General non-MG related discussions. No politics here please!!
<http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-1772-Job-Search-15-Worst-States-to-Find-Work/?sc_extcmp=JS_1772_home1&SiteId=cbmsnhp41772&ArticleID=1772>1=23000&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=03f78424d5e0406f8bab990fd8ffee92-287994723-x3-6>
Well, don't anyone think it gets better in rural america.
If the one last lumber mill here in our part of E. OR goes quiet, so will this area. We already have double digit unemployment and it will likely only deepen. This area will turn overnight into one huge retirement community as younger folks leave to survive. It may well revert back to largely grazing land for cattle ranches for as long as demand for beef remains.
The lack of infrastructure (inadequate electricity, no natural gas, no rail lines, and only two relatively major two lane highways dotted with mountain passes that are often impassable in winter, make for a very tough sell for much of anything else to move in here. And frankly, I can think of a good many other rural areas all over this country in no better position to weather this economic storm than we are. For many, it will be the price to be paid for isolation, a lack of infrastructure, and clinging to the past as tho it were always the future.
Consider yourself fortunate Bob. Areas such as yours may be the only self sustainable ones should this mess were in go over the cliff.
bobmunch Wrote:
LaVerne,
They could be, but that would take a paradigm shift in what folks here see as the "rightful" use of the land and what their self-interests might be. If you mean, they could grow crops to provide food, cut timber to build homes and fuel woodstoves, and possibly diversify how they use the resources at hand, it would be a tough sell in a culture that has been dominated by timber and cattle raising for over 100 yrs and which has not sought diversification of its income producing base during all that time. There is lots of land, but most of it is tied up by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Mgmt., and private range land. There are really few people who have a chunk of land at their disposal for self reliance as was practiced in traditional farming areas in the 1930s. There are more folks in this county who work for some branch of government (Dept.of the Interior, USDA, state, county, towns) than have worked in any of these existing "industries". As a reference, there are 7500 people who live here.
Natural beauty and the access to recreation are indeed a bonus, but they are what I call "virtual compensation". They pay no bills, buy no groceries, pay no mortgages. But when you are in a recession their real value is far more spiritual and restorative, and that is worth something.
Do you currently have access to high quality broadband?
This may help rural areas in the same way as Rural Electrification did 60 years ago:
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Stimulus Stirs Debate Over Rural Broadband Access
by Howard Berkes
Morning Edition, February 16, 2009 · Former FCC economist Michael Katz didn't hesitate to bash rural life last week when he addressed an American Enterprise Institute panel discussion on the broadband elements of President Obama's economic stimulus bill.
"Other people don't like to say bad things about rural areas," Katz began. "So I will."
The stimulus package includes $7.2 billion to expand broadband Internet access into "underserved" and rural areas. Katz listed ways that the $7.2 billion could be put to better use, including an effort to combat infant deaths. But he also spoke of rural places as environmentally hostile, energy inefficient and even weak in innovation, simply because rural people are spread out across the landscape.
"The notion that we should be helping people who live in rural areas avoid the costs that they impose on society … is misguided," Katz went on, "from an efficiency point of view and an equity one."
Just the week before, a New York Times story on the rural broadband funding in the economic stimulus package used the phrase "cyber bridge to nowhere." That stung the rural issues advocates at the Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg, Ky.
"When they talk about 'cyber bridges to nowhere,' what they're really doing is betraying arrogance," complains Dee Davis, the center's director. "When people think of rural as 'nowhere,' [they're] saying the people who live in those places aren't worth working with, they're not worth helping."
That is not how to address an economic crisis that affects everyone, Davis adds. "What we need to do is something that'll lift the economy in all places, not just favor one area over the other."
Broadband As Economic Stimulus
Rural advocates say high-speed access is a necessity in a global economy, and a critical part of economic revival and survival for rural places. Obama agreed during his campaign for president. His rural platform included this plank:
"Barack Obama will ensure that our rural Americans have access to modern communications infrastructure. He will … [promote] affordable broadband coverage across rural America as well."
Davis notes that remote health care and education increasingly depend on good Internet access. And an increasing number of rural jobs are dependent on broadband.
One example of the connection between broadband and jobs is in Ten Sleep, Wyo., a town of 350 at the base of the Big Horn Mountains. Ten Sleep is home to vast ranches and a global cyberbusiness that expects to employ as many as 700 full- and part-time teachers from across northwest Wyoming by the end of the year. That would bring the company's payroll to close to $3 million a year.
The cyberbusiness started three years ago, when Kent Holiday was visiting in-laws in Ten Sleep. Holiday had been a top executive at Korea Telecom in South Korea. So when he noticed spools of orange cable along freshly dug ditches in Ten Sleep, he knew the tiny Wyoming town was getting the kind of blazing fast fiber-optic service still elusive in most big city neighborhoods. Holiday called Chris Davidson, the general manager of Tri County Telephone, the local telephone, broadband and television provider.
"We discussed his idea for this business of teaching English via live video connection to South Korean students," Davidson recalls. "And it ended up that he headquartered his company right there in Ten Sleep."
Holiday's Eleutian Technology uses fiber-optic bandwidth to link its teacher-employees with 15,000 students in Korea.
There are plenty of other anecdotal examples of broadband bringing jobs and commerce to rural towns. But there aren't definitive studies or data, says Shane Greenstein, an economist at Northwestern University who specializes in telecommunications.
"We don't know, for example, whether the wage rates go up or down just because broadband's available," Greenstein says. "We don't know if the exit of businesses from rural areas increases or decreases when you have broadband. We don't know whether you get growth. So, though we see examples, we don't know whether those stories generalize."
Broadband Penetration
The reach of broadband nationwide is also unknown. There is no comprehensive tracking of broadband service, including which neighborhoods, towns and cities have it and which don't. No federal agency or private group keeps track.
But surveys conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicate 57 percent of the people interviewed nationwide do have broadband connections at home. But only 41 percent of the rural respondents connect at high speeds.
Another survey indicates that broadband generally tends to go to two kinds of rural places: counties with large farms, and mountain and beachside enclaves that attract owners of second homes and tourists.
The 2007 Census of Agriculture asked farmers and ranchers about Internet access. The resulting data was analyzed county-by-county by geographer Tim Murphy and writer Bill Bishop for the Daily Yonder, a rural news Web site sponsored by the Center for Rural Strategies.
"Broadband gets to places where there is either an economic need or an economic demand from people who have the money to buy it, or businesses that absolutely have to have it," Bishop concludes.
The farmers and ranchers in broadband counties use their Internet access to monitor commodity prices, weather conditions, markets and agricultural news. Some even run irrigation systems with Internet-based systems. The towns with recreational and scenic amenities — such as Aspen, Colo.; Jackson Hole, Wyo.; and Moab, Utah — attract urban and suburban transplants who expect broadband, and entrepreneurs who want to base their businesses in desirable locales. These are places with the demand and resources. They don't need a $7.2 billion stimulus package to get broadband.
What about the rural communities that are left? Bishop says, "Those places get served when society decides that it's right to extend the service that most of us get without question."
The Costs Of Expanding Into Rural Areas
Those places need help, Greenstein adds. "We've had a build-out in virtually all the areas of the country that were cheap to build out. And so we're now looking at all the expensive households to reach. It's going to be a lot of money. That's taxpayers' money, and you've got to start asking, 'Should taxpayers pay that?' "
Greenstein also wonders about economically distressed communities that lost the mine or sawmill or manufacturing plant that provided most local jobs.
"If you go into a town that's already deteriorating because the local economy's deteriorating," Greenstein asserts, "broadband's not going to save that situation."
Rural advocates recall the decisions the nation made decades ago to use federal funds to extend electricity and phone service to all Americans, including those in the most remote and least-populated places. They view broadband as a similar kind of right to infrastructure.
"If you're not connected," Davis says, "you're sitting out the dance."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100739283
I'm talking about a sustainable and defendable area Bob. Isolated area is a big plus. If things go totally to hell and your area bands together then your clan may survive.
LaVerne Wrote:
LaVerne Wrote:
This is the only recession since the 1929 crash that we tried to buy our way out by increasing the size of Government and infrastructure with no economic benefit. If it is truly a recession we should have done nothing and let the chips fall where they may instead of choosing winners and losers.
Ryan, Rome might be a good case study for what we have been dong to ourselves and are about to double down on. Lets see if we can defy history and not fall.
....it's Boys Life magazine.........youngsters of the 1950's twisted in their youth.......
6863m Wrote:
Sounds like someone has been reading too many survivalist manifestos?
This is the 8th recession this Country has weathered since the collapse of 1929. What makes you think you need to be hold up in a cabin in the back country with your carbine at the ready to survive this down turn?
Never read any Steve and don't plan on doing so. I'm just making a personal observation that the fabric of this country is on the verge of coming apart in a multitude of ways. If that should happen then I think the civil unrest will be most violent.
The fabric of this country is fine, we are the richest most resourceful people on the face of the earth.
The fabric of this country is fine, we are the richest most resourceful people on the face of the earth.
Perhaps from your perspective Steve. I wiped the rose coloring from my glasses years ago.
Anyone who wants to work and earn money can. That's the nature of our great country. There's plenty of work to be done and we all have the ability to learn new skills if need be. It doesn't have to be a rosy, cheerful job of your dreams - but it can be productive and pay the bills. Drop welfare and you'll see more people realizing that ANY job is a good job.
LaVerne Wrote:
If you think that a defensible area, etc are necessary, La Verne, then I know a couple of states you should be considering for relocation ~ Idaho and Alaska. Not only do they have the requisite isolation, but also the requisite cultures.
I was just looking at the economy of this area I call home and the existing cultural hurdles that may well shape what would be done if things get worse. I am not saying that a paradigm shift in how folks see or use this area and its resources is impossible, but I am saying that like most places that people inhabit, inertia and history are often the biggest impediments to turning on a dime.
Good one Steve , I was hoping I'd get some cracks about that.
Bob, I have no desire to live in the world of paranoia with the skin heads or any other faction for that matter. If things "flip" and I think were getting mighty close, then the cities could become a war zone. Everyone's afraid to use the "D word but were just one hicup away from it. Think it will be like the 30's. Not me. Pictures from the Katrina super dome show otherwise. Just spread that picture across the good old richest and and most resourceful country on earth and let me know how that pans out. Suppose the next domino to fall is a major food chain (Safeways in trouble for those of us in the west) Do they get a bailout? What happens when the people panic while waiting to hear about the reorginization plan? Gloom and doom? Maybe. The world economy is in disaray. This board shows the fears of impending socialism on a daily basis. Add to that we have a "rainbow " government further dividing this country. Most of the world would like to piss on us for our arrogance and manipulation. Think they are going to give us a hand?
Me... I'm just an observer and I don't like what I see. With or without the glasses.
LaVerne Wrote:
If you tie wire trebble hooks on a piece of plywood and cover with corn you can catch wild turkeys
B-racer Wrote:
See.
This proves Minnesota has some conservatives!
B-racer Wrote:
Hap,
Years ago someone told me that small businesses go through three phases.
The first is where you'll do anything, for anybody for any amount of money.
The second is where you specialize into a very narrow vertical niche, charge a bunch of money and narrow your customer base.
The third phase is when you enter an economic contraction and you niche collapses… then you’ll do anything, for anybody for any amount of money!
Steve
This gloom and doom is from a bunch of sissys who don't want to work. They'd rather sit around and complain than do something productive.
I'm with you hap! I had a record year last year too, and its all about innovation. Think about anythinglong enough, study until you can learn no more, and then figure out how to answer your unaswered quesstions. I think you hit the nail on the head - passion about what you do certainly helps! That doesn't mean you can't perform a job that you don't enjoy. We've all been there!!!
Jeff,
I'm not looking for work. I've been working since I was 13 and even though I am supposed to be retired I'm still putting in 40 a week. Met my wife when she was 16 working after school at drug store. She hasn't stopped yet either. My opinions really have little to do with employment although it is part of the equation.
By the way the distributor was most impressive. Haven't got to test it much as I need a new alternator.
Steve64B Wrote:
I believe that the new stimulus bill is pulling the welfare process back to where we were prior to 1996. The plan removes the work requirement which B- Racer commented on and allows recipients to stay home and collect.
The States will get money based on the number of people on the rolls not a fixed amount to work with and an incentive to get them off. The State will be incentivized to add people to the State payroll administering the plan and the more people the more money.
It is going to be an amzing ride in the next 24 months.
La Verne,
Too bad you think that Idaho is just skin heads. Hard heads, maybe, but don't believe everything in the media about it.
I don't believe that in the least Bob. My intention was to let you know that I do not suscribe to the survivalist accords be they skinheads or any other group for that matter.