The Observation Deck

A classic tale of two cities.

1. GM plans on shedding 1,500 jobs in Lordstown, Ohio. The congressional delegation has mobilized residents, President Trump and the federal government demanding action to save those jobs. It has been all over the news.

2. In Lakewood, 900 jobs have been lost and a community hospital has been liquidated. Mounting evidence uncovered by Mr. Kindt, Mr. Essi and others points to public corruption. Not one member of this current council has the stones to write an open letter to the Ohio Attorney General or the Department of Justice. Imagine if the “democrats” on this council followed the lead of their neighbors in Lordstown?

3. All across the United States, congressional delegations do everything in their power to bring jobs to their community. Only in Lakewood is “healthcare changing”. Let’s ignore that healthcare is the hottest market in northeast Ohio. Let’s ignore that federal spending has increased dramatically in the past decade. “Healthcare is changing” folks. Just ask Sam O’Leary.

Anybody else notice the irony?

Nadhal

de-industrialization accelerated after Reagan cut the taxes on stock dividends, corporations, and the rich.
Perhaps the Trump tax cuts will yield a completely different trend.

Nadhal Eadeh wrote:A classic tale of two cities.

1. GM plans on shedding 1,500 jobs in Lordstown, Ohio. The congressional delegation has mobilized residents, President Trump and the federal government demanding action to save those jobs. It has been all over the news.

2. In Lakewood, 900 jobs have been lost and a community hospital has been liquidated. Mounting evidence uncovered by Mr. Kindt, Mr. Essi and others points to public corruption. Not one member of this current council has the stones to write an open letter to the Ohio Attorney General or the Department of Justice. Imagine if the “democrats” on this council followed the lead of their neighbors in Lordstown?

3. All across the United States, congressional delegations do everything in their power to bring jobs to their community. Only in Lakewood is “healthcare changing”. Let’s ignore that healthcare is the hottest market in northeast Ohio. Let’s ignore that federal spending has increased dramatically in the past decade. “Healthcare is changing” folks. Just ask Sam O’Leary.

Anybody else notice the irony?

Nadhal

Of course the biggest irony, is those that ran on honest, transparent accountable government seem to have forgotten their promise to those that elected them.

Instead of helping all, heal the divide, and put this behind us, they have gone off to worry more about their standing with the worst mayor in Lakewood's history. They also seem to infinitely support the "rules of succession" as laid out by Ed FitzGerald and Mayor Summers.

Promises to voters, mean nothing compared to their personal ambitions.

PS, the year of 2015 saw Lakewood lose over 2100 jobs with hospital closing and other businesses leaving Lakewood after the announcement.

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Jim,

Just an observation from spending time on the deck. Some argue that there needs to be newly elected officials. Lakewood elected two last year. Both have failed to write a letter to the Ohio Attorney General or the Department of Justice. Why?

Again, the entire Lordstown delegation is fighting for those jobs, in Lakewood its crickets. The attitude of the democrats on Lakewood’s city council is the reason the party hasn’t been able to capture the statehouse.

Nadhal

[quote="ryan costa"]de-industrialization accelerated after Reagan cut the taxes on stock dividends, corporations, and the rich.
Perhaps the Trump tax cuts will yield a completely different trend.[/quote]

Who are the stockholders of corporations, just the rich? Do corporations obtain capital only from the rich? The tax abused middle-class taxpayers support this country and it's not because of their wealth but it's their numbers. The delusion that the rich is some golden goose is a scam and I suggest you read how much the deficit would be decreased if you taxed the rich 100 percent. It was the Democrats that dissected the golden goose hospital with its 900 jobs, they are responsible and should be held accountable. The lost jobs numbers is not counting all the doctors and other support companies that moved out of Lakewood when the hospital closed. The only attraction Lakewood has is Lake Erie. It is certainly not due to the city's high taxes, poor schools and an inept and inert Democratic run government. Name one type of business that would employ the same number of people as the hospital that the Democrats ran out on a rail that has employees with the same average earnings that could occupy the same land space. Someone said it best, repeating the same experiment and expecting different results is stupidity as it is the same with voters allowing Democrats to continue to attempt to run the city government and expecting prosperity.

you are conflating national tax policies with local policies. In reference to the Lordstown plant closing, I was referencing the regular national trends of the last 40 years.

Ryan, you bring up Reagan (again) in a thread about local affairs then suggest that Richard is "conflating national tax policies with local policies."

Got it....

My apologies, Tim.

I was focused on the Lordstown reference. An automanufactory is a manufacturing industry that produces products most of us consume every day. A hospital is a service industry that produces services most of us consume (hopefully) as rarely as possible. In contemporary realism is something in between in terms of demand and supply: professional sports teams in football, basketball, and baseball. There are a limited number of teams or franchises to go around. a city or county or region will make all sorts of abatements and incentives and subsidies to attract one: these are the contemporary rules of playing ball. It does not really work in the long run, but in the short term it has more pluses than minuses.

American industrial output is at a record level. Using the 2018 industrial index as a baseline (100) you see that the current rate is at about 109% of that baseline. In March of 1983 that index was about 49% of the 2018 total.


From here:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO/

Here is a handy article from Deloitte:

https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pag ... index.html

Keep this in mind from https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf

"The United States’ share of global manufacturing activity declined from 28% in 2002, following the end of a U.S. recession, to 16.5% in 2011. By 2016, the U.S. share rose to over 18%, the largest share since 2009. These estimates are based on the value of each country’s manufacturing in U.S. dollars; part of the decline in the U.S. share was due to a 23% decline in the value of the dollar between 2002 and 2011, and part of the subsequent rise is attributable to a stronger dollar."


The closing of the Chevy plant in Youngstown has nothing at all to do with low tax rates.

Chevy is responding to a world market. American competitiveness is driven by the ability of American companies to respond quickly to the demands of the market place. If you interfere with the working of the market to reward a few industries you undermine the economy as a whole. While American share of industrial output has declined steadily since World War II it is unrealistic to expect the American manufacturing sector to maintain the same dominance it had during the post war period.

It is unrealistic to expect the rest of the world to remain economically backward. The best example is China.

HOWEVER, China is experiencing its economic growth as the result of American and European trade policy.

The general idea was that if you take an IMPOVERISHED, murderous, expansionist, dystopian communist dictatorship

And help make it a WEALTHY, murderous, expansionist, dystopian communist dictatorship it will become just like Switzerland.

I always thought it was an insane policy.

To help it along the West allowed China to join the world bank, invested trillions in its industrial capacity, allowed free access to Western markets, moved industrial capacity to China and turned a blind eye to the theft of intellectual property. That’s one reason why it is hard for American industry to compete and one reason why wages have remained stagnant.

There is not much we can do about that here in Lakewood.

What we can do is try to preserve what we have and build on our existing business infrastructure. That’s one reason I will never understand why the City chose to give away Lakewood Hospital.

Nadhal said it best:

"A classic tale of two cities.

1. GM plans on shedding 1,500 jobs in Lordstown, Ohio. The congressional delegation has mobilized residents, President Trump and the federal government demanding action to save those jobs. It has been all over the news.

2. In Lakewood, 900 jobs have been lost and a community hospital has been liquidated. Mounting evidence uncovered by Mr. Kindt, Mr. Essi and others points to public corruption. Not one member of this current council has the stones to write an open letter to the Ohio Attorney General or the Department of Justice. Imagine if the “democrats” on this council followed the lead of their neighbors in Lordstown?

3. All across the United States, congressional delegations do everything in their power to bring jobs to their community. Only in Lakewood is “healthcare changing”. Let’s ignore that healthcare is the hottest market in northeast Ohio. Let’s ignore that federal spending has increased dramatically in the past decade. “Healthcare is changing” folks. Just ask Sam O’Leary.

Anybody else notice the irony? "

I don’t understand why so many people simply choose not to take a side. Why complain about the loss of 1,500 jobs in Youngstown and remain silent here in Lakewood?

Bill--spot on in your economic analysis, Stan

The motive remains a mystery

Stan Austin wrote:The motive remains a mystery

From ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN ...

Deep Throat: "Follow the money. Always follow the money."

Nadhal Eadeh wrote:Jim,

Just an observation from spending time on the deck. Some argue that there needs to be newly elected officials. Lakewood elected two last year. Both have failed to write a letter to the Ohio Attorney General or the Department of Justice. Why?

Nadhal

Do you know that they have failed to report?

Kate McCarthy wrote:

Nadhal Eadeh wrote:Jim,

Just an observation from spending time on the deck. Some argue that there needs to be newly elected officials. Lakewood elected two last year. Both have failed to write a letter to the Ohio Attorney General or the Department of Justice. Why?

Nadhal

Do you know that they have failed to report?

If they were to tell me personally of such a report, I'd be glad to hold my fire. Right now I am planning on attending the Dem Club meeting this month.

Dan Alaimo wrote:If they were to tell me personally of such a report, I'd be glad to hold my fire. Right now I am planning on attending the Dem Club meeting this month.

I believe the dog ate the report.

Well that would have made more sense.


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