Labor Day? Try Jobless Day

On this Labor Day, we have a woman too dumb to work at McDonald’s as vice president.

Labor Day is a tribute to an industrial age long gone. We may as well have a day off to remember the jitterbug. (It was a pretty good dance.)

Politicians deliberately moved American jobs overseas with free trade agreements that opened American markets to countries that kept theirs only partly open. This was an outgrowth of Americans buying junk imports from Europe and Japan after World War II to jumpstart their economies an keep people from starving.

But like NATO, these agreements survive like cockroaches after a tornado.

In World War II, nearly 40% of the jobs in America were in manufacturing.

80 years later, we are down to 8%.

Oh, we still have 13 million factory workers. In 2022, they averaged weekly wages of $1,298.44. That’s almost what a teacher makes.

But there are 16 million hospitality workers. In 2022, they averaged weekly wages of $538.73 — less than half that. The biggest gift they can get is to have the IRS stop taxing tips.

Let’s look at what we lost. In 2021, Paige Cirtwill wrote a story about Akron, the Rubber City of the World. Access to water and coal mines made it possible although the rubber trees were on the other side of the world.

Gregg Cramer, Vice President of Economic Development at the Greater Akron Chamber of Commerce, told Cirtwell, “It’s a unique city because you had Goodyear, Firestone, B.F. Goodrich, General, Mohawk and Seiberling, so you had six rubber companies all headquartered in the same location.”

Cirtwell wrote, “Between 1900 and 1920, global rubber consumption increased from around 45,000 tons per year to almost 340,000. Not coincidentally, Akron’s population more than doubled from around 70,000 in 1910 to over 200,000 in 1920, making it the fastest-growing city in America at the time. Many of these new immigrants were from Appalachia, and they came to Akron to escape struggling farms and mines.”

They taught my in-laws the three Rs in Calhoun County: readin’, ’ritin’ and Route 21. They overshot Akron and wound up in Cleveland.

Cirtwell also wrote, “World War II pulled the country out of the Great Depression and catapulted the rubber industry to the forefront of the war effort. Rubber was required for truck, airplane and Jeep tires, without which U.S. forces would be rendered immobile. During World War I, synthetic rubber had been developed and produced by German scientists when their supply of natural rubber was cut off.

“The U.S. faced the same fate during World War II when their supply of natural rubber, primarily from Asia, was cut off by Japan. Rubber companies in Akron came together and quickly shifted their production and development efforts to synthetic rubber and manufactured enough to supply the U.S. military throughout the war.”

Then came radial tires and Michelin. Tires lasted longer and Akron faced competition from overseas, which reduced both Akron’s market and Akron’s market share.

But the big crushing blow came when the rubber companies decided to abandon Akron for cheaper labor.

Cirtwell wrote, “Goodyear, though it remained headquartered in Akron, had outsourced its manufacturing, first to the South and then overseas. Between 1980 and 1990, employment in plastics and rubber manufacturing shrank from 26,000 jobs to 16,000. Another period of decline followed from 2000 to 2007, when jobs in rubber and plastics manufacturing fell from 14,400 to just over 7,000.”

First to the South and then overseas is the pattern.

Jobs in the health-care industry and in hospitality replaced them. Health-care enjoys a trillion-dollar a year boost from Medicare, Medicaid and other federal programs. Of course, that trillion comes from money we borrow, not earn. The shuttering of factories diminished America’s ability to create wealth.

Toledo was the Glass Capital of the World. The aluminum can pretty much did it in.

In 2020, Delaney Murray wrote, “In 2005, just after the turn of the century, the median household income for the city was around $42,000 a year, the unemployment rate was only around 7.4% and the population was comfortably over 300,000 people. Less than 15 years later, many of those numbers have steadily worsened. Toledo’s population had dropped by around 30,000 people as of 2019. The city still boasts a large industry presence, including multiple healthcare, manufacturing and automotive companies, but between 2014 and 2018, the median income dropped to $37,100, and currently around a fourth of the city lives in poverty.”

Paul Toth, president of ConnecToledo and former president of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, explained to Murray how the downward spiral works.

Toth said, “You had people moving out, and you had an oversupply of homes and an under-demand which forced values down for the homes.

“As the homes got cheaper and cheaper, people stopped investing in them. It’s kind of been a downward vortex [and] we went through this very painful period of time where we saw the downtown and the neighborhoods surrounding the downtown go through a fifty-year period of devaluing and disinvestment.”

You would think that politicians — particularly Democrats who run the cities — would want to reverse that but they are accelerating the deterioration. They have brought in millions of military-aged foreigners illegally and put them up in luxury hotels in New York — while veterans and other real Americans with drug problems live in pup tents along the streets of LA.

Cities no longer protect the stores as they allow them to be looted. In 2020, Tim Walz and other human vermin allowed rioters to burn stores and restaurants down.

Conservatives should feel no schadenfreude over cities losing drug stores and drive-through restaurants because each shuttered shop represents decades of sweat equity lost by some middle class American. Do you really think Gavin Newsom cares if there is no McDonald’s in San Francisco? He’s headed to that French restaurant he kept open during covid.

In politics, there are no unintended consequences because results are the intent. If you wanted to destroy the country, take over and install a Soviet-style system you would get rid of the middle class and impoverish everyone because a self-reliant people are impossible to control. Poor people will jump through any hoop to get their monthly EBT card to load up on potato chips.

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son, which is why so many politicians support policies that promote it. I mean, really, we are giving free Narcon and needles to drug abusers. How more obvious can politicians be about wanting a population of drug addicts?

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Once upon a time, no one’s hands were idle. We had a wilderness to tame and world wars to win.

On this Labor Day, we need to remember what we had, what we have lost, and what we must do to Make America Great Again.