Gambling and Tourism Won't Save the Economy

image: Little Cubs Field--a desperate attempt to generate tourism dollars

The most surprising thing about the recent announcement that one-quarter of the casinos in Atlantic City are shutting down is that anyone is really surprised by it. The article from nj.com I just linked provides the following explanation:

Since 2006, Atlantic City's casino revenue has plunged from a high of $5.2 billion to $2.86 billion last year. It has been beset by competition from Pennsylvania, which has surpassed it as the nation's No. 2 casino market after Nevada, and suffered further losses with additional casinos coming online in New York and Maryland.

Israel Posner, executive director of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Stockton College, said the resort has been dealing with casino saturation for a while now.

"We know that the oversupply of gaming product is a regional issue, as we're seeing the effects of the pressure all around Atlantic City," he said.

So in other words, when every state and jurisdiction opens a casino to draw out-of-town visitors who'll spend the money that will then replace jobs and tax revenues being lost in other sectors, sooner or later they stop being an advantage for everybody. I'm not really sure just how dumb you have to be not to see that obvious fact, but the article states that economists predicted this inevitable occurrence as if it were some sort of blinding revelation.

This simple truism about gambling can also be applied to tourism in general. Many depressed locales have tried to reinvent themselves as prime tourist destinations, such as Cleveland did by landing the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, handing out hundreds of millions of dollars to billionaire sports team owners for new stadiums and sprucing up its downtown area so visitors would feel safe walking the streets at night. So how did all of the that work out for Cleveland? Well, beyond the downtown's glitzy bright lights it is still almost as big a shit hole as Detroit--the kind of place where just being born there tags you as someone who has no hope of a future even remotely resembling the pie-in-the-sky American Dream.

Even my own hometown of Freeport, Illinois got into the act. Regular readers of this blog will recall that back during the last thoroughly discouraging and depressing presidential election, I wrote several posts about Romney's old pals at Bain Capital shutting down one of the local factories, transferring the jobs to China and having the unmitigated gall to ask the workers there to train their Chinese replacements.

Not coincidentally, Freeport made an effort a few years ago to try and combat the relentless loss of industrial jobs in the town by trying to generate tourism. Now, I can tell you from having spent the first two decades of my life there that a little rust belt city entirely surrounded by nothing much except cornfields has very little to recommend it as a tourist attraction. 156 years ago, one of the famous (assuming you know your American history) Lincoln-Douglas debates took place there. Nearly a quarter of a century later, a mentally unhinged Freeporter assassinated the President of the United States, but that probably isn't the sort of thing the local Chamber of Commerce is really interested in playing up. Since then? Um...I've got nothing.

So what did they finally decide to do to bring in hordes of visitors and their loose dollars? They, I shit you not, built a miniature replica of Wrigley Field. Never mind that the REAL Wrigley Field is only about a two hour drive away. Even sadder is how the website describes Freeport: "Freeport, Illinois, A Scenic And Historic Section Of Northwest Illinois Between Chicago And Galena." Because that's all Freeport really has going for it these days: history. And as I've pointed out above, there ain't really all that much of it.

Obviously, Little Cubs Field, as it is called, hasn't done much to save Freeport's economy, much as Atlantic City's casinos have ultimately proven a failure in lifting that unfortunate burg out of the postindustrial age mire. Just a couple of weeks ago my father, who was once employed by the local Goodyear factory, told me that the plant is cutting its work force again, and will be down to about one-tenth of the 2400 employees it had when he retired 20 years ago. Dad also expects the plant will be closed down for good in a few years, having existed for merely the entirety of his adult lifetime. But don't worry, I'm sure some of those laid off workers can get jobs this summer working at the concession stands at Little Cubs Field.

It's amazing to me that a country in which wages and benefits for most workers, especially paid vacation days, are being endlessly slashed and the word "staycation" has entered the popular lexicon, that any of the so-called "experts" who get paid to consult with state and local governments about how they might increase revenues and employment could with a straight face espouse the idea that an endless sea of tourism dollars is out there just waiting to be exploited. As it stands right now, the tourism industry is being propped up by more affluent older Americans who are downsizing their living arrangements (i.e: selling off their assets) in order to do at least a few of the things they wanted to do while they were still working. But when the country begins to run out of bucket-listers who still have a bucket to pee in, tourism is yet another industry facing an inevitable epic crash.

But hey, if you're interested, all events at Little Cubs Field feature free admission. And for this little bit of faux Americana, it's worth exactly what you pay for it.


Bonus: The problem these days, Bruce, is that the trouble ISN'T "busing in from out of state"

Call Those Who Offshore American Jobs What They Are: Traitors

Poor old Willard. My hometown of Freeport, Illinois, just refuses to go away and leave Governor 47%-er alone as he continues his increasingly hopeless quest for the presidency. Yet another major story appeared this week about Bain Capital's decision to close down the local Sensata plant and ship the jobs off to China--all while forcing the plant's employees to train their Chinese replacements. But this time, the story featured a new twist:

Being told to train his replacement was humiliating and surreal, but Tom Gaulrapp said the worst part was when the plant’s US flag was taken down before the Chinese engineers arrived.

Gaulrapp decided it was time to take a stand against outsourcing and the man he blames for the loss of his job: Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney, who founded the private equity firm that owns the Freeport, Illinois auto parts plant.

Romney’s ties to Bain Capital have burdened the Republican nominee’s hopes of winning the November 6 election as Democrats unfavorably paint him as a corporate raider who pioneered the outsourcing of US jobs to countries with lower labor costs.

Romney denies the charge, but his claim to be a man who could revive the economy and boost the prospects of American workers rings hollow here.

Gaulrapp thinks it would only take a phone call from the candidate who’s vowed to create 12 million jobs in the United States to save the 170 jobs at Sensata Technologies that are about to leave this already economically depressed town of 26,000.

“What we’d like is a miracle,” Gaulrapp, who has worked at the plant for 33 years, said with a sigh that acknowledged how unlikely it is that his wish will be granted.

“We’d like Mitt Romney to come to Freeport, see what this is doing to this community, and contact his friends that run Bain Capital and say ‘this is absolutely the wrong thing to do’ and save our jobs.”

Fat chance of that happening. So what was the company's justification for stripping so many long term employees of their livelihoods?

Sensata, which is majority-owned by Bain Capital, purchased the automotive sensors unit from Honeywell for $140 million in cash in January 2011.

With annual revenues of $130 million and valuable patents, the unit was a good buy. But with 75 percent of the revenue generated in Asia, it made sense to ship production to Sensata’s facilities in China, the Netherlands-based company said.

“It’s better to be closer to one’s customers,” Sensata spokesman Jacob Sayer told AFP, citing transportation and other logistical advantages.

Sayer acknowledged that the decision to shift production to China is “an unfortunately event” for Freeport and said he understands why it could be “difficult” for the workers to train their replacements.

Goddamn, but the company spokesweasel is completely full of shit. Really? It's better to be "closer to your customers?" If that were really true, why does Walmart North America import all of the crap it sells from China? This isn't about location, it's about lowering labor costs, and the American workers cost too much. You're completely fucking them, so the LEAST you could do, asshole, is tell the fucking truth.

Oh, and what about that American flag bit anyway?

He has no idea why — or if — the US flag was removed before the Chinese engineers and technicians arrived.

“We didn’t request it. I can tell you that,” Sayer said, adding that the company has been leasing the facility from Honeywell and has no involvement in grounds maintenance.

Oh, right, it's just a fucking coincidence that the flag disappeared on the day the Chinese workers showed up. The fucking janitor must have been hungover that morning or something.

All right, folks, I am going to go ahead and put it bluntly. It's time to stop fucking around and call the people responsible for stripping away American factory jobs and sending them to the country that the war pigs at The Pentagon would call our worst potential enemy what they really are: traitors to America.

Now, my regular readers might scoff that I, who derides this country's elected "leaders" every chance I get, is writing a post appealing to patriotism. In clarification, I will say that it is not patriotism per say that I have a problem with, it is the way superficial appeals to patriotism are used to get average Americans to go along with being boned up the ass by sociopathic fuckheads like the ones who run Bain Capital. It is high time that patriotism instead be wielded as a weapon against these MBA assholes who have never worked a real job a day in their fucking lives.

That's not to say that I want to get all xenophobic and start blaming the Chinese. Fact is, I don''t blame them. They are merely taking what is being gladly given to them by greedy scumbags who are selling their country down the river in the interests of making a buck. If I were in their shoes I'd do the same damn thing. Sadly, the regular Chinese workers who get hired on at the Sensata plant once it is moved to their home country will likely get treated no better than their unfortunate counterparts at Foxconn. For that's where the world is headed: massive unemployment in the West, massive sweatshop production in the East and no one except a tiny elite enjoying any form of prosperity, security or leisure.

No, it isn't the Chinese who are the problem: it's the traitors. And by traitors I mean every fucking asshole (read: Willard Mitt Romney) who has ever been involved in offshoring American jobs as well as every fucking asshole (read: Bill Clinton, Barack Obama) who has ever been involved in pushing through the "free" trade agreements that allow American jobs to be offshored. It is only by thinking about them as they really are that we can stay focused on the fact that THEY are our real enemies and not our fellow workers who may be on strike trying desperately to hold onto to what they have. I have no hope that the average American will wake up to this basic realization before it is too late for all of us, but hey, somebody had to say it.


Bonus: "Deeds not words, you should have told the truth...you're a liar and a traitor and now we have the proof"

Guardian Article About Romney's "Sensata Problem" Tells Only Half the Story

I've covered this story a couple of times before, but it's in the news again and because it involves my hometown of Freeport, Illinois, my interest is obviously personal. This is the first time that Freeport has had any kind of impact on the fortunes of a presidential campaign since one of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates was held there back in 1858 during the Senate race that served as a warmup for the national election two years later.

Anyway, Paul Harris of The Guardian newspaper wrote the latest article about the role of Bain Capital in closing the Sensata plant in Freeport and moving it to China. The details, while quite gruesome, are sadly pretty typical in modern day America:

The shock of losing a precious job in a town afflicted by high unemployment is always hard. A foundation for a stable family life and secure home instantly disappears, replaced with a future filled with fears over health insurance, missed mortgage payments and the potential for a slip below the breadline.

But for Bonnie Borman – and 170 other men and women in Freeport,Illinois – there is a brutal twist to the torture. Borman, 52, and the other workers of a soon-to-be-shuttered car parts plant are personally training the Chinese workers who will replace them.

It’s a surreal experience, they say. For months they have watched their plant being dismantled and shipped to China, piece by piece, as they show teams of Chinese workers how to do the jobs they have dedicated their lives to.

“It’s not easy to get up in the morning, training them to do your job so that you can be made unemployed,” said Borman, pictured, a mother of three who has worked for 23 years at the Sensata auto sensors plant.

Borman knows her eventual fate in the stricken economy that surrounds Freeport. “I am going to be competing for minimum wage jobs with my own daughter,” she said.

Such scenes have been common in America as manufacturing has fled abroad in search of cheaper wages.

But, in the midst of the 2012 presidential election, Freeport is different. For Sensata is majority-owned by Bain Capital, the private equity firm once led by Mitt Romney, that has become a hugely controversial symbol of how the modern globalised American economy works. Indeed, Romney still owns millions of dollars of shares in the Bain funds that own Sensata.

So as Sensata strips out costs by sacking American workers in favour of Chinese ones, the value of Romney’s own investments could rise, putting money into the pockets of a Republican challenger who has placed job creation in America at the heart of his bid for the White House.

The story of how Bain became involved in a car factory in a small town amid the rolling farmland of northern Illinois is emblematic of modern financial wheeling and dealing.

Bain bought the firm that was to become Sensata in 2006, when it was the Texan arm of a Dutch company. It then floated it on the stock exchange in 2010, but kept a majority stake. Sensata came to own the Freeport plant at the beginning of 2011 as part of a wider purchase of a car parts business from Honeywell.

Sensata spokesman Jacob Sayer said closing the Freeport plant to cut costs was a key element of the Honeywell deal. “If that had not been part of the strategy, then the deal would not have been so attractive,” he said.

Bain has declined to comment. But it has made a lot of money from owning Sensata, quadrupling its initial 2006 investment. In business circles that focus on the bottom line is all that matters. But, not surprisingly, it cuts less ice in Illinois.

Workers insist their operation is profitable and makes top quality auto sensors.

“I understand business needs to make a profit. But this product has always made a ton of money. It’s just that they think it is not enough money. They are greedy,” said Tom Gaulraupp, who has put in 33 years at the plant and is facing the prospect of becoming jobless at the age of 54.

Mark Shreck, a 36-year-old father-of-three, confessed he was one of the few workers not surprised at the layoffs, as this is the second time his job has moved to China. “I feel this is what companies do nowadays,” he said.

The Freeport workers have appealed to Bain and Romney to save their plant. The local town council, several Illinois politicians and the state’s Democratic governor have all rallied to their cause. “This company is competitive globally. They make a profit here. But Bain Capital decided to squeeze it a little further. That is not what capitalism is meant to be about,” said Freeport mayor George Gaulrapp, 52, pictured.

The anger towards Bain and Romney is palpable. Romney has become the target for the emotions of a community who built lives based on the idea of a steady manufacturing job: a concept out of place in the sort of fluid buy-and-sell world from which Bain prospers. “I didn’t have a clue what Bain was before this happened,” said Cheryl Randecker, 52. “Now when I hear Romney speak it makes me sick to my stomach.”

Good reporting, so far, but here is where it goes off the rails:

President Barack Obama’s campaign has sought to make Bain’s record of buying and selling companies – often involving job losses – a key part of its strategy of painting Romney as an out-of-touch super-rich financier. In turn, Romney, who left Bain in 1999, has defended his long career there, saying Bain ends up generating economic growth and spurring job creation. Far from profiting from layoffs, Romney has portrayed Bain as a model for the American future.

That argument stuns Illinois governor Pat Quinn. “If he thinks that is the model for American economic growth then he is barking up the wrong tree,” Quinn told The Guardian.

Of course, no one at the Romney campaign wants to be linked with the Freeport plant closure. “Governor Romney is not familiar with this issue and has not been involved in the management of Bain since 1999,” said campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg.

It makes for a good story line...the evil Bain Capital, that used to be run by the Republican presidential nominee, heartlessly closing down yet another small town manufacturing plant and moving the jobs to China (not incidentally the very same country that The Pentagon insists is the supposed big military threat that we need to waste trillions of dollars defending ourselves against, but that is an issue for another day) with the gory little detail of the workers being forced to train their replacements to wrap it up in a nice neat bow. Too bad it is also shoddy reporting that only tells half the story.

For who was it that rammed through all those "free" trade agreements back in the 1990s that created the conditions that allow Bain Capital to shut down the Sensata plant and export those jobs to our alleged worst enemy? Oh, that would be Democratic President Bill Clinton, of course. And who was it who pushed through the latest round of "free" trade agreements after his predecessor failed to get them through CONgress? Oh, that would be President Hopey-Changey himself, who is now laughably trying to score political points by hyping up Romney's record as a jobs outsourcer.

So there are your choices of viable candidates at the ballot box this November if, like me, you really give a shit about how American workers are being fucked over by globalization: the scumbag vulture capitalist whose former company does the outsourcing versus the arrogant fake liberal sellout who pushes through the laws that allow him and his company to do it. And yet people look down on me when I take it personally and tell them that I am refusing to participate in the whole fucking sham.

I'll finish up with one last blurb from the article that reads like something ripped right from the script of Michael Moore's Roger and Me:

There is little chance of a happy ending for Freeport. The workers collect petitions and hold demonstrations. But they know they are likely doomed. “We are not stupid. We know we are unlikely to save our jobs. But if we get the next company that tries it to think twice, then maybe we save our neighbour’s job. Or our children’s,” said Tom Gaulrapp.

Meanwhile, bit by bit, the machines inside the Freeport plant are being packed up, beginning their long journey to China. By the end of the year it will be over. “It is kind of like part of your family being shipped out – I worked with that stuff for years. Now there’s nothing left but a discoloration on the floor where the equipment used to sit,” Gaulrapp said.

Think twice? That's a laugh. The only thing these sociopathic assholes are going to be thinking about is how best to count up all the money they make from fucking over the next town and how grateful they are to have politicians like Romney and Obama in office who will stand aside and let them do it.


Bonus: "Should I hate them for having our jobs today? No, I hate the men who sent the jobs away"



Added Bonus: "Wouldn't it be nice?"

The Nation: Some Towns Just Don't Count - Like My Home Town

I'm still on sabbatical, but I just had to comment on an article written by John Nichols posted today in The Nation called, "Romney's Some Towns Just Don't Count Tour," only because the town in question that Nichols highlighted is in fact my own home town. Here is the relevant section of the article:

That’s the problem for Romney. He has been on the wrong side of so many economic fights that it is impossible for him to play the economic populist in communities that could stand with a little populism.

But the real story of Romney’s tour is the towns that don’t count with him.

When Romney made stops in Janesville and Dubuque Monday, he was just up the road from the town of Freeport, Illinois.

But Romney did not stop in Freeport, a town that like Janesville and Dubuque has been hard hit by trade and fiscal policies that encourage corporations to shutter US factories and ship jobs overseas—and that has been even harder hit by speculators who buy up factories, strip the assets and close them.

On the day Romney was busing across the region, employees of Freeport’s Sensata Technologies plant gathered in front of the factory with handmade signs that read:

“Romney! Stop Bain Outsourcing to China”

“Mitt Romney Save Our Jobs”

“Romney: Instead of talking about JOBS, just don’t ship MINE to China”

The Sensata Technologies plant, which has been on the forefront of producing state-of-the-art automotive sensors, was owned by Texas Instruments, and then by Honeywell, before being sold in 2010 to Sensata Technologies Holding, N.V, a firm based in the Netherlands but majority-owned by Bain Capital. Bain, the private equity firm that Mitt Romney helped to develop and that continues to make him a very rich man, has since consolidated ownership of Sensata.

The workers at the plant wanted Romney to make a slight detour on his bus trip and take a look at the devastation being caused by Bain’s machinations at a plant where many of them have worked for more than thirty years.

The plant’s operations are rapidly skrinking as Sensata moves to outsource work from Illinois to China.

“This used to be a very high-volume plant and now it’s pretty much a ghost town…and by the end of the year it will be a ghost town”, Sensata employee Cheryl Randecker told local reporters.

Had Romney come to Freeport, he would have heard how much Bain’s approach has harmed not just the Sensata workers but Freeport and counties along the Illinois-Wisconsin stateline that have suffered more than their share of plant closings.

“Sensata is moving forward with the process of relocating jobs from their operations in Freeport to China,” explains John Blum, the chairman of the Stephenson County Board.

In addition to the “significant human toll on the more than 140 families that will be affected by this loss of jobs and financial security,” says Blum, “The loss of these jobs will have a tremendous impact on our regional economy.”

That’s a story that Mitt Romney does not want to focus attention on.

So his bus didn’t stop in Freeport.

Perhaps the name of Romney’s bus tour should be changed from “Every Town Counts” to “Some Towns Count.”

But those Americans who really do believe that workers in places like Freeport ought not be left behind should ask themselves whether talk about renewing the American economy is credible coming from a man who continues to profit from the plant closings, the layoffs and the outsourcing practices that are crude byproducts of Bain Capitalism.

I first posted about the closing of the Sensata plant back on January 18th in my post, "Another Globalization Hit to My Home Town." At the time, I didn't realize that Bain Capital was the driving force behind the shut down.

The problem with the Nichols story is that it fails to mention the obvious point that these actions by Sensata are happening under a Democratic president who has not only not lifted a finger to help the working and middle classes, but has also promoted the same kind of free trade agreements as the last last Democratic occupant of the White House. The same free trade agreements that British Financier James Goldsmith famously warned television host Charlie Rose about back in 1994, predicting this very outcome.

But even more to the point, the workers in Freeport have been very much complicit in their own demise. That corner of Illinois has always been solidly Republican, and it pained me greatly back in my high school and college days to watch so many of my fellow Freeporters go completely gaga for Ronald Reagan. So much so, that they even turned their backs on liberal Republican Represenative John Anderson when he challenged Reagan for the presidency in 1980, despite the fact that Anderson was their own Congressman.

So, while I appreciate Nichols calling attention to the plight of my home town, it is too bad that he and The Nation are so steadfastly determined keep wearing their partisan blinders.


Bonus: From my You Tube channel, not a lot of factory girls left in Freeport I'm afraid

Preventive Detention In Obama's America

Still think it matters whether Obama or Romney wins the election this November? If so, then please explain this, as reported by the Examiner.com:

According to an interview with National Lawyers Guild (NLG) spokesman Kris Hermes, Chicago police officers raided a Bridgeport apartment complex on Wednesday evening without a valid warrant and detained up to nine people without cause.

The NLG is working in Chicago this week sending monitors to protests at the NATO Summit 2012 to insure activists rights are not violated. They are also functioning as lawyers for anyone detained during the week's activities.

The NLG worked through the night to locate the arrested activists. They were unable to get any information from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) or even any acknowledgement that a raid had taken place.

"We've called police officials at every level trying to find out where they were being held. We were denied any information at all about any people being arrested, let alone a raid happening last night. So essentially these people were disappeared for more than 12 hours until we could finally locate them," said NLG spokesman Kris Hermes.

They were found at the CPD Organized Crime Division police station lock up at 3340 W. Fillmore St. on the West Side.

Lawyers from The NLG were allowed to meet with nine individuals and reported that they were in low spirits, confused about why they were arrested and shackled at both their hands and feet at the meeting. No charges have been filed against them almost 24 hours after their arrest and an Illinois States Attorney at the station refused to meet with the NLG lawyers.

And spare me any bullshit about this being a local matter out of Obama's control. He is from Chicago and his former chief of staff is now Chicago's mayor, meaning he absolutely could influence what happens in that city if he wanted to. The fact is, he doesn't give a shit about civil liberties any more than his predecessor did, and if you vote for him in November thinking that he is somehow on your side you are seriously delusional.

Update: It's now being reported that three "terrorism" arrests have been made in Chicago, though it is unclear if the three detainees are connected to the incident reported above:

Three men loosely connected with the NATO protests have been arrested in Chicago for planning terror attacks on major police stations and businesses downtown, as well as President Obama's campaign headquarters and Mayor Rahm Emanuel's house.

Brian Church, 20, Jared Chase, 24, and Brent Vincent Betterly, 24, have been charged with criminal acts relating to terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and possession of explosives. The three were arrested Wednesday evening after a raid on a Chicago apartment found them loading Molotov cocktails into the back of a truck. According to court documents, the four had travelled to Chicago from out of town ahead of the NATO protests. They spent the days leading up to the weekend training themselves and planning their course of attack. Their plans for the weekend included:

According to court documents, the men planned to first attack four Chicago police stations and destroy several squad cars with "destructive devices" in order to divert the department’s attention and resources.

While authorities were distracted by those strikes, the group intended to hit Obama’s national campaign headquarters in the Prudential Building, Emanuel’s home in Ravenswood and other downtown financial institutions, prosecutors said. The group had already done reconnaissance work on the Chicago Police Department headquarters in Bronzeville in preparation for the attack, law-enforcement officials said.

Law enforcement records say the police confiscated, "four completed Molotov cocktails... a mortar gun, swords, a hunting bow, throwing stars and knives with brass knuckle handles," plus protective equipment like, "pre-positioned shields, assault vests and gas masks to help hide their identity during the planned attacks," according to the Chicago Tribune. "These men were here to hurt people," said the state's attorney Anita Alvarez. “The individuals we charged are not peaceful protesters, they are domestic terrorists,” said Alvarez.

But the lawyers in charge of defending the three men are alleging they're being set up by the Chicago police department. According to the New York Times report on the story, the lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild in charge of defending the three are going to argue for entrapment. They say a man and a woman who were either informants or undercover officers came up with the plans and provided the three men charged with the explosive equipment.

If this is part of the same action, even if the police account is true, that is some pretty weak tea. We are really supposed to believe that these guys were going to make a direct assault on the massive security wall surrounding Obama or Emmanuel with such puny weaponry?


Bonus: "I've got no patience now...so sick of complacence now"

Fortis Plastics Shutting Down Another Plant (Illinois)

image: Downtown Carlyle, Illinois is about to become a little bit deader, thanks to a factory closing.

Back on January 8th, I posted a story about a Fortis Plastics plant closing in Ohio. Well, now it is Illinois' turn, as reported by my all time favorite business publication, Plastics News:

Fortis Plastics LLC is preparing to close its last plant, a custom injection molding facility in Carlyle.

The company sent workers a letter dated April 9 warning that the plant will permanently close within 60 days. Employees were told their last day would fall in the period between June 9 and June 22.

State officials and the mayor of Carlyle have been notified of the imminent closing, and officials will be available to help assist workers who are losing their jobs, the letter said.

The shutdown apparently marks the final chapter for Fortis, which has been closing plants since at the end of 2011. Much of the equipment at the other plants was auctioned off in January and February.

A Fortis worker, who requested anonymity, said employees in Carlyle have been aware of the other plant closings, and had expected their plant to eventually shut down, too.

“I pretty much knew this was coming. It wasn’t a shock to me,” the worker said.

Other workers said the Carlyle plant had seen most of its molding work disappear in recent weeks, and that resin and other materials had occasionally been in short supply.

The Carlyle plant did medical-related work, among other projects.

Fortis Plastics was formed in 2008 when New York private investment group Monomoy Capital Partners LP, acquired and combined the custom molding divisions of Leggett & Platt Inc. and Atlantis Plastics Inc.

In recent months the company has shut down or announced plans to shut down plants in Jackson, Tenn.; Fort Smith, Ark., South Bend, Ind.; Poplar Bluff, Mo.; Wilmington, Ohio; and Ramos Arizpe, Mexico.

I guess that advice that Dustin Hoffman received at the beginning of The Graduate is no longer valid.


Bonus: "Q: Why are we here? A: Plastics, asshole"

International Paper Closing Four Plants, Eliminating 215 Jobs

A corporate merger was the reason for this mass layoff story. The Memphis Business Journal has the details:

Citing the need to eliminate overcapacity and integrate its now-combined container business, International Paper Co. is shutting down four plants across the country in the next two months.

The plants are located in Fort Smith, Ark., Santa Paula, Calif., Chicago and Solon, Ohio. The company will eliminate a total of 215 jobs, according to an International Paper statement. The plants are a combination of facilities owned by Austin, Texas-based Temple-Inland Inc. and International Paper.

The closings come months after Memphis-based International Paper (NYSE: IP) completed its $4.4 billion acquisition of Temple-Inland, which brought an additional 10,000 employees, 59 box plants, 14 building products plants and seven containerboard mills into IP’s group of 23,000 employees, 12 paper mills and more than 140 box plants on six continents.

Sounds to me like someone is trying to monopolize the paper industry.


Bonus: We don't need corporate America to do any more joining together

Illinois ‘Treads Water’ As Unpaid Bills Top $9 Billion

The headline to this article from Bloomberg claims that the State of Illinois is "treading water," when a more apt metaphor would be that the Land of Lincoln is actually drowning in a sea of red ink:

Illinois’s backlog of unpaid bills has risen to more than $9 billion because of pension costs and falling federal aid, leaving the state “essentially treading water,” Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka said.

While revenue grew from higher personal and corporate taxes, “Illinois’ financial position has not improved,” Topinka said in a report today. The combination of unpaid bills to vendors and Medicaid obligations, estimated at $8.5 billion in January, means payment delays will persist, according to the report.

Illinois is second only to California as the state with the lowest credit grade from Standard & Poor’s. S&P may cut the general-obligation rating from A+, fifth highest, “if there is no progress on structural budget solutions and if Illinois does not address the significant pension liabilities and associated cost pressure,” the company said last week.

While tax increases boosted revenue by about $7 billion, or 3.9 percent in the first three quarters of the fiscal year that began in June, the gains were undercut by the loss of federal funding and financing of pension contributions directly, rather than through bonds as in the past two years, Baar Topinka said.

Democratic Governor Pat Quinn has proposed a voluntary 3 percent increase in pension contributions from current employees and a cut in cost-of-living increases for retirees.

“Bold action” is required to save the retirement systems, the governor told reporters in Chicago April 20. In fiscal 2010, Illinois had the lowest-funded state pension in the U.S., with assets equal to 45.4 percent of projected obligations, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

If you are a state government worker in Illinois or a state government retiree, you probably ought to make plans for the eventual day when the state pension system concedes to reality and implodes.


Bonus: Since Styx is from Chicago, this song seems particularly appropriate

Northwest Community Healthcare (Illinois) Lays Off 104 Workers

More bad news from the health care industry. Here is Crain's Chicago Business with the details:

Northwest Community Healthcare laid off 104 employees this week after the Arlington Heights-based system lost $13.2 million on operations in 2011, the third-straight year of losses.

The job cuts represent about 3 percent of the workforce, said Jackie Speckin, Northwest's director of strategic marketing, who confirmed the layoffs.

Employees were laid off on Monday and Tuesday, she said. Most of the jobs were eliminated at the 496-bed Northwest Community Hospital, where average occupancy fell to 67 percent during the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, from 70 percent during fiscal 2010.

Nothing terribly remarkable there, but check out this passage:

Ms. Speckin blamed the performance on industry trends.

“We're experiencing what every other hospital nationwide is experiencing, and that's a decrease in the amount of inpatient volume,” she said.

A decrease in inpatient volume, eh? Given that the population continues to both grow and the average age is gradually increasing with the graying of the Baby Boomers, why do you suppose that would be? More people losing their health insurance who can't afford hospital stays?

That would be my guess.


Bonus: In light of this story, here is a good sentiment from the late, great Warren Zevon...too bad he didn't manage to avoid it himself

When It Comes To Labor Disputes, There Are No Happy Endings In America Anymore

It's been a constant wonder of mine as I've covered these relentless plant closings/layoffs stories here on TDS--why don't more working people get angry and at least protest when their livelihoods are being destroyed? Perhaps its because they know that at the end of the day the effort will be futile. That point was driven home this past week, as reported by the Chicago Tribune:

A group of about 65 workers who occupied a Goose Island window factory in 2008 have once again locked themselves inside the plant in a desperate move to save their jobs.

California-based Serious Energy said Thursday it is closing the plant's doors and consolidating operations in Colorado and Pennsylvania.

"Ongoing economic challenges in construction and building products, collapse in demand for window products, difficulty in obtaining favorable lease terms, high leasing and utility costs and taxes, and a range of other factors unrelated to labor costs, have compelled Serious to cease production at the Chicago facility," the company said in a statement.

What makes this story particularly depressing is that this is not the first time these workers have been down this particular road:

The layoffs come more than three years after a group of about 200 workers from Republic Windows & Doors organized a six-day sit-in demanding vacation and severance pay after being laid off in December 2008.

The battle drew national media attention. After three days, a settlement was reached. Each union worker received a check for about $6,000 just days after Republic Windows filed for protection under Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Serious Energy bought the 268,000 square foot plant in 2009 with the promise of hiring back the former Republic workers. Leah Fried, a spokeswoman for UE Local 1110, said that the new company never hired back more than 75 of the workers.

The lesson here is quite simple, in an age when labor is cheap and disposable, workers have zero leverage and no hope of saving themselves when bosses decide their jobs are no longer profitable enough. Take heed, because we are rapidly reaching the point where this could happen to any one among us who works for someone else.


Bonus: "We're the first ones to starve, we're the first ones to die...the first ones in line for that pie in the sky"

Psychiatric Patients With No Place to Go But Jail

A few days ago, I posted a story about how because of draconian sentences, America's prisons are being turned into retirement homes. Well, now comes a story from The New York Times about how, thanks to state government budget cuts, they may also be being turned into psychiatric wards:

The sounds of chaos bounce off the dim yellow walls. Everywhere there are prisoners wearing orange, red and khaki jumpsuits. An officer barks out orders as a thin woman tries to sleep on a hard bench in a holding cell. This is a harsh scene of daily life inside what has become the state’s largest de facto mental institution: the Cook County Jail.

About 11,000 prisoners, a mix of suspects awaiting trial and those convicted of minor crimes, are housed at the jail at any one time, which is like stuffing the population of Palos Heights into an eight-block area on Chicago’s South Side. The Cook County sheriff, Tom Dart, estimated that about 2,000 of them suffer from some form of serious mental illness, far more than at the big state-owned Elgin Mental Health Center, which has 582 beds.

Mr. Dart said the system “is so screwed up that I’ve become the largest mental health provider in the state of Illinois.” The situation is about to get worse, according to Mr. Dart and other criminal justice experts. The city plans to shut down 6 of its 12 mental health centers by the end of April, to save an estimated $2 million, potentially leaving many patients without adequate treatment — some of them likely to engage in conduct that will lead to arrests.

“It will definitely have a negative impact on jail populations,” said Mr. Dart, who noted that the number of people coming into the jail with mental health problems was already increasing. “It will have direct consequences for us in my general jail population and some of the problems I have here, because a lot of the people with these issues act out more, as you would expect, so that’s a direct consequence.”

It costs an estimated $143 a day to house a typical detainee in the Cook County Jail. The cost to house someone with serious mental health issues is two to three times that amount. Mr. Dart said that prisoners with mental health problems are in a disproportionate number of fights and make more suicide threats, and managing them takes more resources.

“And then there’s the humane side of it,” he said. “Not treating people with mental illness is bad enough, but treating them like criminals? Please, what have we become?”

Indeed, Mr. Dart, what HAVE we become? I ask myself that question nearly every single day.

7-11 Store Owners: Online Lottery Sales Could Mean Massive Layoffs

It has been apparent for many years that the continuing advancements in technology are no longer contributing to progress in our society but have in fact become a zero sum game. Here is CBS Chicago with the latest details:

Owners of 7-Eleven stores are warning of massive layoffs to come, unless the Illinois Lottery protects them from competition from the online sales that are expected to start this year.

As WBBM Newsradio’s John Cody reports, the franchise owners say they online lottery sales could force them to lay off 7,000 employees statewide.

Joe Rossi, the head of the Chicago franchise owners’ association, estimates lottery sales bring in 30 percent of the business at 7-Elevens, because lottery buyers buy an average of $5 in goods on top of their tickets.

Rossi says he is not trying to block internet lottery sales, just suggesting the lottery find a way to protect 7-Eleven lottery business and jobs.

Rossi is recommending that the state Lottery require players to fill up a Lottery credit card at 7-Elevens – leaving the store owners with their present 5 percent cut of the business – rather than allowing players to gamble without limit on their credit cards on line at home.

Memo to Joe Rossi: nothing personal, but go fuck yourself. In case you haven't noticed, countless millions of factory workers have been losing their jobs for the past couple of generations thanks to technological innovations and globalization. If we collectively were not willing to try and protect the livelihoods of people who actually built something for living, why would we suddenly start caring about 7-Eleven clerks?

How many of the items stocked on the shelves at 7-Eleven are made overseas because it's cheaper? Perhaps, while we are needlessly burdening lottery players just to protect your company, we should also enact high tariffs to bring the jobs back to America destroyed by 7-Eleven's insistance on purchasing those imported goods just to maximize your bottom line. In fact, I'd rather do that since I don't give a flying fuck about a predatory lottery system designed to separate lower income people from money they cannot afford to spend.

Funny how everybody in America is all about singing the praises of the "progress" that technology and globalization supposedly brings until the day comes that it actually affects their own bottom line. Then they suddenly get all butthurt and protectionist on us.


Bonus: "When I win the lottery, I'm gonna buy all the girls on my street a color teevee and a bottle of French perfume"

Chicago Called Most Corrupt City...Ooh Look, Boobies!

A story appeared this past week that caught my eye for the right reasons, but reading it filled me with loathing and disgust for the precisely the wrong reasons. As I've mentioned a number of times before on this blog, I originally hail from the Great State of Illinois, and actually lived within the Chicago city limits for three years after college. For someone who grew up in a small town, the Windy City was a stimulating and exciting place to spend my young adulthood. It still had a reputation for corruption, of course, but in the early-90s era in which Mayor Daley the Younger (and far more articulate) was first elected mayor, that all seemed like a relic of the distant past, no more relevant to my generation than were the riots at the 1968 Democratic convention.

Well, apparently Chicago has not buried its history of corruption, as reported by CBS Chicago.com:

A former Chicago alderman turned political science professor/corruption fighter has found that Chicago is the most corrupt city in the country.

He cites data from the U.S. Department of Justice to prove his case. And, he says, Illinois is third-most corrupt state in the country.

University of Illinois at Chicago professor Dick Simpson, who served as alderman of the 44th Ward in Lakeview from 1971 to 1979, estimates the cost of corruption at $500 million.

It’s essentially a corruption tax on citizens who bear the cost of bad behavior — police brutality, bogus contracts, bribes, theft and ghost payrolling to name a few — and the costs needed to prosecute it.

“We first of all, we have a long history,” Simpson said. “The first corruption trial was in 1869 when alderman and county commissioners were convicted of rigging a contract to literally whitewash City Hall.”

In the Northern District of Illinois, which includes Chicago, there have been a total of 1,531 public corruption convictions since 1976, Simpson found. A distant second is California’s central district in Los Angeles with 1,275 public corruption convictions since 1976, Simpson found.

Statewide, that number hits 1,828. Only California and New York have more, but those states have much higher populations. Per capita, only the District of Columbia and Louisiana have more convictions.

Since the 1970s, four of Illinois’ seven governors have been convicted (Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich). In addition, dozens of Chicago alderman and other city and county public officials have been found guilty, Simpson said.

Corruption, Simpson said, is intertwined with city politics. Simpson found that about a third of sitting alderman since 1973 have been corrupt.

“We have had machine politics since the Great Chicago Fire of 1871,” he said. “Machine politics breeds corruption inevitably.”

Now that is an important story that ought to be read by every resident of the City of the Big Shoulders so maybe they can be stirred to finally take action and do something about ithis appalling state of affairs, right? Well, not withstanding the fact that very few people actually still read these days, the text of this story was wedged on the website page between a column highlighting other stories labelled, "Don't Miss This," with flashy color pictures on one side and an column of intrusive Google ads on the other.

The Don't Miss This stories included:

Remembering Whitney Houston (with a picture of Whitney singing)

Grammys: Who Looked Good? (with a picture of the relentlessly untalented but big-chested, hypocritical Christian singer Katy Perry)

Oscar Nominees (with a picture of some actress I didn't recognize because I rarely go to the movies anymore. Not because I don't like movies but because most of what Hollywood produces these days is pure shit)

Hottest Celebs With Babies (with a picture of Brittany Spears wearing a releaving outfit showing off her cellulite while "singing")

Victoria's Secret Fashion Show (with a picture of a lingerie clad Victoria's Secret model)

The Google ads opposite also had pictures and the text of the article was actually bent around them. There were also links to other serious news stories, but they were down at the bottom of the page where the reader would actually have to search them out and had no associated pictures.

Now I know some will argue that page view volume is the only way these websites can make money, so they deliberately place the most eye-catching links to their other stories where viewers will be most likely to see them. Britain's Globe and Mail newspaper website is particularly notorious for doing this, running a picture-laden, celebrity-driven column of pap chauvinistically labelled, "Femail Today," down the far right column next to every news story. The overall effect is to subtly indicate that a serious news story like the one above is not any more important than the sheer fluff that is being otherwise highlighted.

I had a cyber conversation the other day on an online forum in which the subject turned to whether the Internet is now serving to destroy people's attention spans even more so than television had already been doing for a couple of generations. Thinking about it, I realized I myself have had a problem with the distracting effects of the Web. I've been an avid book reader my whole life, but I've become so used to clicking from story to story online just long enough to get the gist before moving on that I've noticed my patience for sitting down and reading a serious work of fiction or nonfiction for an hour or two is not the same as it used to be. If that is what is happening to someone with the level of concentration it takes to be a writer, and I am actually aware that it's happening, what corrosive effects are the countless hours of Internet viewing having on the critical thinking skills of those who read books rarely if at all?

I don't think you have to look too hard to see what effect our mass distraction is having on our culture as a whole. The infantile rhetoric spewing forth from the Republican presidential primary campaign and the fact that Obama's approval ratings have been soaring lately despite his manifest failure to keep any of his campaign promises are strong indicators of a society that has completely lost its ability to think critically.

Anyway, food for thought. As for Chicago, it sounds like my former place of residence is in deep do-do. Maybe someday, someone who lives there will give more of a shit about the endemic local corruption than they do about who looked good at the fucking Grammys.


Bonus: Tift Merritt is the anti-Katy Perry

Idiocracy Porn: Illinois Governor Takes the "Cinnamon Challenge"

Though I haven't resided in the great state of Illinois in nearly two decades, I have been perversely fascinated by what an utter basket case my home state has become in recent years. The state's finances are absolutely out of control, unemployment is among the highest in the nation and four of the state's previous seven governors have ended up wearing prison jumpsuits.

I would have thought after the embarrassing spectacle that the previous governor, Rod Blagojevich, had made out himself that his successor might want to avoid ever doing anything to cause him to be seen in a similar light. Sadly, no. Instead, Governor Pat Quinn decided for some bizarre reason to go on the radio last week and take the "Cinnamon Challenge."

For those not familiar with this particular Internet sensation, here is a brief introduction to the phenomenon from Mother Nature Network:

If someone can explain the appeal of the cinnamon challenge, can they clue in the rest of us? The dastardly dare that has the Internet aflutter involves the task of eating a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, without water, in under a minute.

What could be so tough about consuming a mouthful of this innocuous-seeming spice? If cinnamon inspires thoughts of comforting apple pie and cozy cinnamon rolls, switch gears and consider Atomic Fireballs, Lava Hot Cinnamon Balls, and Hot Tamales. Cinnamon is potent, as evidenced by the reactions recorded in many a cinnamon-challenge YouTube video – coughing, choking, gagging, vomiting, crying, cursing and general signs of severe discomfort.

Sounds like a perfectly stupid, but otherwise harmless activity, right? Well, maybe not so harmless:

Parenting experts recommend keeping spices out of reach from children. One of the threats to children who play in the spice cabinet is cinnamon, which when ingested can cause severe burning of the mouth and throat, requiring immediate medical attention. The burning may be so severe that the child can suffer from swelling of the mouth or throat, blocking access to air and potentially leading to death.

Obviously infants aren’t participating in the dare, and it's highly doubtful we'll witness an infant cinnamon challenge trend, but it goes to show that cinnamon is a formidable flavoring. All one needs to see is a few “cinnamon challenge fail” videos on the Web to view the effect on teens and young adults when the powder is inhaled — which is pretty much inevitable following the gasps that occur upon the initial burning. Immediate coughing and choking are de rigeuer.

In many cases, the coughing is so severe that the challenge has difficulty catching his breath. For anyone suffering from asthma or COPD, this can be very serious. And in fact, ground cinnamon can lead to a bronchial constriction — according to the University of Michigan Health System — and that can be life threatening.

Cinnamon also contains as essential oil called cinnamal, which can act as an allergen in a fair amount of people. Those who are allergic to cinnamon can suffer from contact dermatitis — and according to the University of Maryland Medical Center, cinnamon can also cause a severe allergic reaction that can lead to anaphylactic shock. We can only hope that someone who knows they are allergic to cinnamon would politely decline the challenge; but for someone who wasn’t aware of the existence or severity of an allergy, the results could be … challenging.

So, can the cinnamon challenge kill you? Although no accounts of death by cinnamon have been reported, there are indeed risks — and it seems only a matter of time until the challenge delivers a fatal blow to some unsuspecting teen.

In other words, the Cinnamon Challenge is not something that responsible adults, let alone a state governor ought to be encouraging. In fact, school districts around the country have been warning parents about the risks of this fad. Alas, Governor Quinn is not one to set a good example, as reported by the Chicago Sun Times:

Gov. Pat Quinn may have gotten a chilly reaction to his State of the State speech this week, but the Democrat warmed things up Friday by taking down his spiciest obstacle of the year.

The governor swallowed a spoonful of cinnamon at the request of WGN-AM’s Jonathon Brandmeier while doing a guest appearance on his radio show in a stunt that has been appropriately titled the “Cinnamon Challenge.”

The old stunt, which is difficult to pull off without water, has gotten new life online as people post their attempts on YouTube. Add Quinn’s effort to the growing list.

“I want the record to state that I did not kill him, if anything happened,” Brandmeier said before Quinn swallowed the cinnamon.

The governor survived the challenge — but did take a swig of bottled water immediately after taking down the cinnamon.

“The will of the people will be the law of the land,” he said triumphantly — albeit a bit hoarse.

“This guy’s unbelievable!” Brandmeier shouted. “I don’t believe what you just did. The governor! I bow before you!”

In reading that, the first question that immediately comes to mind is: why, for fuck's sake? I understand that politicians are always looking for ways to connect to Joe and Jane Six Pack, as they condescendingly call them. But have we really sunk to such a low level that a 63-year-old alleged adult human being feels the need to stoop to FAIL Blog-type antics in order to appeal to the voters?

Nevermind, I already know the answer to that question.


Bonus: It's just a matter of time

America's Most Miserable Cities, 2012

image: The Machesney Park Mall, Rockford, Illinois...yesterday and today

The new Forbes list of America's Most Miserable Cities is out. Here is Yahoo Real Estate with the details:

Miami is a playground for the rich and famous. Celebrities flock to parties at South Beach clubs and then return to their $10 million mansions in Miami Beach and Key Biscayne. It’s a leading city in culture, finance and international trade. But away from the glitz and glamor, many ordinary Miamians are struggling.

A crippling housing crisis has cost multitudes of residents their homes and jobs. The metro area has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country and workers face lengthy daily commutes. Add it all up and Miami takes the top spot in our ranking of America’s Most Miserable Cities.

The most famous way to gauge misery is the Misery Index developed by economist Arthur Okun in the 1960s, which combines unemployment and inflation. Our take on misery is based on the things that people complain about on a regular basis.

We looked at 10 factors for the 200 largest metro areas and divisions in the U.S. Some are serious, like violent crime, unemployment rates, foreclosures, taxes (income and property), home prices and political corruption. Other factors we included are less weighty, like commute times, weather and how the area’s pro sports teams did. While sports, commuting and weather can be considered trivial by many, they can be the determining factor in the level of misery for a significant number of people. One tweak to this year’s list: we swapped out sales tax rates for property tax rates. Miami would have finished No. 1 under the old methodology as well.

Miami has local company in misery on our list: the West Palm Beach metropolitan division ranks fourth and Fort Lauderdale is seventh. Both areas have been hit hard by the housing crises.

Michigan’s troubled duo of Detroit and Flint clock in at No. 2 and No. 3 among the most miserable cities. The cities have been reeling for decades due to the decline of the U.S. auto industry and in recent years have been demolishing houses to change their city landscapes. Detroit has closed schools and laid off police, while Michigan appointed an emergency manager last year to take over Flint’s budget and operations. Detroit and Flint rank No. 1 and No. 3 when it comes to violent crime, and unemployment over the past three years in both communities has also been among the worst in the U.S.

Last year’s most miserable city, Stockton, ranks No. 11 this year. Stockton got a boost as housing prices have stabilized to some degree after a 45% drop between 2006 and 2008. They also benefited from our replacement of sales tax rates with property taxes in the methodology (Stockton would have finished No. 6 under the old methodology). Stockton still has plenty of problems, though. It ranks among the country’s six worst when it comes to unemployment, foreclosures and violent crime.

The Top 10 List is below, with details for each one at the link:

10. Warren, Michigan

9. Rockford, Illinois

8. Toledo, Ohio

7. Fort Lauderdale, Florida

6. Chicago, Illinois

5. Sacramento, California

4. West Palm Beach, Florida

3. Flint, Michigan

2. Detroit, Michigan

1. Miami, Florida

Interesting that two cities in which I used to reside, Chicago (6) and Rockford (9) made the list. Perhaps that is why I am such a sunny personality. I chronicled Rockford's descent into hell last May 23rd in my post, "Worst City in America" -- How Rampant Globalization Transformed Rockford, Illinois." I'm sure it must be cold comfort to the citizens of Rockford that eight other cities have passed them up in their misery.


Bonus: "They say misery loves company. We could start a company...and make misery"

Jane Addams's Hull House Charity Closes; 300 Employees Laid Off

One of the sadder stories to arise from the ongoing slow motion economic collapse was reported Friday when it was announced that the Hull House, the 19th century charity formed by the famed Chicago icon, Jane Addams, is closing down. Here is the Washington Post with the details:

Hull House, the Chicago social services organization founded more than 120 years ago by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams, closed Friday after running out of money.

The agency said the poor economy resulted in more demand for its services but also made it harder to raise money to cover its costs. Hull House has been providing child care, job training, housing assistance and other services for 60,000 people a year in the Chicago area.

The agency had announced plans to close in the spring, but Friday’s shutdown was unexpected, striking some 300 employees with a devastating and unexpected blow. They received layoff notices and final paychecks and then spent the day packing their belongings and saying tearful good-byes. Many said they were startled to learn their insurance ended almost two weeks ago.

“It’s been my life,” said Dianne Turner, who spent 25 years teaching families in Chicago housing projects how to break the cycle of poverty. “It wasn’t about the pay. It was about seeing a family go from feeling hopeless to being hopeful and feeling like they can do things.”Chicago’s Hull House, founded by Jane Addams, closes doors after more than 120 years

Turner said she knows what it’s like to live in the projects and dream of something better. She got her first job as a teenager through Hull House and said the organization helped teach her the value of education, how to save money and how to be a leader.

Founded in 1889, Hull House was the best known of the 400 settlement houses in the United States in the early 1900s. The settlements were designed to provide services to immigrants and the poor while uplifting them through culture, education and recreation. At its peak, Hull House served more than 9,000 people a week, offering medical help, an art gallery, citizenship classes, a gardening club and a gym with sports programs.

Of course, the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression is about the very worst time for this to happen. And note, too, the completely shabby way that the employees were treated. Jane Addams must be rolling over in her grave. The fact that this happened the same week as Obama's State of the Union speech in the very city he calls home could not be more fittingly symbolic.

Just Another Sad Tale of Small Town America

Back during the 2008 presidential campaign, Veep candidate Sarah Palin got a lot of mileage by hyping up "small town values," and insinuating that people who live in the rural areas of the country are somehow more American that those who reside in and around the big cities. As someone who grew up in a small town and have lived most of my adult life in urban areas, I found that line of reasoning particularly daffy. Beyond the offensiveness of questioning the patriotism of people just because of where they live, it was also incredibly dumb from a politics standpoint. For there is no quicker way to consign yourself to the dustbin of history as a politician than purporting to stand up for a constituency that is rapidly dying out.

Unless they are lucky enough to be located in or near a big tourist destination, America's small towns and cities have been slowly decaying for a couple of generations now. My own hometown of Freeport, Illinois, reached peak population in the 1970 census and has been slowly losing ground since then as college educated young people like me have deserted the place because there were few good jobs to be had. I often wonder what my life would have been like had I been able to secure a decent job back home after college. As much as I have enjoyed the excitement of residing first in Chicago and then just outside of DC, and having the opportunity to travel to more than two dozen foreign countries, the long dead ideal of small town living does still hold some appeal for me.

As a result, the recent article below from a local television station in my home state struck a particular chord with me:

There was a time when the general store was the beating heart of the rural American town. Friday, another town lost its heart. Huebotter's Store closed for good.

Now many are wondering how they can pump life back into their town.

Things are done the old-fashioned way at Huebotter's.

"I'm noticing that small-town America seems like it's drying up," said Guy Inman.

People here buy just what they need.

"We kept holding off, praying that we would not have to close," said Candace Ellis.

For years, Ellis helped her mother-in-law Joyce order groceries for the store. Joyce's father Paul Huebotter opened the store back in 1928.

What's inside shows all the history there, pieces of a simpler time, a different life. And for those here, Huebotter's is their community.

"The store is viable. It made a living. But there's nobody here to take it and put their heart and soul in it and run it," said Robert Inman.

Inman is a local farmer. He said he will soon have to drive about 30 miles to the nearest store, making small-town living a thing of the past.

The decision to close came about three weeks ago but the concerns had been around for a while.

The store wasn't making the money to stay open.

"Joyce has been here literally her whole life, ever since she was born and her father started it," said Ellis.

With a heavy heart Joyce Ellis sat, watching the time tick by, unable to talk about the doors closing Friday.

Just to recap, this store survived the Great Depression, World War Two, the Cold War, the oil shocks of the 1970s and well into the Internet age. And now it's gone, along with the traditional American small town lifestyle in general.

But beyond just my own stuffy nostalgia, a question that needs to be asked is what are people who will now have to drive 30 miles just to get their groceries (and perhaps their mail when the post office closes) going to do when gasoline becomes unaffordable in a few years? As I wrote back on January 13th in my post, "Riding the School Bus May Be About to Become a Thing of the Past, Part 2," those who live the farthest from the main centers of population and government services are the ones who need to do a crash course on becoming self-sufficient. Because the day is soon coming when they are simply not going to have any other choice.


Bonus: Sorry John, but that world doesn't exist anymore

Another Globalization Blow to My Home Town

image: The Lincoln Mall in Freeport, Illinois. Built the year I was born, the mall was anchored by Sears and JC Penney when I was growing up and along with the downtown business district was the city's prime shopping destination. Like Freeport's downtown, it is now virtually abandoned.

Back on August 12th of last year in my post, "Friday Rant: A Half-Century at the Local Tire Factory in a Globalizing World", I wrote about the history of the factory in my hometown where my father spent his entire career as a middle manager. The factory in question is currently operating at about one-fourth the capacity it was when my father retired, and just recently ownership locked out the workers to win more wage concessions from the union.

Well, the hits just keep on coming for my hometown of Freeport, Illinois, as reported this week by the Freeport Journal Standard:

As the plan to phase out roughly 170 jobs at the Sensata Technologies/Honeywell plant in Freeport continues to move ahead, local workforce officials are meeting with affected staff in an effort to keep them employed in this region.

“We want to make the transition for them as quick and pain-free as possible,” said Stephenson County Board Chairman John Blum, who is a member of the Local Workforce Investment Board (LWIB). “It’s definitely upsetting a lot of lives.”

In early 2011, Sensata announced it would be closing its local plant at the end of 2012, and relocating the jobs there to a plant in China. Normal operations will continue at the Freeport plant until then, but roughly 170 jobs are being phased out gradually.

About 25 employees at the plant are expected to be laid off over the next six weeks. However, many of these employees have chosen to extend their employment at the local plant by moving to another production line there. Still, all the plant employees will be let go by late 2012, at which time the facility will be decommissioned.

I really have one question for the American management officials who make decisions like this. How the fuck do you sleep at night? Seriously, I really want to know. Has corporate America been completely taken over by psychopaths at this point?

Freeport is a small city of around 25,000 mostly blue collar souls who were already struggling from the loss of much of the town's manufacturing base. This action is going to be a real kick in the nuts for the city.

Sadly, this was all predicted back in 1994 by the late James Goldsmith, who ironically was the financier whose attempted buyout of the Goodyear corporation in 1986 caused my father to be laid off for about six months. His subsequent appearance on the Charlie Rose show a few months after NAFTA was passed in 1994 is a rare example of must-see teevee. Goldsmith very presciently warned that globalization was going to destroy the lives of working people in the United States, even as Rose pooh-poohs the idea.

I've posted this video before, but it deserves to be spread as far and widely as possible:

Government Waste Porn: $45 Million Down the Drain in Illinois Homeland Security Boondoggle

The sad fact is that during much of this past decade, while the federal debt levels were exploding to previously unprecedented heights, you could get the green light from the feds on just about any dumbass project as long as you tied it somehow into combating terrorism. The latest example of just how all those gobs of money thrown at Homeland Security were being pissed down the sewer was reported the other day by the Chicago Sun Times:

Project Shield was supposed to make citizens safer. But in the end, the $45-million Homeland Security program more resembled a disaster, wasting taxpayers’ dollars and failing to make a single citizen more secure.

The failed Cook County initiative was replete with equipment that failed to work, missing records and untrained first responders according to a report by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The report, to be released Monday but obtained by The Sun-Times and NBC5 News, found “millions of tax dollars may have been wasted.”

Under Project Shield, two police squad cars in all 128 Cook County suburbs were to be fitted with cameras capable of feeding live video to a central command. In addition, fixed mounted cameras were to be installed to feed pictures in case of a terrorist attack or emergency in Cook County.

A six-month investigation by the IG found “equipment was not working, was removed, or could not be properly operated.”

Investigators visited 15 municipalities between January and June last year and found “missing records, improper procurement practices, unallowable costs and unaccountable inventory items.”

Funny how no one connected with this boondoggle thought to question why it should cost $45 million dollars to set up some stupid surveillance cameras. Surely, they could have moseyed on down to the local Radio Shack and gotten a better fucking deal than this.

The report goes on:

Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) grants were funneled from DHS to the State and on to Cook County. The report concludes, “FEMA did not adequately ensure that the State of Illinois effectively monitored Cook County’s expenditures...”

And questions remain. “Both FEMA and the State need to improve the review process and perform better oversight,” according to the IG, adding proposed actions to better monitor how funds are spent “remains unresolved and open.”

Another open question might be why no one is sitting in jail for having perpetrated this act of criminal stupidity. But we can't have actual accountability in this country because then there would be no one left to make such idiotic decisions in the first place.


Bonus: Lewis Black isn't a big a fan of FEMA

More Housing Crash Evidence: Building Permits Continue to Fall in Exurban Kane County, Illinois

(Hat tip to reader defshepard for alerting me to this article).

For those of you who may not be familiar with the Chicago area, Kane County, Illinois, which lies more than 30 miles from the downtown Chicago Loop, is one of those far flung exurban areas that built up rapidly during the housing boom era when suburbanites fled farther and farther from the city centers in search of a cheap lot on a cul-de-sac in which they could build their dream McMansions. The fact that these artificial communities were even more car-centric and thereby vulnerable to oil price shocks than even traditional, closer in suburbs never entered their minds. Not surprisingly, in most places the subsequent housing crash hit the exurbs the hardest.

It would stand to reason then that if there is ever going to be a recovery in housing it will have take root in the exurbs at some point. As this article about Kane Country from Sun Times Media shows, however, no such recovery is evident:

Building in Kane County is continuing to slide.

In 2011, the county issued 1,335 building permits from January through November, compared to 1,487 for the same period in 2010.

The drop-off is not as extreme as some years have been since the economy started struggling, but the trend continues as the economy continues to suffer, Kane’s Director of Development and Community Services Mark VanKerkhoff said this past week.

“Like everywhere else, we’re probably down from five years ago,” he said.

For November, the county issued 128 permits, compared to 169 in November 2010. The drop is not too significant, but it does continue the trend, he said. The total number of building permits issued annually has been on a sharp decline for about seven years, he said.

Even more telling, however, is this quote:

The number of permits was significantly higher when the county was in boom times for building. The county could typically see between 400 and 500 permit applications to build single-family homes, VanKerkhoff said. As construction came to a halt, those numbers began to dip significantly.

About three or four years ago, the number of building permit applications for single-family homes barely topped 100. Now, they are routinely fewer than 75, he said. This year, they came in with 41 single-family home building permit applications.

Part of the reason for the decline is that the focus of the market has changed. More people are interested in rental units, since they cannot always afford to purchase housing, VanKerkhoff said.

"Can't always" afford to purchase single family housing? Looks to me like it is rapidly approaching the point where NOBODY can afford to purchase single family housing.

There is a very simple reason why single family home construction has virtually halted in places like Kane County. Few high paying jobs are being created, which means there is little expansion in the number of people who can afford to build a new McMansion anymore. But few people understand that basic fact, as evidenced by the concluding paragraphs of the article:

VanKerkhoff mentioned that the building department has spent more time looking at property maintenance ordinances. A county task force was recently formed to look at ordinances on the books, including how the county addresses abandoned construction projects, and the application process. The task force also is looking at ordinances determining how many vehicles can be left on a property.

The task force began to make sure that ordinances designed to protect the county during boom times were not deterring builders from doing business in Kane now that the economy is suffering, task force chairman Mike Donahue said.

I hate to tell you this, Mr. Donahue, but you could remove all of the building ordinances and allow the builders to cut whatever corners they want and it still wouldn't make any difference because they have no customers. If people can't afford to build new houses at a time when a 30-year, fixed rate mortgage is going for 4% interest, weakening a few building ordinances isn't going to change that basic fact.


Bonus: Looks like the exurbs may die before Chicago does