Unemployment Rate
Ohio: 10%
Michigan: 14.3%
Indiana: 9.4%
Wisconsin: 7.6%
Minnesota: 6.9%
It would seem you are right. Its basically Michigan, Indiana and Ohio dying a slow death.
Yay, for us.
Therein lies the problem. Brain drain. Everyone with talent moves away to the coasts. Then laments how where they are sucks for various reasons by comparsion.
Also, I am not talking the Census Bureau MidWest here...to me, Kansas and Nebraska are not the MidWest.
I am talking about Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota. If you havent been there for any length of time, kindly keep your stereotypes about our job situation to yourself. You'd be hard pressed to find a better place to raise a family and have an affordable living with better schools than the city trash you'll find in every major metropolis (Detroit leading the way in the "trash" department btw).
The MidWest died because this country saw fit to export its ability to manufacture. The geniuses of enterprise see making their steel and widgets in India as a better prospect only because our government doesnt tarrif the living out of corporate America like every other nation in the ing world does to us (Canada and Mexico excluded, thanks NAFTA!).
Why? Because corporate America owns our government. They own our media and when questioned on the subject, your average American will respond with the cliche about free enterprise and open markets, although none of these things exist for American companies anywhere else in the world. They'll say some ignorant about protectionism and how it caused the Great Depression (which is complete bull ).
US domestic manufacturers, in part, cannot complete with globalization because globalization only adversely affects domestic manufacturers. Having products made in India/China/wherever creates no tax burden for the corporation that does so (except for profits, of course). Whereas, if youre domestic, youre paying taxes on everything. Property, city, FUTA, state, local, county, federal, social security, medicare, etc. Every time you pay an American employee, the employee and the employer are taxed by all government (local, state and federal).
Not so for companies that outsource. Its a tax-less system for mega-corporations to have windfall profits, monopolizing any industry they so choose due to less-than-fair government who they have firmly in their pocket.
Nowhere else in the world buys as much as Americans, because no one else in the world has as much disposable income as Americans (at least, no one used to, idk anymore). We Americans let our corporate task masters dictate everything in the name of their profit...like their profit somehow positively affects you and me, when it doesnt....at all.
How exactly is making microchips in Korea beneficial to Americans? It isnt. Are they cheaper? No, theyre not. How about clothes made in sweatshops in India, China and Malaysia? Are your clothes cheaper for it? No, because the retailer just marks them up to what the market expects. That shirt from (i dont know fashion at all, soooo...) Abercrombie & Fitch cost them about, ohhhhh, $0.50 to make, probably another $1.00 per shirt to ship (im being very generous with that, I ship overseas alllll the time), another $1.00 to get it out of the crate and ship it across country to your local mall (per shirt). The retailer is going to make a HUGE markup and of course, you'd expect them to make profit, so they up it by....ohhhhh, 500%? That shirt should cost you, the consumer, $12.50. How much are you paying per shirt these days for a sweatshop full of broken children to make your goods? $60? Who pockets that and where is this good for our economy?
I make no assumptions about Texas beyond funny jabs like accent, stereotypes and an all encompassing obsession with everything Spanish.
Texas is an outlier to the rest of the country. I am sure some native Texans could explain to me why that is, because I certainly do not know.
So yes, the MidWest may be dead but thats because corporate government decided the needs of the few (rich) far outweigh the needs of the many (the non-rich). So you can do your stupid fuicking happy-dance on our grave, all while laughing and thinking that an area of your country dying is just sooooo ing hilarious. Thats very elitist, thats very uninformed and very typical of your media-driven brain spewing things you think you know for fact only because those who have reason to influence national perception have far more money these days to do so seeing as globalization is now fact and irreversible due to some misguided notion that our manufacturing portion of the country is somehow less than American and not worthy of the same protections afforded other industries.
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It's NEVER coming back.
