in 1991. Invest in Education and maybe some homesick folks will come back and invest in the South.

Click to expand...

Fogdog said:

http://www3.unisi.it/cipas/ref/OECD_2006_Rural_Paradigm.pdf

The above OECD report from 2006 points out systematic issues that we are still not dealing with ten years later. Rural poverty became a widespread condition in the US in the 1920's. Economic depression in the rural areas hollowed out the US economy, where cities and urban areas were prosperous yet rural areas were depressed. This became a full blown crisis when the urban areas were shocked by world wide economic downturn. Sound familiar?

In 1930, with rural areas already depressed, there was nothing to absorb the shock of world markets collapsing and the entire country went into an economic downturn made worse by conservative government mistakes. Issues behind today's rural american economic depression mirrors those of yesterday in that a large reason for 1920 rural economic strife was due to automation and machines replacing people on farms with concurrent farm production price stagnation or deflation. As before, today's rural economic stress is due to automation, globalism, and inadequate education systems. Crop prices are low, rural labor competes with people living elsewhere on a dollar a day without benefits and any manufacturing or resource extraction jobs that remain are being replaced by machines. If we keep doing the same, the same result in 1930 will be our fate.

The old answer -- move for a better life -- is not the answer any more either. US manufacturing is a tiny part of the economy and service sector entry level wages are hardly better than what's available in rural areas. The idea of a population concentrated in urban areas with only a sparsely populated interior seems a poor choice especially when wages in the rest of the country are declining and stagnating. Also, moving only exacerbates the decline of rural regions:

View attachment 3952807

Of course, nothing good is going to come out of the retarded Trump administration. For example MAGA isn't changing the lives of coal workers because the industries of today are moving away from coal power altogether. I think we are doomed to decline until this country gains a better appreciation for education and activist government intervention to break the cycle.

Rural decline isn't inevitable. There are plenty of examples worldwide where this isn't the case. But the US is not one of them.

Click to expand...

dagwood45431 said:

So disappointing (poverty/borderline poverty in general). It's 2017? I'm not quite naive enough to expect utopia, but aren't we supposed to be doing a lot better than this at this juncture in our history? What's holding us back? Conservatism is Enemy #1, IMHO.

Click to expand...

bundee1 said:

Sounds like my hood in 1991. Invest in Education and maybe some homesick folks will come back and invest in the South.

Click to expand...

DiogenesTheWiser said:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/05/26/rural-america-is-new-inner-city-2.html

I used the fox business site because the Wall Street Journal requires a subscription to read their shit. Fox business news reprinted the article, linked above.

I currently live in rural America and have since 2010 once my prison outreach organization got off the ground and I began coordinating field work. Since I work at prisons with prisoners, this has taken me to several rural communities from West Virginia to Georgia, and now, finally, in Louisiana. I'll be in Texas by this time next year if our deals with state government pan out.

Louisiana's rural communities in the northern part of the state are hopelessly backward. Few jobs exist here, and most of the people here, white and black, are impoverished and they work. Yes, they work, upward of 50 to 60 hours or more a week at usually two part-time jobs that both pay $8/hour if they're lucky.

The major industries here are gaming, poultry processing, paper mill work, agricultural labor. Gaming pays well, but the casinos aren't hiring and they've staffed their skilled positions with mostly trained workers from other gambling communities like Atlantic City, North Mississippi, or St. Joe, MO.

The poultry processing is the worst of the worst--very low pay. Usually at $7.50/hour for the first year, and the first raise is $.25. No benefits.

People here tend to be hopeless. If folks are smart, they get an education and get out and only return to visit family on holidays. Walking my dog every day, I see spent condoms on the streets alongside broken crack pipes and the little containers that hold crystal meth (and a lot of cigarette butts). I also see lotto cards and receipts. The typical convenience store trip here takes a moment or two because the person in front of you is buying lotto tickets because they're hoping, and praying, that they can get some money to get out of this hell.

Louisiana's rural communities along I-20 are filled with hopeless people. Thanks GOP state and local governments for this.

Click to expand...

DiogenesTheWiser said:

In Louisiana, just like in neighboring Arkansas and Mississippi, the political will leans toward defunding education altogether and moving toward a private, parochial, homeschool, and charter system. Ever since May 17, 1954, southern political leaders (conservative democrats back in the day; conservative Republicans today) have looked for ways of ending public education in those states. So I don't see education investment happening here anytime soon. In fact, fewer taxpayer dollars go to support any education in the past five legislative sessions, and even fewer funds are on deck for the next fiscal year.

Click to expand...

dandyrandy said:

I'd move if I lived there.

Click to expand...

DiogenesTheWiser said:

I will be soon. What I do is I set up prison outreach services to be staffed by the local community. After training is done here in wonderful Louisiana, I get to go live in Huntsville, TX for two years.

Funny thing is that most of America's prisons are in very rural areas, so I'm doomed to live in those communities for the time being.

Click to expand...

DiogenesTheWiser said:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/05/26/rural-america-is-new-inner-city-2.html

I used the fox business site because the Wall Street Journal requires a subscription to read their shit. Fox business news reprinted the article, linked above.

I currently live in rural America and have since 2010 once my prison outreach organization got off the ground and I began coordinating field work. Since I work at prisons with prisoners, this has taken me to several rural communities from West Virginia to Georgia, and now, finally, in Louisiana. I'll be in Texas by this time next year if our deals with state government pan out.

Louisiana's rural communities in the northern part of the state are hopelessly backward. Few jobs exist here, and most of the people here, white and black, are impoverished and they work. Yes, they work, upward of 50 to 60 hours or more a week at usually two part-time jobs that both pay $8/hour if they're lucky.

The major industries here are gaming, poultry processing, paper mill work, agricultural labor. Gaming pays well, but the casinos aren't hiring and they've staffed their skilled positions with mostly trained workers from other gambling communities like Atlantic City, North Mississippi, or St. Joe, MO.

The poultry processing is the worst of the worst--very low pay. Usually at $7.50/hour for the first year, and the first raise is $.25. No benefits.

People here tend to be hopeless. If folks are smart, they get an education and get out and only return to visit family on holidays. Walking my dog every day, I see spent condoms on the streets alongside broken crack pipes and the little containers that hold crystal meth (and a lot of cigarette butts). I also see lotto cards and receipts. The typical convenience store trip here takes a moment or two because the person in front of you is buying lotto tickets because they're hoping, and praying, that they can get some money to get out of this hell.

Louisiana's rural communities along I-20 are filled with hopeless people. Thanks GOP state and local governments for this.

Click to expand...

Rob Roy said:

So you make a living on the incarceration of people imprisoned for victimless crimes?

Click to expand...

Fogdog said:

http://www3.unisi.it/cipas/ref/OECD_2006_Rural_Paradigm.pdf

The above OECD report from 2006 points out systematic issues that we are still not dealing with ten years later. Rural poverty became a widespread condition in the US in the 1920's. Economic depression in the rural areas hollowed out the US economy, where cities and urban areas were prosperous yet rural areas were depressed. This became a full blown crisis when the urban areas were shocked by world wide economic downturn. Sound familiar?

In 1930, with rural areas already depressed, there was nothing to absorb the shock of world markets collapsing and the entire country went into an economic downturn made worse by conservative government mistakes. Issues behind today's rural american economic depression mirrors those of yesterday in that a large reason for 1920 rural economic strife was due to automation and machines replacing people on farms with concurrent farm production price stagnation or deflation. As before, today's rural economic stress is due to automation, globalism, and inadequate education systems. Crop prices are low, rural labor competes with people living elsewhere on a dollar a day without benefits and any manufacturing or resource extraction jobs that remain are being replaced by machines. If we keep doing the same, the same result in 1930 will be our fate.

The old answer -- move for a better life -- is not the answer any more either. US manufacturing is a tiny part of the economy and service sector entry level wages are hardly better than what's available in rural areas. The idea of a population concentrated in urban areas with only a sparsely populated interior seems a poor choice especially when wages in the rest of the country are declining and stagnating. Also, moving only exacerbates the decline of rural regions:

View attachment 3952807

Of course, nothing good is going to come out of the retarded Trump administration. For example MAGA isn't changing the lives of coal workers because the industries of today are moving away from coal power altogether. I think we are doomed to decline until this country gains a better appreciation for education and activist government intervention to break the cycle.

Rural decline isn't inevitable. There are plenty of examples worldwide where this isn't the case. But the US is not one of them.

Click to expand...

DiogenesTheWiser said:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/05/26/rural-america-is-new-inner-city-2.html

I used the fox business site because the Wall Street Journal requires a subscription to read their shit. Fox business news reprinted the article, linked above.

I currently live in rural America and have since 2010 once my prison outreach organization got off the ground and I began coordinating field work. Since I work at prisons with prisoners, this has taken me to several rural communities from West Virginia to Georgia, and now, finally, in Louisiana. I'll be in Texas by this time next year if our deals with state government pan out.

Louisiana's rural communities in the northern part of the state are hopelessly backward. Few jobs exist here, and most of the people here, white and black, are impoverished and they work. Yes, they work, upward of 50 to 60 hours or more a week at usually two part-time jobs that both pay $8/hour if they're lucky.

The major industries here are gaming, poultry processing, paper mill work, agricultural labor. Gaming pays well, but the casinos aren't hiring and they've staffed their skilled positions with mostly trained workers from other gambling communities like Atlantic City, North Mississippi, or St. Joe, MO.

The poultry processing is the worst of the worst--very low pay. Usually at $7.50/hour for the first year, and the first raise is $.25. No benefits.

People here tend to be hopeless. If folks are smart, they get an education and get out and only return to visit family on holidays. Walking my dog every day, I see spent condoms on the streets alongside broken crack pipes and the little containers that hold crystal meth (and a lot of cigarette butts). I also see lotto cards and receipts. The typical convenience store trip here takes a moment or two because the person in front of you is buying lotto tickets because they're hoping, and praying, that they can get some money to get out of this hell.

Louisiana's rural communities along I-20 are filled with hopeless people. Thanks GOP state and local governments for this.

Click to expand...

ZaraBeth420 said:

It seems to me that finding used condoms beside crack pipes, tobacco pipes, or foundry pipes should be celebrated instead of ridiculed. At least the poor, stupid, drug-addicted bastards are trying NOT to procreate. Which would be a win for us all.

Other than that, I support them and wish them luck in never procreating.

Click to expand...

dagwood45431 said:

Good lord, you're stupid. He is providing services to these people and had NOTHING to do with writing or enforcing the laws. Just die. You're a drain.

Click to expand...

Rob Roy said:

If public schools are so good why do you think they use threats to get people to pay for them ?

Click to expand...