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The New Poor
The extreme sudden rise in energy prices is starting to impact rural Americans in a large way. Entire small communities are in peril of just becoming near ghost towns, as transportation costs become simply impossible to meet. The shrinking jobs market as thousands of factories were moved overseas, which meant farther and farther away commutes chasing the remaining jobs, and the rising prices of everything else will necessitate hard choices.
Some will choose to "move closer to work", but that philosophy doesn't square with the reality on the ground that as you get closer to "the work places", closer to the big urban areas in other words, the cost of living for rents or home ownership goes up, and their pay scales at their jobs still can't match the needs, and millions more moving closer in will drive up the prices anyway as existing units become more in demand so landlords can easily demand more money. New units can be built, but they are the most expensive then, because it is all brand new costs, so the rents or notes will be high as well. How about soviet styled huge square concrete block houses, isn't that just appetizing? is that what we want? In essence we are creating over a two year period millions of "new desperate poor" who are simply unable to exist economically, because they have no viable alternatives in the numbers large enough to matter. The jobs aren't there that pay enough for what they can do, their current jobs don't and can't pay enough (and even those continue to trickle away), and staying where they are now is impossible when it gets to choosing between food or fuel or heat or paying the note or..anything. My six gallons of stuff from the 5 gallon bucket deal, you reach a point where it just is not possible.
"When people move away, towns lose their tax base," Mudd said. "Then you can't fix streets ... you can't do much of anything. That makes even more people leave.
"Pretty soon, won't be much left in these old towns."
ed.z.: I won't type all caps, but you can imagine it for this:[mode=sad and mad rant] they mention the trains, US vs Europe in this article and JUST DANG IT, I distinctly remember just ranting on numerous occasions against this scheme way back when it was implemented, I said that we needed exactly the opposite, to reinvigorate rail transport to keep what was already built in good shape and actually working, both cargo and for travel. Industry blew it, the watermelon mindset blew it, political leadership had nothing but a year or two max forward looking dataset to ponder so they blew it too. We *had* rail lines all over, that were used for a long time, when I was in grade school I used to sweep the floors at a rural rail station that still had some freight and some passenger traffic. They were there, all over the US, people used them for decades until corporate "industry" decided it was "no good" and others jumped on the bandwagon to bring about "short term greeness", at least I'll call it that. (and they are doing the same with all the little dams they are destroying now on purpose, hydro potential gone, stored water gone) Now tons of these already used to exist rail lines and working stations are just poofed away, and it wasn't that long ago either. We paid cash to rip out already established critical infrastructure, and now look, we *need it* and if it was proposed to be rebuilt it would cost one buhzillion new scam bucks to do it, so it won't happen.
I absolutely have nothing against hiking and biking, nothing whatsoever, it is great healthy fun, done more than my share compared to most folks I bet, but this is the US we have here, it is big here, and we always have had a lot of places to do that stuff as recreation other than for them to be ripping out the needed nuts and bolts infrastructure. Why not rip the roads and bridges out? Same deal. You either want to move large quantities of people and stuff efficiently and cheaply because you have to, or you do not. You either keep your infrastructure intact so that it can be used, or you do not. Now, millions of instant poor folks, what are they supposed to do? Move to town with their 8 buck an hour jobs so they can be faced with 800 dollar and up single bed apartments, plus utilities? This is the grand solution? Try to sell their used cars for a grand so they can go stand in line to try and buy 25 grand priuses, and pay that off as well as their new rents with their 8 buck an hour jobs? nuts.. We keep inching closer and closer to the two class technofeudalistic society, that is the endgame here, the triumph and resurrection of the aristocracy. Millions of owners being turned into poorer serfs and perpetual renters, just love-ly. 2008-The Year of the Great Heist.