The Middle Class is Slipping Away

[Towntalk]

The tax payers put in $1,050,000.00 from Washington 

The Humility of Mary Health Partners Development Foundation received two pledges of $250,000, one from James and Gere Weller of Girard, the other from the Hynes-Finnegan Foundation.

A portion of the ticket sales for the Berry Manilow cincert here also went to the center

[jay]

During this year's Panarathon, 4,000+ local runners helped raise over $180,000 for the Joanie Abdu Comprehensive Breast Care Center.

[Towntalk]

Correct me if I'm wrong.

The Middle Class poured billions of dollars into the expansion of our colleges and universities, billion into medical research that has resulted in cures for deceases that once were death sentences, billions into college scholarships that have produced doctors, teachers, engineers, research scientists in the field of green energy, environmental science, and dozens of other fields for the betterment of mankind.

Don't even bother to answer because I already know the the above statement is wrong, but the Middle Class in point of fact benefits from those billions that came put of the pockets of the rich.

In point of fact much of the funding for all the advances of green energy come out of the pockets of corporate sponsors and their foundations.

[irishbobcat]

Typical neo-con response from Dan....

Middle class folks lose their middle class jobs.....

and Dan's advice is just go and find another job...even if it's at minimum wage.....

Yup, neo-cons like Dan truely love to hawk phrases like "creative destruction"....

they love to see middle class lives and jobs destroyed in order to let rich industries and CEO's get richer.....

Dan loves rich neo-con capitalism so much he doesn't give a damn who loses their jobs or lives.....

[Dan Moadus]

Dennis, like most so called "progressives" live in a static world, where when a job evaporates someone starves. They rail against the market place as if it was a malevolent force bent on destroying lives and towns. When in reality it is the dynamics of Capitalism. The world has developed the capability to produce about 90 million cars and trucks a year. Unfortunately, there is only a demand for about 60 million. So the market place has weeded out the weak, or inefficient.  You can cry about it all you want and the government can intervene as much as it dares, but nothing will change the equation. At one time we needed millions more people to work the countries farms; nearly 85 percent of our population. Today we only need about 15 percent of our population to produce ten times as much food. In Dennis' mind we lost millions of jobs, which we did. What became of those people. They went on to build our cars, computers, big screen TV's, and all the other marvels that didn't exist at one time. And that's what will happen now as we come to a point that we don't need that many Americans to build all the things we use. It's called "creative destruction". All those displaced people will channel their energies in directions that we can't even imagine today, and the world will advance.

[irishbobcat]

Middle class slipping away in former 'city of industry'
Dayton suburb of Moraine paying price for growing so dependent on GM plant

By  Alan Johnson
The Columbus Dispatch Tuesday September 6, 2011 8:01 AM


MORAINE, Ohio — The economic crash in Moraine was so powerful that even Mother Nature took notice.

As water-guzzling auto and paper plants shut down, and jobs and people moved away, the water table in the Dayton area began to rise — a total of 13 feet since 1980. The University of Dayton Arena and other buildings had to install pumps to prevent flooding.

The rising tide did not float all boats, however. The middle class in Moraine took a brutal beating — and has not recovered.

"The middle class? I'm not sure it exists anymore," barber Joe Lucas said while cutting a customer's hair at Joe and Denny's Barber Shop on the south end of Moraine, a Dayton suburb of about 6,300 people. (The Moraine ZIP code contains 9,855 people.)

Lucas, 65, a former Moraine City Council member and barber since 1965, said the economy collapsed as industrial jobs evaporated.

"Some people went to trade schools. Some are painters or went to work on the railroad. A lot of people left town," Lucas said.

Jason Mills, 37, one of Lucas' customers, lost his job when the GM Moraine Assembly Plant closed in December 2008. He had gone to work there when he was 19, topping out at $32.10 an hour, he said. He tried truck driving afterward but had to give it up when he developed multiple sclerosis. He's applied for disability benefits.

"I think people didn't look no further than the factory line," Mills said. "We're paying for it today."

"People started being a little more resourceful," said Denny Marchal, Lucas' business partner for 14 years. They got part-time jobs, cut back on their grocery and buying habits, and took stay-at-home vacations, he said.

Marchal estimated that business at his shop, where a cut costs $13, is down at least 20 percent.

While the decline in manufacturing is hardly a new culprit in Ohio's economic woes, few communities have seen their middle class ravaged as Moraine has. Payrolls in Montgomery County, deflated by the loss of Moraine jobs, plunged by $3 billion between 2000 and 2010, a 27 percent drop, the largest in any Ohio metro area.

Even before it was officially a city, Moraine was birthed as the "city of industry." It is associated with the Wright brothers, who made test flights in the area. The Dayton-Wright Airplane Co. built De Havilland DH4 bi-planes and Curtis JN-41 trainer planes for use in World War I; during WWII, the plant made machine guns and airplane parts.

GM bought the Wright plant in 1926 and made Frigidaire appliances there until 1980. The massive facility then was transformed into an SUV assembly plant where thousands of Chevy Trailblazers and GMC Envoys rolled off the line in its 28 years.

David D. Hicks has seen much of Moraine's recent history, as a police officer, detective, police chief and city manager since 2001. He recalls the glory days when city coffers benefited from a municipal income fattened by "GM on steroids."

"What happened to Moraine is what happened to most of America's big industries," Hicks said. "We had all our eggs in one basket."

At its peak, the Frigidaire plant employed 18,000 and nearby Harrison Radiator another 5,000. That was three times the population of the city.

Motorists knew to stay clear of Moraine at quitting time and shift changes, when thousands of GM workers rushed to get home, or to their favorite watering hole.

Related businesses such as parts suppliers and machine shops did well, as did gas stations, restaurants, bars, retail stores.

Now, most are gone, even McDonald's. The survivors have suffered, such as Church's Flowers, which lost its biggest customer when GM and its chain of suppliers left town.

The city's largest employer now has about 500 workers.

Once the hammer fell on the GM plant, Hicks began prowling the Internet, looking for a prospective owner for the 4-million-square-foot facility.

With steel prices at record highs, he knew the building was worth more to "scrappers" for the value of the steel than it was standing.

"Our focus from the beginning was to keep that building up," he said.

Hicks said he decided to become the "rock in the shoe" — persistent and impossible to ignore. He found California-based Industrial Realty Group, which plans to renovate half the site into a five-building, mixed-use complex to generate as many as 2,000 jobs, most likely in logistics, green-energy projects and light manufacturing.

A phoenix rising from GM's ashes would be a rare positive sign in a city plagued by vacant buildings, "for sale" signs, unemployment and under-employment.

The city is involved in another promising venture: Oak Pointe, a subdivision for 100 homes being built in an area once occupied by two seedy mobile-home parks. The city bought the land, cleared out the mobile homes and began promoting it for middle-income residents.

Early this year, Ryan Homes, one of the nation's leading builders, signed on to Oak Pointe. In the first seven months, 19 homes have been sold; a half-dozen are under construction.

Kelly Goonan, a Ryan sales representative, said Oak Pointe's sales are among the most robust in the Dayton area. The homes sell for $120,000 to $200,000.

"I thought I would see 100 percent renters, first-time buyers," she said.

Instead, most of Goonan's customers are moving up from low-cost existing homes into the middle-class market.

The city government itself has not been immune from problems. Although Hicks has a $15 million rainy-day reserve fund carried over, he reduced staffing from 164 to 118 employees. The lights are off in the police department to reduce utility costs. City employees (including Hicks) voluntarily accepted a 10 percent pay cut and reduced benefits.

Two summers ago, the city closed its $3.7 million Splash Moraine water park that opened in 1999, costing 67 seasonal jobs. The park was operating at a $400,000 deficit despite attracting nearly 70,000 visitors a year.

Nearby at the Payne Recreation Center, gray-haired men carrying black guitar cases and women dressed to do some dancing begin arriving before 6 p.m. on a Monday. For four years, the center has played host to a weekly get-together in which musicians and singers play old-time country and bluegrass music.

On a recent Monday, you would have heard Workin ' Man Blues, Merle Haggard's paean to blue-collar laborers: " I'll be working long as my two hands are fit to use ."

That's what most of those in the room did, working for decades at GM, NCR or other factories now gone. By the time the bottom fell out, many already had retired.

"It was a great big hit," said Bill Slone, 66. "The jobs are gone."

Slone, who owned an auto shop before passing it on to his son, said people found lower-paying jobs in gas stations and restaurants, did odd jobs or painted houses, whatever they could to get by. One family member began farming; a friend bought a truck and began hauling steel. Others just moved away.

While dozens of restaurants closed in Moraine, one has thrived. The Treasure Island Supper Club, an oasis across a vast stretch of empty parking lots from the closed plant, opened in the late 1930s as Hustis Bar & Grill, a Hungarian cafeteria catering to factory workers. It later was converted into a supper club with dark woodwork and a big, horseshoe-shape bar.

Today, Treasure Island attracts a diverse crowd: businessmen in suits and women in pearls, senior citizens in shorts and nurses in scrubs.

Duane Isaacs, 58, co-owner of the restaurant for three decades, said the economic slowdown hasn't hurt his business much, except carryout sales. That's all factory workers had time for.

Isaacs said it makes him sad to look at the empty lot across the street.

"In 30 years, I made a lot of good friends. A lot of folks are struggling. I feel bad for them."

Asked how Moraine is faring, 86-year-old Treasure Island co-owner Glenn Thomas was blunt.

"Dyin' on the vine," he said. "The middle class is anybody not robbing banks to make a living."