Re: Fantasy fans...

In message <cslo7md3wr7x$.1x9s0bz2jnqvo.dlg@xxxxxxxxxx>, Ric Locke <warlocke@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
On Thu, 27 Apr 2006 05:00:48 +0100, Jacey Bedford wrote:

With a relatively simple solution. World-wide free trade.


Oh yes. Simple...

We import not because we've run out of coal, but because it's cheaper.
So we employ cheap labour in unsafe conditions and then burn fossil fuel
to ship fossil fuel into a country that still has usable coal stocks.

Where's the sense in that?

Well, let's see.

Your position seems to be that (1) the experience of working the mines
profited your ancestors and parents, both economically and in terms of
character, and

More like:
1) Working the mines was a hard and dangerous job but it provided work and income for generations of men who would otherwise have had little chance of stable employment which (in later years) was at least reasonably well-paid. It also generated strong and caring communities which imploded after pit closures.

(2) people in other countries should absolutely be denied
the opportunity to have the same experience, on the ground that it's (a)
demeaning to them and (b) impoverishes your relatives.

2) People in other countries are welcome to the experience but where's the sense in transporting _anything_ around the world when it can be sourced locally? Green issues alone argue for keeping areas of production as close as possible to areas of consumption.

The British Isles is becoming more and more consumer and service oriented. We don't 'produce' all that much any more. And I find that worrying.

2a) Deameaning? Your word, not mine. No, why should it be demeaning in a foreign country any more than it is here? But if some countries produce cheap coal because they exploit their workforce and cut corners on safety issues, is that right? Should we encourage that by buying their product? Demeaning doesn't enter into it, but dead is another matter altogether. We have our own black history of poor mine safety - thankfully now, it is history.

2b) My relatives no longer work in the mining industry. The last coal miner in our family died in 1969, but I was brought up and first worked in a mining town and spent much of my childhood in a mining village. The unemployment created in South Yorkshire as a result of the closure of pits which were still economically viable (in terms of coal stocks) was nothing short of criminal. For a short time I worked as a trainer working with long-term unemployed - trying to make them aware of transferrable skills and to look at jobs outside their normal experience, but it's hard to retrain a fifty year old man who's spent his life at the coal-face, especially when the only available jobs are in service industries. Many miners spent a chunk of their redundancy money training to be lorry drivers and bus drivers (and passing the necessary exams) and within a few years (in our area) the market for drivers was flooded making it harder for drivers who'd been in the transport industry for twenty years to find work because they wanted to be paid for their experience and re-trained miners would jump at jobs for minimum wage.

Sound about right?
Not really, sorry. Like Helen says... it's complicated. And 'market forces' is not necessarily the answer. I don't know what it... if I did I'd not be sitting here banging away at a keyboard, I'd be a captain of industry or a politician.

Cheers

Jacey

--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
.

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