Good Score at Steel City Con

The folks who put on Pittsbugh's Steel City con did a great job again this weekend. The three day event had comics, celebrities and toys for collectors of all ages.

Lindsay Wagner (Bionic Woman) and Tony Todd (Candyman) were the big celebrities this weekend.

There were some vendors with fun stuff like comics and Legos for anyone who enjoys those items. There was also a vendor selling movie prop replicas which is where I scored my Fight Club bar of soap.

They do this three or four times a year so look for the next one in the fall.

This Debt Ceiling Thing is Just Killing Me

Folks, I just can't look at the news regarding the debt ceiling anymore.  They have a deal, they don't have a deal, the gang of six has a plan, now we're anti-gang.  The President takes to the bully pulpit and lashes out at Boehner, Boehner acts like he's still relevant and not a puppet for Eric Cantor's Tea Baggers.  It's enough to make responsible adults wonder how the electric bill gets paid each month.

While they bicker the markets lose more and more value.  Haven't we done what we were supposed to?  We went to school, worked hard to move up, went out on our own, saved, sacrificed and put away for that magical day when we could retire and live a little.  In twenty years I'd like to walk out of Shawshank a free man; no debts, no mortgage and a little security.  The more Obama and Boehner and the Tea Baggers dicker the less chance there is of that happening.  These are prime earning years and the value of our 401k's and IRA's are flat.

I'm tired of both sides of the argument.  Yes, my Fox News loyalists, it's true that some people don't pay Federal income tax.  It's because they work in service sector jobs making $8.00 an hour.  They used to make more in manufacturing but we decided to ship those jobs overseas, so stop complaining.  You got the higher stock dividends you wanted.

To the MSNBC Ed Schultz fans, yes, those manufacturing jobs are gone.  Now would be a good time to acknowledge that fact and whip your children if they step out of line at school.  Dropping out or just getting a high school diploma will not do it.  You need a college degree or training at a technical center.  A little personal responsibility goes a long way toward making sure you don't wind up dead ass broke.

We are where we are.  It's time the government got their act together and sat down at the kitchen table like mom and dad and decide what bills are important and which ones need to go away.  It may mean shutting off the cable TV while we make sure there's milk in the fridge but that's what grown ups do.

President Obama, Mr. Boehner, Mr. McConnell, you're being paid to lead.  Get to work.
 

Where's the Damn Coffee?

Rust Belt Pop has a new design up in the store.  Our retro 'Where's the Damn Coffee?' design graces a white mug.  Click here to take a look.

Borders Book Stores Closing Leaves Area with Less Places to Browse, Relax and Peruse

Borders is closing two area stores as part of its nationwide liquidation following a bankruptcy.  The two stores are located in Niles at the Eastwood Mall complex and in Hermitage inside the Shenango Valley Mall.  These closings reduce the number of bookstores in the area from 7 to 5 and that's counting Campus Book & Supply near YSU.



To give you some perspective, I did a Google search for tobacco stores and got seven results returned.  It's now easier to buy rolling papers than books in the Mahoning Valley.

I'm really going to miss the Hermitage location.  Growing up, we always did our big holiday/ birthday shopping at the Shenango Valley Mall.  It was always a treat to go into Waldenbooks (as it was known in the stone age).  You could get comics, D & D supplies, sci-fi paperbacks and the latest Stephen King, when I was older.  Not having a bookstore in that mall will leave a gaping hole.  Even today, when we make it out that way we always wander in and see what's new.

The staff in both locations was very helpful and courteous to a fault. The stores were always clean, well stocked and brightly lit. Comfortable chairs made me feel right at home while I made my selections.

I know the book selling market is changing thanks to the accessibility of all things on Amazon and the proliferation of eBooks but bookstores have a charm that cannot be measured in efficiency and gadgetry.  I like to wander in and take my time.  You can start out looking at the bargain books laying on the tables near the front and wander in deeper, looking for bestsellers.  There's a special feeling when you discover authors you don't know writing about topics you didn't know interested you.  Amazon.com can't replicate that.  A search function is a poor substitute for browsing among the different genres or suddenly seeing a book someone recommended.  "Recommendations for you" don't broaden your horizons beyond the topics you're currently reading about.

This isn't the first round of book closings to hit our area.  I can remember when The Little Professor was open in Hermitage and was sad to see it not reopen after the fire a few years ago.  I've been to the Book Rack in Sharon and it's nice.  I've never tried Dorian's though, and I really should.

Given that both of these individual Borders locations were busy most of the time when I was in them, I hope that they were performing well enough that someone gives them another chance.  After all, their closing is part of a nationwide closing.  I'm not a book store snob either.  I don't care if an independent daredevil takes on these locations or if Barnes & Noble decides to conquer the market in either location.  I just want a nice place to wander around in and spend some money on books. 

David Brooks on How the Republicans Blew an Opportunity

There is a great opinion piece in the New York Times by David Brooks today about how practical conservatives blew their chance to turn the battle of the debt ceiling into a big victory for themselves and the country as a whole.  With a little compromise on their part to reform the tax code and a democratic president willing to tinker with Social Security and Medicare, government as a whole could have actually accomplished something.  Instead, Eric Cantor and his young guns dug in their heels and we're going to wind up with the status quo.

My favorite bit of the article is when Brooks lays blame at the various groups who are involved in the government but who have no interest in accomplishing anything that is off message:

The Big Government Blowhards. The talk-radio jocks are not in the business of promoting conservative governance. They are in the business of building an audience by stroking the pleasure centers of their listeners.


The Show Horses. Republicans now have a group of political celebrities who are marvelously uninterested in actually producing results. Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann produce tweets, not laws. They have created a climate in which purity is prized over practicality.

We all need to be more critical in how we receive information about how we are governed.  Turning off Rush and his ilk and tuning out the nonsensical soundbites seems to be a good start.  It's also time to remember grandma's advice about half a loaf being better than nothing with regard to how compromises are "off the table" in the current congress.

The Middle Class is being Abandoned (Part II)

Jobs.  Every politician promises to tinker with government policy to create them even as they claim it isn't government's job to create jobs.  Every politician claims getting people back to work in these hard times is their number one priority but we're stuck at 9.2% unemployment no matter what party is in power. 

The middle class needs jobs to thrive and America needs the middle class to thrive.  Not just any jobs either.  We need jobs that pay a decent salary and we need medical benefits.  Whether those medical benefits come from employers or a government program is irrelevant to this argument.  The fact of the matter is that people get sick and there is no way they can afford to pay for medical care on their own without going broke and stiffing medical providers with a bankruptcy.  Spaghetti dinners are no way to fund liver transplants.

The Democrats and Republicans both support trade deals that send jobs overseas because they say those deals lead to things like cheap consumer products and stability in other countries.  Of course, we know that what they're really doing is taking care of the people who contribute huge sums to their campaigns.  Don't tell me I'm wrong, either.  I have family members who were making $12.00/ hr in the 1990's working for a local bathroom products supplier who moved production to Mexico after NAFTA was adopted and they are still making $12.00/ hr today.

Republicans tell you that giving everyone medical coverage will lead to rationing because there are not enough doctors to treat everyone.  They ignore the fact that such rationing is happening now because people without coverage just don't go to the doctor when they are sick.  Republicans are cool with that, though.  A silent, suffering group is much preferred to a crowded waiting room.

Democrats at least try to cover everyone but in coming up with their crazy plan they've scared the hell out of businesses who are unsure about how Obamacare will affect their bottom line.  Those businesses are not hirning unless they have to.

 Republicans believe you can work for $10.00/ hr, raise a family, fund your 401k and set aside money for medical expenses in a Health Savings Plan.  See?  No, government needed.

Democrats are a little light on self-responsibility (except for Bill Cosby).  They want tenure for teachers and no accountability when kids utterly fail their way through school.  Too bad.  The rest of us are graded on our performance and how well we succeed at our jobs.  Michelle Rhee deserves to be heard.

And let's not forget ourselves.  We of the middle class have an overwhelming sense of entitlement.  We went to school, we work hard and by God we're due...lots of things.  If our kids are failing in school it sure isn't our fault.  We work all day and we'll be damned if we're going to devote time to the kid's homework every night.  Teaching is what those teachers are for (Yes, parents have actually told my teacher friends this). 

We let ourseleves become divided over things like public employee pay and benefits.  When things were good and we could afford government services everyone snickered at how little civil servants made.  Now that things are bad half the population is up in arms screaming about their "lush" salaries.  How about directing that anger at the elected officials who have let things get this bad?  Everyone should be doing well and if leaders can't accomplish that goal, they need to get out of the way.

We keep putting the idiots in charge but we never run for office ourselves.  Oh no, that would be too much effort.  We let ourseleves be distracted from important things like jobs and the economy by issues like gay marriage and the President's birth certificate.

So what the middle class is left with is trade deals that don't encourage employment, inadequate medical care and two parties that can't even agree as to what the problems are, much less formulate a solution to them.  Politicians will lay blame on each other's party but when is the last time you heard a good, common sense solution to any of these problems?

They are abandoning us and we're letting them do it.

The Middle Class is being Abandoned

When I think about the Federal budget and how annual deficits lead to large debts, I like to look at numbers.  Charts and graphs are the only way to parse the data and see what's what.  That's what I would like to do here, because I don't see anyone else doing it.

The noise on TV is coming from the children we have sent to Washington.  Not one of them, not a single one, has the interest of the Middle Class at heart.  This country prospers when the Middle Class has decent jobs that allow them to save and purchase goods and services.  This congress and this president are ignoring the numbers and fighting over ideology rather than working on a real solution to our budget problems.

• Our tax reveues are not high enough to meet our expenditures.  We don't bring in enough money  to fund everything we would like to so we borrow.  Here's a chart that shows that very plainly.  Not enough blue bar, too much red bar.

• The defense budget is out of control. The defense budget for fiscal year (FY) 2000 was around $300 billion dollars.  In 2010 it was just over $700 billion.  This is not sustainable.  Look at the chart.  See the green in the yearly columns?  Using that as a base we have spent an additional 2.6 trillion dollars over the last ten years.  Our debt is 14 trillion dollars.  That means two presidents and five congresses have contributed 18% of the debt in just ten years.  That is not something reasonable people do.

Looking at the charts gives us insight to the problem.  We can see that difficult choices need to be made. I'll bet the Middle Class is going to bear the brunt of those difiicult choices, too.  Later this week we'll examine what's being floated and how it will impact us.



Abandoned Boat in the Woods

We found this abandoned boat near the edge of some woods. The trees, grass and vines are slowly claiming the vessel for their own.

MSNBC Article Lists Youngstown Area as 1 of 10 Cities That Will Take a Decade to Recover

MSNBC has an article up that lists "10 cities that will take a decade to recover from the recession".  The article says that while we are currently seeing a resurgence in employment it is due to manufacturing jobs but “the current surge in manufacturing payrolls is not anticipated to last, and by the latter part of the decade the sector is expected to be in secular decline again.”

Well thank goodness we saw hard times coming and made some plans, eh?

When I read these articles I'm always amazed at what they have to say about this area and places like Dayton, Toledo and Canton.  Here's what it says about the Youngstown-Boardman-Area:

7. Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pennsylvania
Change in employment 2001-2011: -11 percent
Population: 565,773
Unemployment: 9.1 percent
Poverty level: 15.5 percent
Median income: $40,734


Youngstown, Ohio, is a former steel city and is the center of an area called “Steel Valley”, the largest part of which was Pittsburgh. The disappearance of the steel mills has left the city’s economy dependent on health care and education, notably Youngstown State University — the city’s largest employer. According to one local paper, the city has more than 4,500 vacant structures and a shrinking population.

That's it.  No mention of the success we're enjoying thanks to GM Lordstown's new Cruze.  He completely missed the investment of almost three quarters of a billion dollars by V & M Steel in a new pipe mill that will supply material for accessing the Marcellus Shale gas deposits. (My understanding is that those deposits will last considerably longer than a decade). There's a longer list here.

But those are manufacturing jobs, you may say.  What about new business?

Glad you asked.  It turns out that considerable time and money has been spent on the Youngstown Business Incubator.   Their mission is to "Facilitate the creation of high-value businesses through collaborative partnerships that promote innovative technologies."

So yes, things are bad, but as has been pointed out more than once this area is recovering faster than most from the Great Recession. We've had decades to think about how to do so and it appears to be paying off.

The author of the article gets it right about YSU and medicine being large employers but he should have dug a little deeper. I'll drop him a note and let him see how we do things.