Did Machin get red pilled?

[piezoe]

Then artifically subsidizing an industry that is dying out? Coal mines are going to close down on their own as we move to cleaner energy naturally so passing legislation to artificailly subsidize it is a waste of taxpayer's money. Rather then let the workers get canned and go on welfare and see icnreased poverty and crime in those areas, offer retrianing for other careers and incentivize other businesses to come into WVA.

Yes it is cheaper than just letting a couple of thousand people move on to benefits and welfare. That is much cheaper than throwing money to keep it afloat so Manchin can win another election.

I don't think anyone is suggesting subsidizing the coal industry directly, except of course those congressmen from steel or coal producing states. The rational thing to do is to support miners directly, the ones put out of work, and provide opportunity for re-training in other industries. In a rational capitalist economy, the ideal is to let supply and demand determine where financial resources flow, whenever possible -- in some areas of the economy it is impossible, medical care for example.

However any good capitalist will suck at any teat available. That's where the role of government comes in. To protect society from capitalism's pernicious tendencies, while at the same time assuring a healthy economic environment that capitalism can flourish in. We are only in trouble when either the People are, in aggregate, uneducated, or the capitalists control government. The U.S. is in some danger of both of these threats. The way to handle this is to recognize where the threats are coming from and move to counter them. We are dependent on our Congress to do that.

 

[El OchoCinco]

I don't think anyone is suggesting subsidizing the coal industry directly, except of course those congressmen from steel or coal producing states. The rational thing to do is to support miners directly, the ones put out of work, and provide opportunity for re-training in other industries. In a rational capitalist economy, the ideal is to let supply and demand determine where financial resources flow, whenever possible -- in some areas of the economy it is impossible, medical care for example.

However any good capitalist will suck at any teat available. That's where the role of government comes in. To protect society from capitalism's pernicious tendencies, while at the same time assuring a healthy economic environment that capitalism can flourish in. We are only in trouble when either the People are, in aggregate, uneducated, or the capitalists control government. The U.S. is in some danger of both of these threats. The way to handle this is to recognize where the threats are coming from and move to counter them. We are dependent on our Congress to do that.

based on the subsidies handed out to the agricultural sector and auto sector etc.. we dont have a free capitalist system where the government is concered. If we did... GM and FORD would have been closed a long time ago and we would have less investment banks repeating the same mistakes. So I dont put it past Manchin to demand payments to the coal industry to keep it afloat artifically to protect his votes.

 

[piezoe]

based on the subsidies handed out to the agricultural sector and auto sector etc.. we dont have a free capitalist system where the government is concered. If we did... GM and FORD would have been closed a long time ago and we would have less investment banks repeating the same mistakes. So I dont put it past Manchin to demand payments to the coal industry to keep it afloat artifically to protect his votes.

I have to respectfully disagree here... There seems to me a fundamental difference. In the case of the auto industries, -- we didn't do much for Ford because they had arranged for big credit lines before the financial crisis hit -- we did rescue GM by agreeing to take stock in return for bailing the company out of bankruptcy and saving thousands of jobs.. (The Treasury, not the Central Bank, held the stock and later sold it. See the TARP accounting at Treasury.com The U.S lost money on GM, however overall there was a positive return on the TARP program.) At the time of TARP, the auto industry was still seen as having a viable future. No one saw saving GM as trying to save a dying industry.

In the case of coal, the market is clearly declining due to worldwide pressure to limit CO2 emissions. It is natural to think of helping coal as going in the wrong direction. Why would we want to do that? As I mentioned, however, Coal remains important to the steel industry, and therefore, for the foreseeable future, there will remain a base demand for coal. In the meantime we should help the coal miner put out of work due to a declining coal market. It won't be that many. Big coal is a much less labor intensive operation than it was in the 1920s.

Yes, appellation poverty will still be with us regardless. The coal industry flourished in impoverished parts of West Virginia. With the coal industry in decline, parts of West Virginia will still be impoverished. There is an old fashioned solution to this kind of problem. It's called "education." Those who see labor costs as a threat to profits will never be enthusiastic supporters of using federal dollars to create first class public education with small class sizes. A friend of mine's grandmother, who was a communist, told my friend, "America was built on cheap labor." There is some truth in that! When you hear politicians decrying federal interference in local schools they might as well be saying, "Cheap labor has made America Great. Let's not change a good thing!" But, of course they can't say that. So instead they champion local control of schools. That's very popular. It's also an efficient way of preserving ignorance; thus cheap labor...