Rescue the "rust belt"

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Rescuing the Rust Belt
March 04, 2008

By Thomas Sowell

It is fascinating watching politicians say how they are going to rescue the "rust belt" regions where jobs are disappearing and companies are either shutting down or moving elsewhere.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is being blamed for the jobs going elsewhere. Barack Obama blames the Clinton administration for NAFTA, and that includes Hillary Clinton.

Senator Obama says that he is for free trade, provided it is "fair trade." That is election year rhetoric at its cleverest.

Since "fair" is one of those words that can mean virtually anything to anybody, what this amounts to is that politicians can pile on whatever restrictions they want, in the name of fairness, and still claim to be for "free trade." Clever.

We will all have to pay a cost for political restrictions and political cleverness, since there is no free lunch. In fact, free lunches are a big part of the reason for once-prosperous regions declining into rust belts.

When the American automobile industry was the world's leader in its field, many people seemed to think that labor unions could transfer a bigger chunk of that prosperity to its members without causing economic repercussions.

read more....
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl ... _belt.html

I don't think Conservatives "get" this! To create jobs in the rust belt we must once again resume the technological lead that once made this region prosperous. But it won't be done by reverting to obsolete products. However, the Rust Belt has fantastic industrila resources to continue being a producer of mechanized devices. So what should they produce?

Recognize that alternative energy is the coming trend. This will take machinery and intelligent engineering. We're still going to need electrical generating equipment; we're still going to need internal combustion engines; we're still going to need durable manufactured items. But the world wil demand that these be made to high environmental standards and be non-polluting. Recognize the trend and get on with it!

The Great Lakes region would be an ideal place to perfect windpower electrical generators. It would provide a big enough lab to refine the technology and bring the cost down to make it affordable worldwide.

TO: CAPTINRON - Great points, as usual.

Well, thank you! and to ALIPAC which lets me write stuff, without benefit of any college degree!