Introduction

I live in the apalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky, a place where not so very  long ago you could have easily mistaken the area for a third world country.
    I grew up hard, my child hood consisted of a lot of hard work for me and my brothers and sisters, cutting wood, carrying water, helping to raise a garden and preserve what we raised for winter, money was tough to come by ( hint this wasnt during the depression of the 1930's it was in the 1980's).
    I have served in the military, ( honorabley discharged) after service I came back home with my family to live, things hadnt improved much at that time , people here still had the old out-house, and many of the homes were little more than tar paper coverd shacks  many of which werent really fit to live in as snow would blow through the walls in winter.
  You had to tack up cardboard boxes to shut out the wind and cold, and the houses were normally heated with wood or coal, and there was no such thing as insulation.


   The government built housing projects here, which did help some, but many found that once you got in you couldnt get out, due to the fact that if you made a little more money they charged you more for the rent, so you couldnt save enough to have a down payment on your own home.


     Still some of us did manage to escape the trap, I did and managed to have my own home , modest though it is by any standard. ( I just hope I can keep it!!)
       I think it a disgrace that rents here often exceed the cost of my monthly mortgage payment by a wide margine, and land lords often will do nothing toward up keep in rent houses.


   I had thought at one time that our area here might actually get better, we had a few jobs come into the area for a number of years, but as usual the greedy corporate heads weren't satisfide with cheap wages, they wanted near slave labor ,so they sent all the work to China and Mexico.
   We were never paid highly but managed to get by most never paid more than minimum wage and the majority never paid more than $8.50 hr and these were non-union shops.


     The plant I worked for built producs for General Electric, Frigidaire, and other large manufacturers, I worked there for a period of 12 years, when they pulled out and went over seas, I lost my retirement fund small though it was I had to use it to stave off bankruptcy. I already know that retirement for me will be when they shovel dirt over me ( what you dont know is that's the same thing you face)


   I took advantage of a chance to go back to school, and got my welding certificates, I did this because at 50 years of age no one wanted a warehouseman that age, this inspite of the fact that in several cases I met every qualification they had asked for , my track record is that i often work harder and longer hours than most men half my age.  I would have gotten a degree had the school listened to me and given me the courses I wanted, knowing that I needed them , after having been out of school for more than 35 years.
    This was to prove far from the only problem I would face the leadership in our state government didnt like having so many on unemployment and so they did everything they could to knock as many out of school as possible, a typical tactic was to goof up the unemployment at final exam time, just when you need all your faculties focused on nothing else, this created a huge stress in an already difficult situation, many never got as far as I did.


      I was no slouch in school either I maintained a 3.8 gpa, and was on the deans list twice, and even got invited to join one of those high-brow think-tanks ( I thought it was funny , a hill-billy with a bunch of Einestein wanna be's)  I also competed in skills USA took first place at state level twice back to back, at coleigiate level.


     I had a bad time getting a job after school, but finally did so, it will soon be two years on the job, I still dont make much more than I did before everything went straight to hell, and figuring in inflation, and the fact that I also now have student loans to pay or not even as much.
     The job I have only pays about half what it would elsewhere.


Needless to say if I get a better offer I will be out the door in a hurry, I hate to be mercenary about it but after all I am a "hired gun" so to speak.  I work 5, 6, and even 7 days a week 10 hours and more a day most of the time.


       I am not only working, but I have also developed writing skills as well after writing stories for the kids in the family for a number of years, I now have a novel nearly finished  and am hoping to get lucky enough for it to be published.


   the problems we have in my area arent limited solely to employment: drugs are completely out of control here as well, I honestly think if they arrested every drug addict in the county there wouldnt be a hundred people left who were straight, at my work today they tested 6 people and fired 3 for drug use. I swear you'd think people  would be smarter than that.


    At last I heard they want to make us more competetive with the Chinese, I know what it would take to do that and it's sooo not gonna happen.


 Wanna make us competative with the Chinese? here's what it'll take:


1. pay off or cancell all student loans, and nationalize all colleges,and give everyone who wants one a college education.
You wont have to worry about lazy people there's far to much work involved in getting a degree.


2. Round up all drug dealers and all drug users , place them in a public place and then shoot them, the Communist Chinese did that not long after they took control of China to solve the problem........it does work.


 3.   Pay off or cancell all mortgages nation wide for everyone period and provide free housing to everyone else.


4. Provide free health care nation wide, prescriptions included.


5. Nationalize all industry with the government owning 51% of all stock in the companies, no exceptions.


6. Be absolutely willing to shoot corrupt individuals wherever they are found anytime they are found.


7. Provide free utilitys to all the people.

8. Provide free transportation too, it's another major expense.


Do these things and we just might be able to work as cheaply as the chinese do.


     If we did these things we could all work for about $2 an hour maybe less.


   
    Now having said that the best alternative is: protection for our economy, and a permanent ban on outsourcing and the H1B visa's to force employers to hire American labor.

  Close our borders,slamming the lid down hard on illeagal aliens, and drug runners, maintain it with armed troops to enforce it.

   Penalize employers who dont pay a living wage with super high taxes.

   Do this and we still might have to resort to the chinese solution for the drug users, no joke intended, it's that bad.