Category: Economics
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Some Things Worth Remembering on National Miner’s Day
While it is certainly important to lift up those who provide the energy and materials necessary for others to enjoy their comforts and conveniences, we must be careful not to allow specific organizations to use this holiday as a way to spread good PR about their . I am speaking of course, about mining companies,…
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A Letter to J.D. Vance
Dear Mr. Vance, I read your book Hillbilly Elegy last year. Actually, my family and I listened to it as a free trial on Audible while traveling back and forth to visit my grandfather in the hospital. He was a career coal miner by the way. Several friends and colleagues had advised me not to…
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The Love-Hate Relationship of Exporting Appalachian Coal
Since the fall of the steel industry in this country, the majority of Appalachia’s metallurgical coal reserves have been going overseas. Some goes to Europe to foundries producing highly engineered, high quality products. Most ends up in China and India where companies can get by with minimal pollution controls and low wages among people with…
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The Only Way Out for Appalachia’s Coalfields
The boom and bust cycles of coal markets have always worked to the advantage of coal companies more than Appalachian communities. In some of Central Appalachia’s coal-producing counties, over 90% of the mineral rights are owned by absentee owners—owners who manipulate local and state governments to keep property taxes low on their holdings. When markets…
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Voting against their best interests
People ask me “Why do Appalachians vote against their own best interests?” Some are friends who are honestly trying to understand the situation from a point of concern. I know that they seek the cause for the discrepancy, rather than assume coal mining families are incapable of making intelligent political decisions. The question still stings…
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Appalachians Have Lost More Than Coal, We’ve Lost Who We Are
Over the past few years, we have witnessed an amazing downturn in the coal industry. Mines all throughout Appalachia have closed, leaving thousands of coal miners and their families in dire straits. For as long as the coal industry has existed, the people of Appalachia have lived at the mercy of a boom and bust…
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Trump Isn’t Creating Coal Jobs, He’s Helping the Industry Make More Money
Before coal miners rejoice the end of “Obama’s War on Coal,” they should realize the war on their jobs isn’t over—that war began well before Barack Obama took the oath of office. Amid the name-calling, political propaganda, and willful ignorance that came as a result of coal industry’s “War on Coal” campaign, many Appalachian miners…
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Without the Union…
I had been raised union and knew the benefits that came with it, but in its absence, I ended up joining thousands of other young men naive enough to believe we didn’t need a union.
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The Modern Day Company Town
Most Appalachians raised in coal country can easily describe what a “company town” is. They are littered throughout Appalachia, rows of identically built houses with a few larger homes built on the hillsides for the shift foremen and superintendents. Company towns existed during a time in our history when the coal companies ruled our lives.…
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Laid Off
Over the past few years, we have witnessed an amazing downturn in the coal industry. Mines all throughout Appalachia have closed, leaving thousands of coal miners and their families in dire straits. For as long as the coal industry has existed, the people of Appalachia have lived at the mercy of a boom and bust…
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“Coal is all we’ve got”
My father told me and my brother on more than one occasion, “I wish I had’ve got you boys more when you were growing up. A lot of the guys at the mine were buying their kids new four-wheelers and things. They got bass boats and campers and took their families to the lake every…
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Job Alternatives for Coal Miners
If you ask a coal miner about the “War on Coal,” chances are you’ll get an earful about the EPA, President Obama, and all of the environmentalists who don’t care about coal mining families. You’ll may also hear that “coal mining is all there is” in an area where few living wage job alternatives exist.…
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Coal Miners are Good People
I’ve often stated that younger coal miners have a tendency to get themselves into large amounts of debt. It’s easy to do when you grow up in a low income household, start making decent money, and your coal company pay stub acts as instant credit with many local banks and auto dealerships. When the coal…
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Coal, Greed, and Maintaining a Captive Generational Workforce
Previously titled “Guess Who Wants Your Kids to Work in a Coal Mine?” There are many resources in Appalachia that make men wealthy. But without people, those resources would stay locked in the ground. After all, no one has been able to design fully autonomous machines to produce coal. Without coal miners the coal industry…