The Mahoing Valley Matters

In case you didn’t notice, this past week the Mahoning Valley was privileged to host two distinguished visitors. Both the newly sworn in Governor John Kasich and the newly sworn in Attorney General Mike DeWine made highly visible stops in our area. Kasich visited Lordstown, the home of the highly successful GM Chevy Cruze. DeWine visited St. Dominic’s Church, the scene of two vicious murders this past year. I don’t know about Governor Kasich, but this was Attorney General DeWine’s first official visit to anywhere in Ohio, and he chose here. What a testament to our community. The Mahoning Valley matters, and in a big way!

Notwithstanding our 11% unemployment rate, Youngstown was listed as one of the top ten places in America to find a job. It is listed as one of the top ten places in America to start a business. It is one of two cities in Ohio that have shown job growth and a decline in the unemployment rate. The British view of Youngstown can be viewed by clicking here. If you haven’t seen this 2010 BBC story, it’s worth a look. The unemployment in the area is structural, based in deep sociological problems, and for the most part appears to be not fixable. But business is alive and well here, and for the most part, folks have good jobs here.

Lordstown is the heart of the automobile industry in Ohio. It is the one of the lead plants in the GM family. Kasich came here to warn us not to be complacent. His conversations with Detroit automakers shows there is a strained relationship between the Big Three and Ohio. Those of us who follow those things know that already with massive plant closing in Mansfield, Dayton and Toledo. We have to do better. Most of the problems are based in the state’s tax structure and overall cooperation level with incoming businesses. Lordstown is an example of how cooperation between business, labor, and government can make a difference, and shine as an example for the rest of the state.

DeWine came to look at crime at a very personal level. Hopefully it will help keep the AG Youngstown branch open as DeWine’s staff looks for way to save money in these lean times. Better law enforcement, better and faster BCI operations, better urban planning and development are three ways to keep the bad guys away from our doors. I’m not sure exactly what the Attorney General can do, but it is nice to know that he is there when you need him, and not afraid to come out and talk to the folks. He didn’t have to come, but he did.

The Republican sweep in Ohio was breathtaking. All of us here in the Mahoning Valley, even us Republicans, are concerned about how Republican officials will react to the one area of the state that produced the highest percentage Democratic vote in the last election. But we all live here together, and political affiliation notwithstanding, the entire state stands to benefit as we accelerate our financial and manufacturing base in this area. Those of us in the Republican party will be more than willing to join hands with our Democratic officials to continually pound the table about economic development for Youngstown and all of northeast Ohio.

I concluded at the beginning of the economic crisis that Youngstown would fare better than most. We have been fighting adversity for over 35 years, and we have emerged as smart, sophisticated, technologically relevant, lean, diversified, and with cooperative governmental bodies which are working hard to make our early 20th Century political structure work in a 21st Century world. While the rest of the of the country was falling down, we were standing tall with 3 shifts at Lordstown, the V&M pipe mill project, numerous call centers…and a world noticing technological business incubator in downtown Youngstown putting us on the world technological map.

I am so proud of this area I could bust. I was 28 when the mills went belly up. I am now 61. It has been a joy to see Youngstown emerge as a modern economic force in Ohio. There is much more work to be done. Keep it up. The Mahoning Valley matters.

Play Hardball with China

Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Washington this week. China wants to oust the dollar as the international currency of choice in favor of a basket of currencies, or better yet, replace it with the Chinese yuan. There is nothing less at stake than the future of the supremacy of the United States as a world power. The United States must play hardball with China.

China has moved swiftly from the depths of the Cultural Revolution to the economic miracle of Asia. Shanghai, with its twenty million people, is the show place of China and Asia…the place where China flexes its economic muscle as it moves from a communist society to a capitalist one. Well, sort of. At the end of the day, China’s economic system is “state capitalism” still governed by an authoritarian government. People are routinely displaced and moved with no say in their future. For many Chinese, for the bulk of the Chinese still living inland out of the economic zones, it is still a subsistence living. The Chinese miracle has been built on the backs of low wages, no benefits, a privileged wealthy class, and an artificial currency.

The Chinese currently have $2.7 trillion in foreign currency reserves, with close to a trillion in United States dollars. Compare that with the $14 trillion debt facing the United States. Big corporations, in cahoots with the American government, are willing participants in this dubious Chinese miracle. There is a reason we have unemployment at 9.5% while corporations are making record profits. We are willing participants in the Chinese flim-flam for cheap goods made by cheap labor working slave hours. We salivate over the billion Chinese market. That has been the American dream for 150 years. I have news for American corporations and our government…the Chinese will NEVER concede its home markets to western business. It will use western corporations so long as it is advantageous to it, then blow them away.

I have seen the commentators from the government, business and the media try to rationalize this away. It may seem like there are big business deals coming from this trip. It is hollow. These deals, no matter how many zeros, are chicken feed…crumbs the Chinese have chosen to throw our way to appease a restless public. You can’t dress this pig up.

The Chinese have deliberately built their economy on a currency that is set artificially low in a world trade system that demands floating currencies to cure trade imbalances. We can’t win with Chinese currency currently set approximately 30% below the value of the American dollar. The Chinese government has allowed it to rise a percent or two. Big deal!! All other nations in world trade organization have to let their currencies float, except the Chinese. Enough is enough.

The only way we can regain our manufacturing footing is to end this charade with the Chinese communists and their brand of state capitalism. Our government won’t do it. We are trading our future for cheap light bulbs.

There is one bright note. While our government has failed to act under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the Federal Reserve is doing an end run. Many questions have surrounded the second quantitative easing (tr: printing money) by the Federal Reserve. Many commentators say we don’t need it. But either deliberately or by accident, it is giving the Chinese fits. When money is printed, it has to land somewhere…and apparently it is landing in China. The Chinese rate of inflation is almost 10%. The Federal Reserve has apparently taken the position that if China won’t inflate its currency, we will deflate ours, making their foreign reserves worth less and less, and causing inflation in China as commodity prices begin to skyrocket. It is a dangerous game. It will work if the inflation rate in the United States remains less than in China. If not, we are in deep do-do.

Whatever the Fed is doing, President Hu has been in Washington this week screaming about it. Let him scream. And add some tariffs to muffle the noise.

The Tucson Tragedy

My first experience with violence in American society was the assassination of John Kennedy. I was 12 years old. We were watching a movie on how to eat healthy in Phys. Ed. Class when the announcement was made over the loudspeakers that the President had been shot, and we were being sent home early. I remember getting on the bus, and looking over my shoulder. My mother drove to the school to pick me up, along with anxious parents of half the school. Three days later I watched them shoot Lee Harvey Oswald after coming home from early mass at St. Dominic’s Church.

The violence seemed to escalate from there. It was rampant all through the 60’s. The Vietnam War was brought into our living room every night on Walter Cronkite, along with the body count. More assassinations! Race riots! University riots! Shootings at Kent State! It was a never ending cycle backed by a soundtrack of rock and roll, the British invasion, heavy metal, Motown, and folk music. Sonny Bono summed it up in The Beat Goes On.

What can we do about domestic violence? I often think that had Lee Harvey Oswald missed on that November day in Dallas things might have been different; that as a society we would have be more civil. Maybe yes. Maybe no.

Assassinations are part of our history. From Lincoln to McKinley to Garfield to Kennedy, assassins are not new to American culture. That doesn’t take into consideration the attempted assassinations of the likes of Jackson, Reagan, Nixon and Gerald Ford twice, and numerous other attempts.

Whether we like it or not, there are wing nuts and whack jobs walking among us. While some assassination attempts may be politically motivated (John Wilkes Booth), others are simply the manifestation of illogical madness (John Hinkley). The attempt on the life of Congresswoman Giffords is an example of the latter.

Jared Loughlin had been obsessed with Giffords since 2007. With a library that included the writings of Adolph Hitler and Karl Marx, he certainly was an eclectic nut job. The guy would laugh maniacally at the drop of the hat. The political commenting Sheriff of Pima County admitted he was aware of death threats made by Loughlin to other people. (And the sheriff did what about those?) His community college demanded a certificate of sanity before it would let him back in after throwing him out. And let’s not forget the skull altar in young Jared’s back yard. For a 22 year old, this guy needed some serious head work.

Trying to explain what happened in political terms is interesting, but useless. This type of tragedy is not politically motivated. Loughlin’s obsession and madness would be focused on something else if not Congresswoman Giffords. Mental illness like this will manifest itself in one form or another, none of it good.

Our prayers are with the victims of the Tucson shootings; and double prayers for that little girl. Our hope is that we can find a way to stop another senseless tragedy like this one. I know that our prayers will work. I’m not so sure about our hope.

Happy Gerrymandering

In case you didn’t know, this is a redistricting year: an event that captures the imagination of every living politico every ten years!!! It is political nirvana. Unfortunately, it’s not working out so well for Ohio this year as we are going to lose two congressional seats. We currently have 18 congressional seats, and we are heading down to 16. It’s not that our population is falling. It actually increased 1 ½ % over the past ten years. It’s just that other southern states grew by 5%. Notwithstanding, we are still the 5th most populous state in the union.

Things don’t look so good for the Dems. Across this great country Republicans have taken control of most governorships and statehouses, which means they can draw (gerrymander) the districts to suit Republican purposes. Ohio is no exception. With a clean Republican sweep from the Supreme Court to the legislature, it is Ohio Republican nirvana.

Here is an interesting fact. Out of the current 18 Ohio Congressman, only five are Democrats. A recent article in the Washington Post blog commented on what is going to happen here. Above is a non-authorized copy of the Ohio congressional map. Stunning, isn’t it? I live in the part of Mahoning County that is in the 6th district, that long district running the length of the Ohio River. It is currently represented by the newly elected Republican Bill Johnson from Poland, the part that is in the 17th District. If you live in the city or Austintown, you are also in the 17th. That district stretches to the eastern border of Akron. Tim Ryan is your Congressman.

So…the WP Blog speculated on what Ohio Republicans are going to do to eliminate Democrats and maintain Republicans in the Congress. In a state that is essentially a toss-up state, can Republicans eliminate 2 Democratic seats while maintaining all the existing Republican seats? WP says no. I say maybe. But the more interesting question is how will that affect us here in the Mahoning Valley?

One thing everyone agrees on is that the Ohio 13th Congressional district, currently containing most of Akron and running up west of Cuyahoga County to the lake is bye-bye. It is easy to move Democratic constituencies to adjoining Democratic districts. Unfortunately, it doesn’t eliminate the district currently held by Dennis Kucinich, the ultimate Republican dream.

Past that, all bets are off. The Washington Post blog opines that the current Ohio Republican Congressional delegation is a fluke, and in a normal circumstances, would be more evenly distributed. It points directly to the Ohio 6th District to make its case. The Ohio 6th was Ted Strickland’s district before he was elected governor. He was replaced by Democrat Charlie Wilson for 2 terms. In November, Wilson was beat…totally unexpectedly…by Republican Bill Johnson, who neither lives nor works in the District. His employer is in Warren, and most of his initial financial support came from Trumbull County and points west.

The 6th District is an easy target to breakup. It is 375 miles long, and joins together a population that has practically nothing in common. Canfield/Boardman suburbanites have little in common with southern Ohio coal miners, yet here we are. The Republicans would be more than willing, so says the Washington Post, to give up a toss-up district currently held by a Republican in order to shore up more heavily Republican adjoining districts. Canfield and Boardman would be bounced back into the 17th…maybe. Who knows?

At the heart of the problem seems to be the newly elected Congressman Bill Johnson, who has had problems establishing a connection with the state party, and some of the local Republican parties. And while the local media says that Columbiana County Republican Party Chairman Dave Johnson (no relation) will have a major say in the process, it implies that he sees some merit in keeping the 6th as it currently exists. I’m not sure that’s the case.

For his part, Congressman Johnson has already announced he is selling his house located in the part of Poland that is in the 17th District and moving to Marietta. Ostensibly, he says it’s because it is central to the district he represents. But the subtext is he may see the handwriting on the wall, and is moving to a part of the district that would allow him to run in whatever Congressional district Marietta eventually ends up in if the 6th is chopped up. His wife has strong connections to the Marietta area, and it is a source of political strength for him.

Of course, that is what the Washington Post thinks. Me? I think the Ohio Republicans would not knowingly give up a current Republican Congressional seat, personal feelings about Bill Johnson be damned. I think they will try to squeeze out two sure Democratic seats, and will succeed because the population loss in northeast Ohio is so profound. I hope that is the case. I like being in the 6th Congressional district. It is diverse, and is more aligned with my political views.

Akron and Youngstown will be moved into the same Congressional District putting Tim Ryan at risk. And they may even move Canfield into Canton’s district…and Boardman into…what the hell, let’s put in with Dayton. Here’s an idea, let’s put Struthers and Campbell in with Toledo. Now THAT is a Congressional District.

Happy Gerrymandering.