This is building off
my previous diary regarding rural poverty, lack of industry, and the subsequent commutes that create a situation where gas taxes and massive shifts away from single vehicles is in many ways unfeasible. During the discussion, a couple of comments struck me:
1. The idea that lack of industry was inevitable and irreversible. Jobs are being outsourced. The rural regions are outdated. The cities are inevitable.
2. You can't simply develop new industry in farflung regions or cater to the needs of the small numbers of people in them because it is inefficient and as such over-expensive. Business will not accept slowed productivity.
3. Because the end of oil is nigh, we can't afford to be understanding of working class needs, because the working class will be paying for it later if they don't wake up now.
To which my response is to follow the footsteps of Robert Kennedy and ask: "why not?"
It seems to me that nothing is inevitable and that while remaining practical and not losing our heads with either panic or sentimentality, we can roll up our sleeves and make a real dent in this problem without completely overthrowing the structure of our society. In Mark Warner's stump speech, he always has a particular line that gets me every time, and that's when he states that if it can be made in Bangladesh, it can be made in Lebanon, Virginia. And to that I say, damn straight.
Why not move industry to the rural regions instead of outsourcing it to India? It seems pretty nonsensical to me that it is horrible to efficiency to move it to a region that is, frankly, closer than half way across the globe, and has a much lower cost of living and salary demands by its workers. Maybe not $1 an hour lower, but you also manage to save quite a bit on the inherent costs of outsourcing. There's a myth that has been built up about the savings of outsourcing that I think is quite dangerous to our economy. Outsourcing costs money, from building a factory, to operating under foreign law, gaining foreign patents, etc. etc. etc. Moreover, you lose a good deal of direct control over the quality of your goods. Take for example, when Volkswagon opened their factory in Mexico and their cars developed a lot of electrical problems as a result. That's bad for their company, and their brand name took a hit because of it.
So, while you save, you don't save AS much as commonly thought. Thus, it's not so farfetched to me to say to a tech company, hey, I know you can't afford the $30 per hour going rate in Northern Virginia, but why not try the $10 per hour going rate in Southside? Southside gets industry, cuts down their commute, and jobs stay in the U.S. Hell, the reason companies choose regions like Ashburn, VA to develop tech companies in the first place is because the land was cheap but there was still fiberoptic cables (which, by the way, has led to much of the exurb luxury in NoVa discussed in the last thread). So, to me at least, wiring our roads should be a national priority. I say roads, because in Virginia, that is how Mark Warner avoided most of the costs of laying down the wires, by connecting it with road construction, and it seems to me like a pretty nifty idea that has worked pretty well. So I'm stealing it.
Of course there still is health care and that's where companies tend to largely benefit from moving overseas, because overseas the government picks up much of the tab for health services, thus cutting the bottom line. Well? Do I honestly need to spell out the logical conclusion here? People talk about health care as a moral imperative, and it is in many ways, but don't forget that it's also good for small and big business alike if government pitches in with health care costs. GM has had to thousands of employees because their health care cost too much. Thus, it is more in GM's interest to cut health care costs than it is to receive a government handout when they can't stop the bleeding.
Of course, there is always the problem of needing an educated workforce for many of these jobs like tech support. Well, is that why they go to India? If so, then we best start educating. Remember in the last thread when I talked about children leaving their home communities because of lack of opportunity? Specifically, children who manage to get a college education in general want to use it. Perhaps if there was a way to use it in their local town, they would not feel forced to leave. In that vein, I propose granting funds to schools to develop technical training in these sorts of industries, similar to land grant colleges back in the day to teach students to tend to the land, which were a tremendous success. In fact, I bet many of your alma maters were land grant colleges.
So right there you can create a local economy, education, and workforce in order to revitalize small town America and save people their commute times so that if you choose to commute two hours to work, it's actually a choice as opposed to a necessity.
But perhaps the picture is larger than that. It's that there are ways to change society for the better without demanding that people make the unthinkable choices in life, and I personally think we spend too much time thinking "either I have a, or I have b". Too many hours saying "either there's affirmative action, or no college" instead of "how can everyone afford to go to college?"
I mean, I'm no expert at economics, and I'm perfectly patient and willing to be lectured at, but why not?
Why not conserve while maintaining our heritage in small town and rural America?
Why not cater conservation efforts to fit the needs of the have nots rather than the haves, because, let's face it, the haves can pay the $4 for gasoline. Maybe they'll grumble, but if you can afford a $40,000 SUV, you can afford the gas that goes in it. So let's focus on the people who can't afford more for gas and focus on them. How do we lessen their drive times?
Why not connect all the dots at once? Because if you didn't notice in the last thread, there is very little in this world that acts in a vacuum, and while it might not occur to someone writing about energy policy and oil how that relates to outsourcing and education and job creation and health care, it does. So, because you can't just attack one problem, don't try and solve one problem. It's what we call a unified message and I believe Democrats have been looking for one.
Why not talk big and optimistic and like Roosevelt and Kennedy did? It sure feels nice, and it completely changes your attitude towards both what can be accomplished and how you go about solving the problems that face us today.
So, why not?