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War on coal casualties

CarbineMike, I am sure you have heard of the Steel Mills in Johnstown! They are about 45% torn down for scrap value. Every day that I go passed the old mills another section is torn down... Another job that had filled that space at one time forever lost... Depressing. Conemaugh/Franklin/Johnstown used to be one the Richest and most Prosperous (group) of cities in the country... destroyed by corrupt leaders and China. My Grandfather worked there, my Fiance's Father Worked there and a friend's father died there... Now within a few more months there will be nothing left.
 
John, I understand what you are talking about more than you can imagine. I was born, raised and currently live in the heart of Southern Illinois' coal country. My family worked the mines going back to my Great-Grandfathers......hell, one of my Grandmothers was a payroll clerk for Old Ben Coal for 30 some odd years. My father went to work right after highschool as a storeroom employee and was laid off 28 years later when Zeigler Coal was bought, by that time he had worked his way to the Corporate level as a purchasing agent. Those holes in the ground fed my family and every family around us for generations. When I graduated highschool I would have been proud to enter into the "family business"......but the mines were gone. Without the money being pumped into the local economy by coal we watched as businesses struggled and finally shut down, families moved away and towns eroded to nothing more than a shadow of what they used to be. The county where I grew up had relied on the mines for over 100 years for its economic stability, so when the mines shut down they were clueless on how to attract new industry to the areas. We finally began seeing viable industry popping up in the area about 10 years ago, which has brought some people back......but nowhere near what the mines did. And in the last 3 or 4 years we have actually seen new mines open up........huge longwall, low manpower, non-union mines.....but it's a start I guess. Things will never be the same here as they were 50 years ago when things were booming but they are better than they were 15 years ago. I was gone for a long time but I don't think I ever really left......I went to college, met my wife, took a job that put me behind a badge and had kids.......and at one point I realized that my kids needed something more than concrete and steel and bustling activity. I took my family back home
 
Omg....that just sucks. I don't understand how it can be in such demand yet they lay workers off. I honestly hate hearing that the layoffs are happening...
 
Sorry to see more layoffs coming to your already hard hit area. I don't buy for a minute that the recession that started with the real estate crash ever ended. How can you have a "jobless" recovery? The unemployment rate does not include people that have been out of work so long they lost benefits, people that want to work but retired since they can't get anthing and people that are underemployed or working part time jobs. I actually wonder if we may be in a depression but they won't call it that in fear of a run on the banks.

Keep your chin up John and as Obama so derisively said in 2007, turn to god in troubled times.
 
CarbineMike, they have doctored the numbers for a very long time now.

If they actually figured in all those people who have lost benefits and/or taken jobs just with the hope of maybe paying the bills one more day, I would not be a bit surprised to find that if they actually released the info, if we weren't in or at least knocking on the door of the great depression #2.

Here is a quote from the last post I made, the 2nd link:
Friday’s announcement compounds an already alarming employment situation for some. Here in Perry County, where several coal jobs had already been cut, unemployment has hovered near 13 percent for several months.
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I don't enough to vouch for the accuracy of this but it echoes what I have always read about the fake unemeployment numbers. If this is accurate I believe the numbers below would indicate we are in a great depression. John, you mentioned the economy to me...I wonder if the cliff, anti gun rhetoric and debt ceiling are keeping the attention off of a sinking economy.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/heres-the-real-unemployment-rate/

NEW YORK – The real unemployment rate for December 2012 is closer to 23 percent, not the 7.8 percent reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to economist John Williams.

Williams, author of the Shadow Government Statistics website, argues that the federal government manipulates the reporting of key economic data for political purposes, using methodologies that tend to mask bad news.

In the BLS news release Jan. 4, the unemployment rate for December 2012 was reported to have remained unchanged at 7.8 percent.

Williams recreates a ShadowStats Alternative unemployment rate reflecting methodology that includes the “long-term discouraged workers” that the Bureau of Labor Statistics removed in 1994 under the Clinton administration.

The BLS publishes six levels of unemployment, but only the headline U3 unemployment rate gets the press. The headline number does not count “discouraged” unemployed workers who have not looked for work in the past four weeks because they believe no jobs are available.

Get Jerome Corsi’s scorching new exposé of the ACLU, “Bad Samaritans: The ACLU’s Relentless Campaign to Erase Faith From the Public Square,” from WND’s Superstore

Williams has demonstrated that it takes an expert to truly decipher BLS unemployment statistics. For instance, in Table A-15, titled “Alternative measures of labor underutilization,” the BLS reports what is known as “U6 unemployment.”

The U6 unemployment rate is the BLS’s broadest measure. It includes those marginally attached to the labor force and the “under-employed,” those who have accepted part-time jobs when they are really looking for full-time employment. Also included are short-term discouraged workers, those who have not looked for work in the last year because there are no jobs to be had.

Since 1994, however, the long-term discouraged workers, those who have been discouraged for more than one year, have been excluded from all government data.

While the BLS was reporting seasonally adjusted headline unemployment in December 2012 was only 7.8 percent, it was also reporting the broader U6 seasonally adjusted unemployment in December 2012 was 14.4 percent.

“To the extent that there is any significance in the monthly reporting,” he said, “it is that the economy is not in recovery, and that unemployment has made a new high, at a level that rivals any other downturn of the post-Great Depression era.”

The only measure BLS reports to the public as the official monthly unemployment rate is the headline, seasonally adjusted U3 number.
 
Unfortunately, this is exactly what I predicted would happen.

Interruption of civil services.

Sometimes I hate being right.

http://www.wkyt.com/wymt/home/headlines ... 92641.html

HAZARD, Ky. (WYMT) - More than one dozen Perry County sheriff's Department employees will likely be headed to the unemployment line by the end of the week.

Sheriff Les Burgett says the layoffs are unfortunate, but necessary to make sure the department can pay its bills.

He says his department has suffered a "direct hit" from declines in the coal industry.

Fifteen sheriff's department employees are to be laid off, including road deputies, office staff, and security workers at the Perry County Hall of Justice.

The sheriff says a number of factors are contributing to the financial pinch, including waning delinquent tax commissions.

"This time last year, we had collected $120,000. At this time we've collected about $20,000, and that has really put a burden on our office," Burgett said.

All this, county officials contend, is due to a downturn in coal production in the region.

"We're right now looking at one coal company that's went bankrupt," said Perry County Judge/Executive Denny Ray Noble. "The coal miners getting laid off has really affected the county government and how it operates."

As coal receipts across the region continue to evaporate, Sheriff Burgett says he wonders why counties that don't produce coal should benefit from the coal severance tax. Counties like Fayette, which has $2.5 million earmarked for the renovation of Rupp Arena.

"I love the Wildcats and I enjoy watching them as much as anybody does, but it's not right. There's nothing right about taking our money, our coal severance money and putting it in Rupp Arena when our people are suffering like we do here."

Hopefully, the sheriff says, some of those employees will be able to come back to work when the department resumes tax collection in October.

In the meantime, those that remain will have to figure out how to do more with more than half their current staff gone.

Noble says the county is looking at making a few temporary layoffs as well, including two county police that patrol the county park.
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Coincidentally, the unemployment rate in Perry county is:

Unemployment Rate in Perry County, KY (KYPERR3URN)

2013-06: 14.0 Percent

and in Harlan County

Unemployment Rate in Harlan County, KY (KYHARL5URN)

2013-06: 17.9 Percent
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/KYHARL5URN
 
^ All in the name of smart cars and wave powered energy.... while I am a proponent of renewable energy where it's feasable and economically viable, I certainly don't see the merrits in killing an entire industry that supports the backbone of our energy in this country. I'm saddened at the thought of all those famalies who are left to hang on the edge of the cliff...
 
And just where do you think these electric cars get their power?

Ummm,

COAL !!!!!

It just doesn't flow through that extension cord without it folks.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ5LZbh7DlU[/youtube]
 
Another boondoggle by this administration. Throw money in a hole and expect it to fill up.

A California company was given more than $100 million in taxpayer funds by the federal government – with few strings attached – to establish a network of electric car charging stations that is fraught with problems, according to a government audit.

All this, despite weak demand by the American public for electric cars.

While President Obama has pledged to get 1 million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015, a new report by the Department of Energy’s inspector general found that Americans’ aversion to electric vehicles and loose department supervision led to stalling the charging network – which cost taxpayers more than $135 million.

The report noted the project was filled with problems from the beginning, and said taxpayer-funded grants to San Francisco-based ECOtality for it were “very generous” and involved little risk by the company.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07 ... z2af35IFjb
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John A. said:
And just where do you think these electric cars get their power?Ummm, COAL !!!!!It just doesn't flow through that extension cord without it folks.
Click to expand...

This reminds me of an argument I had with a tree hugging liberal at work one time. She said all we had to do was convert everything to electricity and all would be just peachy. It was like magic! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Reminds me of the idiots that don't care about farmers because they get their food at the grocery store.

Seriously, my heart goes out to the communities around the country and in my own state that are affected by the war on coal.
 
From Fox News:

Coal state legislators took a carrot and stick approach to the Obama administration's so-called "war on coal" Thursday when a bi-partisan West Virginia delegation went to the White House to plead it's case with new EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, saying regulations are strangling the industry.

Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) left the meeting feeling encouraged. "I thought the meeting was very, veryrespectful, and it was very direct,” he said. “That was what it was supposed to be. It was very productive, too. "

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the House Science Committee was playing hardball with the new EPA chief - threatening to issue subpoenas for data behind the tough new "source performance standards" for greenhouse gases.

Some suspect the data was politicized.Over the last 20 months, the committee sent six requests for the data and all were ignored.

The committee letter asks, "If the EPA has nothing to hide,why not provide this information to the Congress and the American people?"

It adds, "In light of EPA's steadfast refusal to cooperate, we are writing to inform you that failure to provide the requested documents will result in a subpoena to ensure disclosure."

Some 130, or one-sixth, of all coal-fired plants in the country are already idled by EPA regulations and bytough competition from natural gas - made increasingly available through fracking.

Miners are hurting, said Rep. Nick Rahal (R-W.Va.) His district lies in the heart of coal country in southwest West Virginia. "People are losing their good health care benefits,” he said. “They're losing the pension benefits. And even those who are workingare fearful of when the pink slip will come their way."

Nick Akins, President and CEO of American Electric Power, concurs. He points to a ripple effect through the economywhen plants are idled, since they provide not only direct employment, but also a tax base for schools and services.

"In many cases, these plants are the communities that are being served in terms of fire protections,police protections, taxes... those kinds of things,” he said. “This is having a dramatic impact on these communities as a result."

Despite Manchin's characterization of Thursday’s White House meeting as "productive," coal state leaders fear any concession that McCarthymay be willing to make might be over-ruled by her boss.

Then presidential candidate Obama appears to have kept his word when he told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008, " If someone wants to build acoal-fired plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them, because they'll be charged a huge sumfor all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."
 
While I support all of the Mitch McConnell war on coal ads I am seeing online, I am not going to lie and say that I'm not pissed that he has waited until election time to ramp this up.

I know that he and other KY elected officials (well, at least most of them) have stood behind coal, but people have noticed that it's not just the coal mines who have been idle for too long.
 
John A. said:
he has waited until election time to ramp this up.
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It figures. Thanks for posting that since those kind of details are left out of the news I receive. I also appreciate the effort but don't expect them to get anywhere with this administration.
 
carbinemike, McConnell (and others) have put pressure on the EPA, etc, it's just that I think they could've been doing more.

Or at least I think more should have already been done before it had been allowed to drag out for as long as it has.

If I had my way about it, and if I were in charge, I'm not unsure if I would've already gotten together with elected reps from other states having a hard time with the EPA to tag team their ass because that is what it is going to take to put them in check.

I'm not just talking about coal either.

I'm talking about all energy producing states, farmers, and just about every single PRODUCING MANUFACTURER of anything in this country is regulated by the EPA.

And it's not just the EPA that is the problem either. But they're the tool that is being used by the biggest tools in Washington at the moment.
 
John A. said:
carbinemike, McConnell (and others) have put pressure on the EPA, etc, it's just that I think they could've been doing more.

Or at least I think more should have already been done before it had been allowed to drag out for as long as it has.

If I had my way about it, and if I were in charge, I'm not unsure if I would've already gotten together with elected reps from other states having a hard time with the EPA to tag team their ass because that is what it is going to take to put them in check.

I'm not just talking about coal either.

I'm talking about all energy producing states, farmers, and just about every single PRODUCING MANUFACTURER of anything in this country is regulated by the EPA.

And it's not just the EPA that is the problem either. But they're the tool that is being used by the biggest tools in Washington at the moment.
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When the EPA first got started back in 1970, and for a few years after that, they did some good and useful things. But like any bureaucracy, they morphed into the monster we see today that is more concerned with it's own survival and power than anything else.
 
It's getting ugly in Wisconsin. Not a coal mine. It's for iron ore.

Paramilitary armed guards, death threats, standoffs. It’s not what you might expect amid the peaceful greenery of northern Wisconsin, but it’s that greenery, and what lies below, that has led to an intense battle over land, water and jobs.
It all began when a company called Gogebic Taconite, or G-Tac, got permission to test the soil in northern Wisconsin’s Penokee Hills area for minerals, including iron ore. The company eventually wants to carve a 4-mile open pit mine through the heavily wooded area.
G-Tac has leased thousands of acres of land in Wisconsin’s Iron County, an area which is popular with hikers in the summer and snowmobilers in the winter. Terms of the lease still allow the public to access the area.
Many of those who live in the economically depressed towns nearby said they support the company’s efforts and look forward to the potential for much-needed jobs and growth in the region. Dozens of signs are posted on lawns in the small city of Hurley with messages like “Mines mean jobs” and “Mining is our History” and “Say yes to mining.”
But opponents worry mining activities will poison the water supply and ruin the wetlands. And Native Americans in the area claim the mining violates their treaty rights because it would interfere with hunting and fishing.
“We certainly don't need a mine,” argued Frank Koehn, who runs the website SaveTheWatersEdge.com.
“All that does is produce the same mess we have now, but when they're done we've got piles of dust, poisoned streams; some streams will be obliterated, the ground water will no longer be protected,” he said.
Confrontations between the two sides have been violent and dramatic. Once G-Tac workers went out and began doing the testing, at least a dozen protesters wearing bandanas over their faces showed up ready for action.
The showdown, which is filled with yelling and expletives, was recorded and posted on YouTube. One protester can be seen wrestling with a woman over her camera. That protester was later arrested and charged with a felony. Others face trespassing charges.
“These folks broke into our camp, they barricaded the roads so that law enforcement wouldn't be able to help us, they held the site for over a half hour, they attacked one of our workers, and they destroyed a bunch of our equipment, and they threatened our people with burning our homes down,” said G-Tac spokesman Bob Seitz.
Gogebic Taconite brought in armed guards to protect the property and its employees. Both sides claim their lives have been threatened.
Critics call the protesters “Eco terrorists.” Some environmentalists call them heroes, but the majority of opponents in the Penokee Hills area said they don’t support the anarchy of the activists who were caught on the YouTube video.
All this has happened, and yet so far G-Tac has only been doing exploratory drilling, and gathering samples to send to the Department of Natural Resources, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Army Corps of Engineers. If results show the process is safe, Gogebic Taconite will be allowed to go ahead with its plans to construct a massive iron ore mine.
“I think there's a knee-jerk reaction in Wisconsin to mining.”
- Bob Seitz, spokesman for company seeking to mine iron ore
"If they (protesters) have the courage of their convictions and they believe in what they have been saying, they should want us out there finding this information, because they'll be able to use those facts to kill the mine," said G-Tac spokesman Bob Seitz.
G-Tac officials claim the mining will not introduce chemicals to the earth. Instead, dirt will be removed, pulverized, run over magnets to remove the iron ore, then put safely back on the ground. Since the heavily-wooded area of the mining site is an actively managed forest, trees will be harvested, then replanted when the mining is done.
 
I saw two key words in this article.

Eco-terrorist

water supply

The EPA has been denying permits for years over the "clean water act".

Same for farming and power and virtually every industry.

It is the first time that I have seen the word "eco-terrorist".

Though I have a feeling it won't be the last.

I will say one thing though. If an Indian tribe has treaties that covers that area, that's a whole other ball game. Those treaties are supposed to be upheld period.

I can give a few examples of treaties, but will stop myself short as to not hijack the topic.
 
John A. said:
It is the first time that I have seen the word "eco-terrorist". Though I have a feeling it won't be the last.
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I'm surprised. That one has been around for awhile to describe groups like ELF and others that damage earth moving equipment, put spikes into trees in timber country or disrupt whaling.
 
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