Census estimates show Cleveland and Youngstown metro areas amon...

The rust belt is losing population due to many factors; poor job market, bad housing market, crime, umemployment, NAFTA, etc. et al. The sad part is that no one is in charge or on top of the situation, and the people of Ohio seem not to care one whit.
Notice that the top growing cities, one among them, is Las Vegas. That is because the city fathers have done things right here. They have lowered the cost of living, among other things. Clev. and the rust belt cannot afford to lose anymore people.

Edward wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes, the cost of living is cheaper in the south than in the north. I have family in the south and family in the north so I know. Unions were a necessary thing when they were created. Unfortunately, over the years they began to abuse their power until some were demanding so many days off per year for employees (including asking for birthdays off) that corporations got weary and then planned for many years how to set up shop out of this country. I know of a factory worker supervisor that predicted years ago that this nation would lose jobs to overseas because he knew that the unions were going too far in their demands. Once too much pressure was put on, the corporations simply moved out many jobs. It's sad and a shame, but unions are partly responsible for the present job situation. I do support unions, I jus wish years ago they would have made some different choices.

ED,

I lived in Ohio 52 years, last in the Falls, I have lived in NC and SC the last 3 years....and oh heck no it ain't cheaper....not a bit.

My car insurance doubled, groceries are MUCH higher,
personal tax on your car EVERY year, and it goes on.

Forget going out to eat...it's a fortune down here,
least in the Charlotte metro area.

And as far as cheaper homes? yeah, that's just what you get....rarely a basement, almost all drywall and building done by illegal immigrants, and done shabbily, as building codes are almost a joke down here....and it goes on. So I know too, because I've lived in both areas.

But....can't beat the weather.

Mark wrote:

Everbody needs to stop what the're doing and find these lost people. First place to look: between the cushions on your couch. When I've lost something, that's generally where I'll find it.
Second place: in your car.
If everyone did their part and looked in those two places, I'm sure we could round up at least half of those people. Easily.

If you are going to look in the car, look in the trunk. What with the rising crime in NEOH and all. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't thing corpses found in the trunk count on a census. Too bad.

Yahweh on Rye wrote:

<quoted text>
If there is a majority of these, you should have no problem coming up with specific examples and data including worker opinion of their own situation.
Your analogy of gas station collusion is amusing. What evidence do you have of actual price collusion among retail gas stations? What evidence do you have of businesses colluding in their pricing of labor?

My analogy of gas price collusion is accurate, and far from amusing. The pricing collusion occurs at the oil company level, not at the individual stations. When suddenly, on a given day, everyone(or let's say 99%)goes from whatever prices they had been charging to the exact same prices everywhere within a matter of hours, what other reason can there be? In this week's case, yesterday everyone(or almost everyone) went up, and 3.259 was the price they went up to. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc, you've got a duck---or in this case, price-fixing.

Yahweh on Rye wrote:

<quoted text>
If there is a majority of these, you should have no problem coming up with specific examples and data including worker opinion of their own situation.
What evidence do you have of businesses colluding in their pricing of labor?

You mis-understood the analogy. I didn't say the non-gasolene businesses were colluding...just that a large number of them provide low wages, no healthcare, few other employee benefits, etc. And the auto/tire/steel high-paying jobs are gone forever, thereby forcing people into taking these crappier jobs because that's all that is available(much like forcing you to buy gas at 3.259 because that's almost the only price out there).

Obviously, you have that typical managerial attitude of "business can do no wrong".

Please tell me you didn't just attempt to name yourself after the protagonist in Fight Club except that you totally botched the name.

I hope that you really are someone named Tyler Durban.

I would move back to Akron in a heart beat if there were jobs like the one I have in California. Talk all you want about "California Cuisine", but I have yet had a pizza that is as good as Luigi's, Chicken as good as Bel Grades or ice cream as good as New Baltimore's out on 44. And let's not forget about Swensons and Skyways. Plus there are just some beautiful spots in Akron!

I'd love to know how many citizens of Akron have uprooted out of the city.
I bet only the resident required employees are the only ones left. Oh wait there is still a lot of AMHA tenants.

jjp wrote:

<quoted text>
ED,
I lived in Ohio 52 years, last in the Falls, I have lived in NC and SC the last 3 years....and oh heck no it ain't cheaper....not a bit.
My car insurance doubled, groceries are MUCH higher,
personal tax on your car EVERY year, and it goes on.
Forget going out to eat...it's a fortune down here,
least in the Charlotte metro area.
And as far as cheaper homes? yeah, that's just what you get....rarely a basement, almost all drywall and building done by illegal immigrants, and done shabbily, as building codes are almost a joke down here....and it goes on. So I know too, because I've lived in both areas.
But....can't beat the weather.

I don't agree at all but with one exception. My heating bills aren't that much lower. Of course we use less gas, but cost per unit is higher. And then there is the cost of summer AC. I would sooner pay high car registration than 2% or more city income tax. 2006 Chrysler around $500, but them sales tax at purchase was only $300. My 2001 Dodge Ram was about $80. True, there are no basements here, but we don't miss them. I don't see poor construction of homes, but maybe my personal experience is different than yours. Groceries: Sales tax was recently eliminated. I get up to Ohio often enough to see they are about the same, if not just a bit cheaper here. Restaurants seem about the same. Gas is about a dime cheaper in SC. The problems here and in Charlotte metro are ones of growth, not stagnation. Rural areas are much poorer than booming major counties. Ohio has a similar problem in southeastern counties, but I admit, rural counties in SC are extremely poor.

Ya, their all movin to Akron.

Tyler Durban wrote:

The rust belt is losing population due to many factors; poor job market, bad housing market, crime, umemployment, NAFTA, etc. et al. The sad part is that no one is in charge or on top of the situation, and the people of Ohio seem not to care one whit.
Notice that the top growing cities, one among them, is Las Vegas. That is because the city fathers have done things right here. They have lowered the cost of living, among other things. Clev. and the rust belt cannot afford to lose anymore people.

Unfortunately the horse is out of the barn and is nowhere to be found. Our elected "representatives" should have been addressing these problems 20 years ago. Instead most of them turned a blind eye, content to collect their bloated salaries while doing a minimal amount of work in return. Cleveland is a lost cause, perhaps the most decrepit big city in the country (well, behind Pittsburgh, a real rat hole, and Detroit, which is beyond salvage).

jjp wrote:

<quoted text>
ED,
I lived in Ohio 52 years, last in the Falls, I have lived in NC and SC the last 3 years....and oh heck no it ain't cheaper....not a bit.
My car insurance doubled, groceries are MUCH higher,
personal tax on your car EVERY year, and it goes on.
Forget going out to eat...it's a fortune down here,
least in the Charlotte metro area.
And as far as cheaper homes? yeah, that's just what you get....rarely a basement, almost all drywall and building done by illegal immigrants, and done shabbily, as building codes are almost a joke down here....and it goes on. So I know too, because I've lived in both areas.
But....can't beat the weather.

The Carolinas are indeed a different story then other parts of the south.

City Worker wrote:

My analogy of gas price collusion is accurate, and far from amusing. The pricing collusion occurs at the oil company level, not at the individual stations.

So the oil companies are setting the station prices?

When suddenly, on a given day, everyone(or let's say 99%)goes from whatever prices they had been charging to the exact same prices everywhere within a matter of hours, what other reason can there be?

You tell me. You take the absence of contrary evidence as evidence of an assertion. That's sloppier than all hell.

Also, please give evidence that "everyone goes from whatever prices they had been charging to the exact same prices everywhere". Can you do so with knowledge of why, or do you assume collusion (at the oil company level)?

Explain the differential I've been seeing over the past 3 weeks between Sheetz and BP at the Howe/Main intersection in the Falls.

In this week's case, yesterday everyone(or almost everyone) went up, and 3.259 was the price they went up to. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc, you've got a duck---or in this case, price-fixing.

How very weak. "I think it's collusion, so it must be!"

BP was at $3.15 or $3.16 this morning, Sheetz was at $3.18. Yesterday (I think) they were both $3.21. Oh dear God!!! Collusion at the oil companies caused it!

So if the $3.21 price was oil company collusion, what caused BP to lower their prices more today, a pattern which has held for a while now?

City Worker wrote:

You mis-understood the analogy. I didn't say the non-gasolene businesses were colluding...just that a large number of them provide low wages, no healthcare, few other employee benefits, etc.

And what sorts of jobs do they offer? What sort of businesses are they? Do you have a breakdown of wage levels?

And the auto/tire/steel high-paying jobs are gone forever, thereby forcing people into taking these crappier jobs because that's all that is available(much like forcing you to buy gas at 3.259 because that's almost the only price out there).

The heavy manufacturing jobs are gone, yes. Can you give me non-pablum reasons for that?

As for crappier jobs, what are these? Do you have blue-collar vs. white-collar numbers over the last several years? Do you have this compared with overall job increase/decrease over the same period? Do you have the median US wage over the same period?

Obviously, you have that typical managerial attitude of "business can do no wrong".

I'm not a manager. Nice try though. Double-plus nice for telling me what my attitude is and that I am in unqualified support of business.

I own homes in Ohio and Florida.
Ohio = cheap home prices, slow economic growth and declining population and high taxes.(Bath TWP is not cheap any more)
Florida = really cheap home prices with the potential to rise 10 to 30 percent much faster than ohio's 3 to 5 percent. No income tax (if only i was based out of FLA! which soon I will be to save $$). State taxes are covered by tourism. Huge economic growth. There are more jobs, high paying jobs, than there are people to fill them. The water problem, yeah I will give you that. But I would rather have a job and a home that earns me a return on investment than own a home in Cleveland where the median price dropped over 20K!!!!! 20K!!! Way to go Cuyahoga Falls!!!
I love ohio, but ohio needs help. I have been a in business since 1972 and have dedicated most of my life to this state, only to see it fall from grace. At one time, we were a strong state. Today, we are a highway system to the west and south for moving trucks.

The mass migration to the South and Southwest specifically, and the suburbs in general, will go into a full reverse within the next five years, largely in part due to the end of cheap oil for transportation and energy use.

Most southern and western cities were built exclusively around automobile use, as were suburbs in general, and the automobile as we know it today is on the verge of becoming an endangered species, because there simply will not be enough oil to go around between the US, China, India and other emerging global powers. The economic and social dislocation caused by the playing out of this fact are going to be gut-wrenchingly severe for people in the US who have grown accustomed to the car as a way of life.

Salvation, if it comes, will probably be in the form of streetcars, light and high speed rail systems that will emerge and prove to be most effective in Midwest and Northeastern cities that were constructed before the emergence and proliferation of the car.

lincoln wrote:

The unions, absolutely necessary in saving the worker from the abuse of the barons, became an abuse.
UAW members clocking in and then LEAVEING and coming back 8 hours later to clock out! Management was powerless to fire the slackers.
Because we have lost our work ethic.
The Japs are right. Americans are lazy. We don't wanna work.
That's why businesses hire the Mexicans. They will work.
How can you change a cultural attitude?

Good lord, the japs call us lazy because we don't consider it normal to work 12-14 hours a day (including commute). And they're also jealous of our vacation time.

Mexicans work 12-14 hours a day because the money they make here is like an American employee getting double or triple time wages. Most of us would do that as long as we could hold up physically. In their home economy, it's good money, so they have no problem with it. Most Americans would do the same to triple their income.

Since you're on board with the jap/mexis, I'm guessing you work 12-14 hour days consider it normal. Maybe you even do it on a salary based on 40hrs?

CEOs are underpaid and overworked. Ohioans need to wake up to the new economy where you should be proud that I can increase my bonus by moving jobs to third-world countries. This is exactly how it should be.

Of course it doesn't hurt that you each other. Beside, the less money you all have, the quicker my lackeys can get done with my banking.

NE Ohio is only losing 5000 people because all the sensible people left a long time ago. They started leaving in the 70's, left in droves in the 80's (as I did) and continued leaving in droves in the 90's. Why? Maybe because the courthouse is the biggest moneymaker (and victimizer)in town. Watch your wallet when there's a prosecutor around.

rupert wrote:

<quoted text>
Good lord, the japs call us lazy because we don't consider it normal to work 12-14 hours a day (including commute). And they're also jealous of our vacation time.
Mexicans work 12-14 hours a day because the money they make here is like an American employee getting double or triple time wages. Most of us would do that as long as we could hold up physically. In their home economy, it's good money, so they have no problem with it. Most Americans would do the same to triple their income.
Since you're on board with the jap/mexis, I'm guessing you work 12-14 hour days consider it normal. Maybe you even do it on a salary based on 40hrs?

ok, touche.
I have read that the entire Japanese community is about to suffer a mass nervous breakdown.