Scranton, PA is broke...

[flacaltenn]

scranton is noteworthy as the place Binghamton students used to go to buy grain alcohol.

keep outsourcing jobs... i'm sure it will stay that way.

What the hell does "out sourcing" have to do with anything?
If you are referring to business leaving Scranton, blame the high cost of union labor and blame poor management decisions.

Owning up to a contracting world economy and the shift in jobs from manufacturing to service industries WOULD go a lot farther to help these problems -- than say ----

Arguing over whether which party is less competent...

NEW jobs will only boost these cities when we realize the OLD jobs are not likely to come back simply because of labor cost differences..

 

[flacaltenn]

Scranton: the result of outsourcing middle class jobs oversees and across our borders. This country has upset the portfolio of job sectors. Short of taking back what we sent elsewhere; no administration will have a remedy. Don't let Romeny nor Obama fool you.

You've got the right spirit here. But "taking back what we sent elsewhere" involves HONEST appraisals of what needs to happen. 21st century manufacturing looks nothing like what Scranton USED to be. We need to be freeing the energy, health, financial, and tech start up sectors to concentrate on the NEW innovations that will bring it back.

NEW companies getting created has stalled close to zero since the tech bust. Regulation punishes the start-ups and favors the arthritic giants. We need to be moving capital into factory automation, robotics, logistics, material science, bioscience, artificial intelligience.

Jobs at ALL will result. But the lead out of this problem is STRONG encouragement of entreprenuerial HIGH TECH ventures..

Pretty hard to do when 1/2 of us are demonizing "venture capitalists" eh????
That is CLEARLY the most destructive aspect of the current political debate.
Brought to you by the OWS and the Class Warriors..

 

[flacaltenn]

We must lower our standard of living so we can compete with the Chinese, Indians, etc of the world.

I have been saying this as an outcome of world trade and globalization since the 80's.

And what were we told in the 80's?? That we needed to give up on making toasters and do the jobs that the rest of the world could not.. You know, the difficult MEANINGFUL stuff, not Happy Meal toys and MP3 players.

Problem is -- OUR kids are not filling our Graduate Science, Tech, Eng, and Math Schools.

Problem is -- We're losing the tech lead to Asia.

Problem is -- We're financially IMPRESSED with incremental advances in the size and shape of an IPad. And money flows THERE instead of into materials science, biotech and robotics.

Problem is -- We've got morons pushing Green Jobs -- which include the Salvation Army recyclers. Instead of shifting GOVT investments from SUBSIDIES and phoney stimuli to R&D

Problem is -- Everyone is fixated on "cheap labor" when they should be fixated on "efficient manufacturing" using the methods I've discussed.

Problem is -- Capital is not flowing to the right places because the free market under conditions of uncertainty is completely risk adverse.

Lots of problems. Lots of whining.

NO LEADERSHIP OR VISION