Why do Americans hate government protections of workers?!

[Redshadowz]

Originally Posted by StillwaterTownie

No, Stillwater isn't almost entirely dependent on OSU for its local economy. It isn't known as a blue collar college town for nothing, thanks to the large private company plants on the north side of town. For starters, if you've heard of Kicker car speakers, that's where company hq is.

You seem to be concerned that there should not be economic and governmental circumstances that don't promote good outcomes. But I really don't care if some towns in Oklahoma are suffering because other Oklahoma towns are benefiting from spending tax money coming from those declining towns, or prospering local private economic activity. But I see it as unfortunate that people who are unemployed or under employed are still staying in those declining towns and denying themselves better opportunities that can surely be found in other towns that are on the grow. Since there can't be guaranteed outcomes, so far, in this society, one has to know that no one cares more about his economic well being than himself.

Worrying about labor unions is becoming more and more irrelevant. Instead, in coming decades, robots and other advanced automated devices are going to put many people out of work, and what to do with all the employed is going to be the next big labor related controversy. This situation is already being reflected by how slowly the unemployment rate is trying to get back to 5%.

Well, lets be realistic for a minute. Stillwater's economy is most certainly heavily dependent on OSU. In fact, a full 32.6% of the people living in Stillwater are employed in "Educational services". That is ten times the state average.

//www.city-data.com/work/work-S...-Oklahoma.html

Most of the remaining jobs in Stillwater effectively support the school. Such as retail, food service, insurance, banking, government, etc. Kicker employs a little over 200 people. While the college effectively employs almost 7,000 people.

More importantly, OSU is a state college, and receives huge amounts of money from tax revenues. What do you think would happen to Stillwater if OSU closed up?

The state average for educational services is only 3.1%, which means 29% of the population would be instantly unemployed. But, those 29% are spending money in Stillwater, supporting that local economy. And without their money being spent, its likely that a considerable amount of people in retail and food services would be unemployed. Then also medical, and all other jobs that support others who are employed. And its unlikely that those jobs will be replaced quickly. I would argue that without OSU, about 2/3rds of the population would be jobless, and would probably leave the city.


Now lets pretend that they simply moved OSU to another city. Somewhere that makes more sense, like right between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Lets say they moved OSU to Stroud. What would happen?

Economic development in Stroud would boom. There would be huge amounts of construction, and so people would be coming from all over the state, or even the country, to work in construction. Not only in building the school, but also in building new houses, businesses, etc. So while Stillwater basically implodes, Stroud suddenly is booming because of all that tax money.


The point is, much of what the government does is redirect tax money towards projects that benefit certain people at the expense of others. Most of the small towns in this country are dying. But why?

People want to argue that the small towns just don't have the opportunities of the big cities, because the big cities have manufacturing and infrastructure, and with innovation in farming, there is less need for labor, and so young people are forced out of rural areas into cities.

And while that is partially true. The real problem is that, if more money is flowing out of small towns than is flowing into small towns, then there isn't enough money being spent to support the economy. In the case of small towns, the money flowing out is partly in the purchase of goods and services from elsewhere. But most of it is actually in the form of taxes, to all levels of government.

Thus, the size of a small town is related to the amount of money it can bring into itself. Either in the form of government spending, or manufacturing/farming. Thus, most small towns exist in Oklahoma because they are either regional farming hubs, oil/gas mining hubs, or they are supported by government on some level. Whether it be military bases, schools, prisons, or some other center of government.

In my opinion, without centralized government spending. The small farming towns would actually be much larger, because more of the money produced in those towns would stay in those towns. While the towns heavily reliant on government spending would lose population. I mean, what would happen to Lawton without Ft. Sill?


Thus my point is, much of the economic development in the more metropolitan cities in Oklahoma, comes at the direct expense of other areas of Oklahoma. As I said before, Tulsa should despise Oklahoma City, since Oklahoma City gets a significant amount of its economic strength from taxes from other parts of the state. As well as federal spending on Tinker Air Force Base. If Tulsa was the state capital instead of Oklahoma City. Tulsa would most likely have a much larger population than Oklahoma City.


Now, you seem to keep obsessing with some kind of "local economy" and spending money to supposedly support these local economies. This is really an obsession with security rather than prosperity. It is an obsession with maintaining basically the status quo, and providing people stability and job security.

But is your obsession with security a universal principle? Or does it only apply in situations that are easily noticeable.

For instance, you seem to be perfectly accepting of the fact that young people in farm towns all across the country are forced into the cities, because of government confiscation of income from the farmers, which is redirected to major cities which have more political influence.

At the same time, you seem to be complaining about how terrible it is for employers in major cities to be laying off workers. And how the government should come in to protect those jobs, and effectively protect those cities themselves. A good example of that is Detroit, or Flint, or Gary, or whatever other major US city has been shedding population in recent years.

What is the difference between Detroit and the hundreds or thousands of small towns that have been shedding population in recent years? Nothing. It is only a perception. Detroit is big, and thus has influence. While small towns have no influence, so they are ignored.


That doesn't mean that I necessarily care about small towns. But I do find there to be quite a double-standard when it comes to small towns vs cities. Especially from supposedly "social justice" people like yourself.

The truth is, you don't seem to have a principled position, you just react to what you see. And you only see what is easily seen and placed in front of you by those with would benefit. You create the environment where special interests steer public money for their own benefit, and then you complain about it.