I know we're not allowed to say it, but this seems really FUCKING DUMB

[Blue_Tires]

Awaiting Trump's coal comeback, miners reject retraining

WAYNESBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing.

He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course.

”I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner.

Despite broad consensus about coal’s bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.

Trump has promised to revive coal by rolling back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants.

“I have a lot of faith in President Trump,” Sylvester said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-effect-coal-retraining-insight/awaiting-trumps-coal-comeback-miners-reject-retraining-idUSKBN1D14G0

We all know this story will end in tragedy, and sadly we all know Fox News will tell him it's all the fault of the Dems...

[guillaumeb]

1. Buggy building is also offered at the career training center. eom

[Kirk Lover]

2. This man deserves to be unemployed...I'm sorry but he does. WHO gets offered a free

training program covering an array of fields and he settles into the one that hasn't really worked out and is of the past? Why the hell are they even offering that in the first place?????????

Why can't we say that this is utterly fucking STUPID AND FOOLISH. This is just BEYOND.

[whathehell]

31. The Coal job training should not even be offered

...and I don't think the miners should be punished with unemployment for being gullible...I think it's sad.

[Kirk Lover]

35. In this world when someone is offering you help you also need to help

yourself which clearly this man is not doing. If you do things...such as taking a coal mining class..... which is opposite of your own self interest then you can only blame yourself for your failure.

[whathehell]

38. I disagree..

Some people are naive and others more knowledgeable -- The latter have a moral responsibility to inform the former rather than mislead or exploit them..

[Boomerproud]

41. The former are obviously not listening to the latter.

How is being willfully obtuse being misled or exploited?

[whathehell]

63. Lol..

You assume "the former" were all anti-Trump when 54 % of college educated white males voted FOR Trump

You're also terribly sure the Trump voters were being "willfully misled"...Right.


Sounds like you need someone to judge and blame. Good luck with that.

[Caliman73]

42. This line of thinking is very similar to what conservatives say about anyone on GA

similar to "why don't you just move to where the jobs are?" or "if you really wanted a job, you'd take a job doing anything".

Offering the coal training job was a dumb move by the government. If coal mining is what you have been doing, and you can get trained to do it better, you are going to choose the path of least resistance. You should not be penalized for that, but unrealistic options for training should not be offered either.

[iluvtennis]

52. Agree 100%

[Coventina]

3. Not just dumb, willfully so, and if he has kids, incredibly damaging to them.

[world wide wally]

27. Fuck all of 'em

They just want to fuck us with their filthy coal anyway.

[pstokely]

61. he probably thinks his kids will be coal miners

how many of his relatives died of black lung?

[ThatGuyJerome]

4. Coal

Coal definitely has ZERO future. But I do think it should be slowly fazed out...a lot of people did lose their job and didn't have anything to fall back on. If we're going to take these jobs away have an alternative fuel plant or factory near the coal mines so people can slowly shift from one profession to the other

[lunatica]

6. Great idea if only the Republicans would accept Climate Change and do something useful

But there's a fat chance that'll happen. They'd have to give up kissing their oil overlords in the ass just to get funding.

[Squinch]

12. That was a plan that Hillary had ready to roll out on the day she took office. She had

companies lined up who had agreed to open plants in what were to be renewable fuel opportunity zones.

Instead, though, the assholes in these areas voted for the guy who let them feel fabulous about their racism and sexism.

[Rollo]

23. Oh, Coal has a great future....

...as a stocking stuffer for all those naughty boys and girls in Congress...

[MontanaMama]

32. The blame goes to the Gopers

who own the coal companies. These corporations kicked their own workers to the curb in favor of mechanization and kept right on going. There is no alt fuel plant down the street from the local coal mine. These folks continue to vote against their own best interests by electing politicians who lie to them by saying that liberals are taking their jobs blah blah blah. I suggest these people stop watching Faux "news" and begin voting for Dems who support clean energy policy. "We" took nothing from them.

[Blue_true]

51. The free market is making that decision.

A large electric power plant operator is going to take the hundreds of millions per year it saves on parts, cleaning, waste abatement by using natural gas or clean energy over coal. That is reality, you can put that in neutral because some people won't train for future jobs that will stay around.

[Blue_true]

55. Did the government put auto plants in Detroit when the Japanese and Koreans

started taking large chunks of the market? Did the government put plants in Silicon Valley when the Japanese firms took away memory chips from US firms?

Industrial change happens.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Are there open positions for these other roles in his area? Is training paid? Is he having to

consider the possibility of moving for a job and maybe bringing a family with him, or moving and hoping to find something to support people back home? It's easy to make other people's choices for them.

[lunatica]

7. He'll have to do all those things you listed anyway

I doubt he's doing anything more than wishful thinking with his choice.

[Blue_Tires]

11. I'm not trying to make his decisions for him

But we all know two indisputable truths:

1. The sun is setting on coal...

2. Trump has continually exploited his working-class idiot base for the suckers they are...

Not hard to do the math

[whathehell]

36. Since you''re criticizing what

you refer to as his "working class idiot base", it's worth noting that 54 percent of White College Educated Men voted for Trump..Looks like the idiocy transcended class.

[cwydro]

50. I know what youre saying.

Sadly, I saw a lot of shitgibbon yard signs on some of the wealthiest lawns in my city.

Bankers, doctors, professional athletes...

But it seems to be a DU thing to blame this horror on the poor working class.

Kind of a shame.

[whathehell]

62. Yep..THe fact that 54 % of college educated white men voted for Trump

should get a bit more play.

[Blue_Tires]

67. They're morons too...

The college educated folks have a bigger cushion since they likely aren't working in a dying industry one missed paycheck away from poverty...

[whathehell]

73. Agreed.

but the poster I was responding to blamed it all on "the idiotic working class".

[cwydro]

82. All they care about is their bank account.

Sad, but true.

[Glorfindel]

8. I have a lot of faith in President Trump, Sylvester said. I can't manage any pity for the guy.

If he's that stupid - or maybe just that downright evil - maybe he deserves the "tragedy" waiting for him down the road. There were probably many blacksmiths and buggy whip manufacturers who had a lot of faith in President McKinley, too. Coal is filthy. I remember growing up in the late 40's - early 50's in the southern Appalachians, everyone heated with coal and the industries had tall smokestack belching coal smoke 24/7/365. Everywhere you walked in our little town, there was a faint crunch of coal debris under your feet, and a black pall hung over the place (it's in a valley where two rivers come together to form a third). You couldn't hang out your washing, which was good news for my parents, who owned and operated a dry cleaners/laundry. Things are much, much better now. I don't want coal to be revived. I'd love to see it outlawed as a power source. Also, the local poultry-processing plant no longer dumps entrails, feathers, etc., directly into the river. That has been very good for the rafting and kayaking industry, but tragic for catfish. There used to be real monsters caught downstream from the "chicken plant" effluvium discharge pipes.

[onethatcares]

13. Yummmmm

effluent fed catfish........my favorite

[elleng]

9. 'DUMB' is a term way over-used.

We should recognize the failure of U.S. educational systems to inform the public, for purposes of choosing elected representatives as well as career paths.

This failure has been, imo, deliberately manufactured by repugs, resulting in vast swaths of the U.S. populace in being IGNORANT.

[Blue_Tires]

15. I've seen highly educated people still do stupid shit

and you have, too...

Some people just let their ideology overrule rational thought...

[elleng]

17. True.

[D23MIURG23]

30. F that. Stop blaming teachers for people who refuse to use their brains.

People in our society have unprecedented access to information. No one can make them understand it if they are determined not to.

[B Stieg]

33. As a teacher (35 years, HS and college), I thank you.

No matter how much you try, some horses just won't drink the water!

[elleng]

49. 'Horses,' I guess,

STUDENTS, that's another thing.

AND EARLY education's been victimized for a long time, resulting in under-achieving HS and college students.

[B Stieg]

65. So, it's completely systemic?

Grow up.

[elleng]

72. Largely systemic, imo.

Some may believe in inherent evil, but I'm not one of those. @ 72 years of age, I think I have grown up.

[elleng]

48. NOT blaming teachers, blaming the systems they work for,

that's the political system.

[underpants]

34. Yes ellen but you also have to understand (if you don't already) this culture. Economic culture.

Coal miners in the hey day made crazy money. $50-70K in the 70's but they supported and extended family. Women didn't work never would. Boys quit school at 16 to go to work in the mines. If you had Dad and a son in the mine you were set. Every minor supported Mom, (retired hopefully) Dad, any sister and her family and sisters-in-law, cousins etc. "The Hunger Games" depicted this very well actually. Produce or everyone dies.

I spent a lot of time on the West Virginia turnpike before they completed I64. Really nice pickups at a shack. Bad choices but there was always more money coming. My family is from WV but Huntington "city folk" not coal country.

[janx]

44. I think Sylvester is going to escape!

He's going to break from the culture because he has to.

[onethatcares]

10. good thing

there weren't any courses in Solar Power. Geez, the sun goes in at night and if it wasn't for the urfendals it wouldn't come back up in the morning.

(i made up the word "urfendals&quot

[keithbvadu2]

43. Really good word.... Bigly good.

[crosinski]

14. Sort of like seeing Darwin's Theory of Evolution happening right before your eyes.

It's annoying little choices like this that mess things up for your entire gene pool.

[eppur_se_muova]

16. He should have trained as a blacksmith.

At least it's an interesting hobby, even if you can't get paid for it.

[drray23]

18. not exactly true.

sure, they arent many jobs openings as a blacksmith but some still do make a living at it. I know a few. They do custom work (tools, iron railings, gates, etc..) , also typically work as farrier as well. I get your point however, its highly unlikely you plan your future on a career in blacksmithing..

[eppur_se_muova]

19. Guess I should have said "even when".

I haven't quite joined the Alabama Forge Council yet, but I've been through the introduction. So yeah, I know some of the more serious practitioners can make money at it.

[drray23]

20. cool. i have been thinking about setting up a forge

I had some intro to blacksmithing years ago thru a friend who was a blacksmith. Now that ive got the land (a farm with land and outbuildings) I am thinking about setting up a forge. Looking around on ebay for a small forge/champion blower setup. I have been looking at taking classes at the virginia institute of blacksmithing

[GeorgeGist]

21. The smart ones leave...

ASAP.

[dlk]

22. The Sailors on Whaling Ships Said Something Similar...

[mythology]

24. Change is hard

This is the job that paid his dad and granddad. It defined their families. And there was long (and continues in the Republican party) a bias against education as making men weak and less manly than physical labor. There can also be a self confidence issue where maybe he thinks he isn't smart enough for those jobs.

Yes it's an economically stupid decision. But it might be because they aren't in a position to make a better one.

[janx]

39. It is hard, yes, but it's part of growing up. This guy is young.

Some people never master it very well. I am confident that Sylvester will change his mind because he will have to. His great adventure will then begin.

[Thor_MN]

25. JFC... This is a Monty Python sketch...

[underpants]

26. I can't wait for Mike Rowe's beer enabled comment on this

I just can't wait.

[TEB]

28. And he has a lot of faith in trump

That statement says quite a bit. but then so do I have a lot of faith in trump. That in he is sure to screw something up on a daily basis.

[Nevernose]

29. I suspect faith in President Trump is code for

“Guns.”

Fools like this vote for one issue: guns. Some of them are probably also against abortion and gay marriage, but mostly it’s about the guns.

Jobs and economics and self-preservation doesn’t even enter the equation.

[tblue37]

57. And racism & misogyny. nt

[thegoose]

37. Well, having faith in the orange shame of the nation

Makes 'em pretty fucking stupid. The only things he's tried to do (and failed at, heh heh) are things the country doesn't want: repeal Obamacare because he hates that uppity so and so, and give massive tax cuts to the rich.

As the saying goes, he wouldn't piss on his mother if she was on fire.

[janx]

40. He doesn't know any better at this point.

My guess is that after he comes to the real terms of his predicament, he will light out on his own and get "retrained" in one form or another.

We don't know what he has tried and failed at. It's easy to construct stereotypes. The best thing that could happen to this young man now is travel and survival. Ten or more years from now, his hindsight will be interesting.

[keithbvadu2]

45. Trump is right about this: Americans need to move where the jobs are

Trump is right about this: Americans need to move where the jobs are

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/03/trump-is-right-americans-need-to-move-where-the-jobs-are/?utm_term=.fbfad82f7d29&wpisrc=nl_p1most-partner-1&wpmm=1

.

Why aren't these coal miners getting a job in the Trump economy?
.

?resize=750%2C560

[onethatcares]

46. geez,

most of them can't come up with $400.00 to cover an emergency and they'll never have enough to move to China.

[keithbvadu2]

47. They should have more faith in Trump?

[HughBeaumont]

68. Except this ISN'T Trump's economy.

Congress and Trump have not enacted ONE economic legislation. They're releasing their Dead Reagan Snake Oil tax plan today, which pretty much amounts to "give the rich guys all the money so they can feed the poor their own special way".

THEN you'll see some firings by the ton.

[keithbvadu2]

74. Yeah! Trump took credit for the economy even before he was inaugurated.

Yeah! Trump took credit for the economy even before he was inaugurated.

Any wonder who he will blame when it goes downhill?

[unblock]

53. Never call the victim of a con "dumb"

They were lied to. Some guy billed as a billionaire brilliant businessman tells them coal's making a comeback and then he becomes president.

It's hard not to believe something when you really want it to be true and you have authority figures telling you what you want to hear.

Besides, it shifts the blame from the people perpetrating the con in the first place.

[ProudLib72]

59. I agree with some of what you said, but not all

There are federal retraining programs. The article mentions that one retraining site had a goal of 700 people sign up for retraining, but only 120 people actually did sign up.

My point here has to do with your "authority figures" argument. It is that, while Dotard is saying he will bring back coal, the rest of the feds are encouraging these people to retrain. So who are the unemployed going to trust? The article does not mention who is running the retraining programs, but I assume it is people more familiar with the communities than Dotard ever will be. That is what irks me the most. If Dotard had never mentioned bringing back coal, these people would be retraining as we speak. Moreover, these last nine months should have convinced them to at least consider retraining.

Maybe I'm being biased because I'm on DU, but I simply do not understand how anyone can still have faith in Dotard's promise of coal.

[unblock]

60. I'm sure there's some me groupthink involved as well

They're in entire communities built on coal. After years of bad news for coal, Donnie and foxnews and hate radio all say he's gonna change things and save coal, then he wins, of course some of them are going to put their hopes into that empty promise.

And then others will see some people they know and trust from their community believing the lies, so that sucks in more people.

[Blue_Tires]

69. Normally they'd be suckers or marks

but let's be honest -- There was tons of information already out there about just who Trump really was, and what his nightmare administration would be like... If people are willing to ignore it and vote for Trump regardless, what am I to say?

[unblock]

70. republicans have been lying for ages

and they've convinced many, many people that democrats lie just as much as they do, that the media somehow is actually biased *in favor* of the left, etc.

yes, donnie turned it up to eleven, but he's really just a very logical product of foxnews' 24/7 unchecked propaganda, which even gets plenty of play in the rest of the media.

honestly it's hard to really fault a lot of people when so many major, formerly credible institutions are in on the con.

[PatrickforO]

54. That workforce development center is misguided, non-compliant with both the letter and

the spirit of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which specifically requires that individual training accounts only be granted if there is a reasonable chance of the person getting a job at the end of the training, based on their background, current educational attainment level and how marketable the training will make them once it is completed.

A workforce center using public dollars to fund training for people in coal mining isn't doing its job.

[keithbvadu2]

75. It's getting gov't money... That is it's job.

[PatrickforO]

76. I beg to differ. The workforce development system, when operated correctly,

has tremendous and measurable economic impact on the communities served. In the Great Depression, FDR created the WPA programs in 1935. I had the privilege of meeting a guy clear back in the 80s who actually was part of the WPA crew that built Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. Since we were in our infancy in creating social safety nets at that time, the WPA jobs were often the only thing that kept participants having food to eat and roofs over their heads.

The programs were put on hold in 1941, because they weren't needed in the war economy. Then, a perfect storm happened that positioned this nation for what we economists call 'the great prosperity.'

First, rationing during the war forced people to save money because they had nothing to spend it on. This created a huge pent-up consumer demand that came to fruition when rationing ended and people had all this money they'd saved.

Second, the New Deal really did help, and this includes, in my mind, the GI Bill, which helped our troops coming home become successful in the postwar economic boom. Strong unions also helped with this, because even with the unfortunate (for workers) passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1948, unions were still quite powerful.

Still, in 1962, Kennedy saw we had severe pockets of poverty in Appalachia and in urban areas. So the Manpower Development and Training Act was passed and signed into law. This operated using federal employees until it was localized in 1971. Workforce development morphed into the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973. In 1982 CETA was replaced by the Job Training Partnership Act, which changed to the Workforce Investment Act in 1998. Finally, in 2014, we had the passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which has some very good policy benefits, and some severe downsides.

The benefits: it forces the consolidation of the WIOA system with the labor exchange offices created in 1935 under the Wagner-Peyser Act. It also requires Vocational Rehabilitation, Adult Basic Education, Job Corps and others to be 'mandatory partners' in evolving One Stop Career Centers.

The downside: it allows workforce centers to be run by for-profit entities. My problem with this is that workforce development is a public good. We all need it because it is one of the safety nets that keep our economy afloat in times of recession. Every dollar sucked out of the system for profit is a dollar less that is spent making American lives better. The profit motive doesn't belong in this system.

So, Keith, I know my shit, and I stick by my original contention that if this workforce center is funding training for coal mining, which is a seriously declining industry, then it is not in compliance with either the spirit or the letter of the law, which I have read. Face it, no matter how much the orange idiot in the WH promises a resurgence of coal mining, it ain't gonna happen. The rest of the market has spoken. Utilities everywhere are being required to produce increasing portions of our power from renewable sources. Companies like Solar City have developed great new business models, the plains are increasingly dotted with wind turbines, car manufacturers are making hybrids, and GM is going totally electric over the next few years.

If I had hold of the case manager, supervisor and manager who signed off on that guy's Individual Training Account, they would be disciplined accordingly.

[keithbvadu2]

77. Apparently you do not and the company is doing its job of getting gov't money.

"If I had hold of the case manager, supervisor and manager who signed off on that guy's Individual Training Account, they would be disciplined accordingly"

Apparently you do not and the company is doing its job of getting gov't money.

You have some great theory but too bad it's not in practice.

[PatrickforO]

78. Sorry, gotta call bullshit.

I've been in this system for 29 years and it is a good system that works for many, many people. Honestly, I don't really even 'get' what you're saying. You seem to think that programs like this are somehow bad because they are federally funded? Is that it?

Because next time you're laid off, and there will sadly and probably be a next time, your workforce center might be able to help you in some substantial ways. No human-run system is ever perfect, certainly not workforce development. But to say that system merely 'gets government money' and assert that is 'its job' simply is bullshit.

No insult intended, but there are thousands of really good people working in this system; people who got into it because we want to make a difference in other people's lives and in our communities, and we care about making the world a better place because we've lived in it.

If you don't like that, fine. If you don't value that, fine. Go your way.

[keithbvadu2]

79. I don't value training programs that do not get meaningful results for the money.

I don't value training programs that do not get meaningful results for the money.

[PatrickforO]

80. One program run by the mining union.

Please don't trash a whole system because of that.

One last word, the supply side (labor force) is there, but there's no demand in some of these depressed area. What needs to happen in these regions - the so-called coal country - is a massive effort at economic development, beginning with some serious infrastructure improvement, which would put these people back to work and give them some pride again.

At the same time, it might be a good idea to provide some serious incentives to move other kinds of traded industries in. A traded industry is one where the goods or services produced are sold outside of the area and money flows back in.

This type of imbalance between labor supply and labor demand is what helped Trump get elected. Honestly, we can throw money at retraining these people until we can't lift our arms any more, but unless there is a corresponding economic development effort, it won't work because there aren't enough jobs. That's why those coding classes aren't filling up - there is no demand there, no jobs, and those people know that.

We need to rethink a lot of things to get this nation back to the point where people won't laugh in your face when you talk about the American Dream.

[NCDem777]

56. These are the same people

who go into a frothing rage when they learn that poor urbanites on TANF or Medicaid aren't legally required to dress in rags

[CK_John]

58. Mike Sylvester knows that UBI will kick in so he doesn't need to move.

[Orrex]

64. If they reject retraining, they should be ineligible for government aid

They voted for Trump; therefore they are idiot racist fuckheads.

Let them reap the full consequences of their freely-made decisions. They voted to fuck the rest of us, so let them get fucked, too.

[DFW]

66. I have a lot of faith in President Trump, Sylvester said. And there you have it.

In Orwell's novel, the phrase was expressed somewhat differently: "Long Live Big Brother!"

But the meaning is the same: give us your mindless, unquestioning support, for which you will get nothing in return.

And they give it and give and give it. And Mike Sylvester will get nothing in return--for which he will blame Hillary, Obama and "libbruls." Anyone who thinks differently should go back and examine the results of the 2016 election.

[Orsino]

71. Mike's chosen media are telling him the lies he wants to believe. n/t

[Hekate]

81. How can people want themselves & their sons in a job with such a high death rate from lung disease?

Really, really horrible lung disease. I don't get it. Not when there are other options in the 21st Century, and the coal seams are all but played out. They'd rather believe a lie from Trump than the truth from Obama and Hillary. What the hell is wrong with this picture?