Jay, you simply have no idea.

Really?

I grew up in a city that hosted the largest tractor plant in the world (JI
Case's "Clausen Works"), right on the shores of Lake Michigan. Ten
thousand men worked there every day.

Racine was also host to Modine Manufacturing, Twin Disc, Walker
Manufacturing, and a hundred other smaller manufacturing plants. The skies
overhead were black with soot, and the lake water was very polluted.

Throughout the '70s, as more and more environmental laws were enacted, the
air slowly cleared, and the water quality improved. And, one by one, each
of these plants closed.

The Clausen Works survived, at a much diminished capacity, until just a
couple of years ago. It's now a great, barren, concrete and asphalt plain.
Although a couple of those companies maintain a presence in Racine, their
production facilities are long gone.

Now, our Lake water is so clear, that the lake perch have been devastated by
the salmon -- the poor things simply have no place to hide, because the
water is actually *too* clean. And the boating is great -- for those few
who can afford it.

And all those jobs? All those families? All that infrastructure? All
gone.

Now, obviously, there's a lot more to the utter demise of the Rust Belt than
merely environmental lunacy. The unions got greedy, and came to expect
that a guy turning a nut with a wrench all day was really worth $60K per
year. And management got fat and lazy, thinking that the gravy train would
last forever.

But if you don't think that over-the-top, complex and expensive
environmental regulation played a major part in our economic collapse (and
that is truly what it was/is), you are either a fool or you just haven't
been paying attention. And now we're seeing it happen in the oil
industry -- the very heart and mainstay of our economic system.

We have seen the enemy, and it is us.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"