Propping up RV jobs...

So if a town like Elkhardt, Ind. is built around an industry -- say "the RV capital of the world" -- and people decide they just don't want to buy big recreational vehicles, what with the price of gas being what it is, and so many modern families eschewing campgrounds for all-inclusive waterpark hotels ... why pump money into artificially propping up those businesses?

Shouldn't the town tough it out, and adapt to market preferences?

I ask this as somebody who remembers the death of the steel mill days, in northwest Indiana and south Chicago. In the late 70s, the steel market evaporated. You had high unemployment in the mills, and in factory jobs. Lots of suicides too, and belt tightening. Plenty of families picked up and moved south, following the job belt.

Cmon people -- America has seen rough times before, and high unemployment in plenty of specialized industries. It was tough -- but nobody suggested artificially inflating the market to keep people working in "make-work" jobs.

There's a difference between spending and investment. Namely, the latter presupposes that the spending eventually will pay off -- it's going for something that will help to make money in the future. How weatherizing homes, and government business, will help create jobs for decades into the future, is beyond me. Healthcare jobs ... that's where the future is.

I'm saddened here, because it seems like President Obama's big "action" plan really is only shifting the burden from the Baby Boom generation of entitlements to our future children and grandchildren. That's just spending money you don't have now, and expecting somebody else to pay the bill.

Frankly, I'd rather we all gut it out, and provide social services to the most needy. Because if this big action plan fails, or ultimately doesn't produce as a solid investment, can you imagine the needy that we will see tomorrow -- as our population ages, and the money necessary to sustain the social programs we know now that keeps the elderly from starving in the streets, is gone -- pooft, tomorrow's budget decisions and priorities already co-opted by the big action plan of 2009?

Thanks, but no thanks.
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