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posted by LaminatorX on Saturday April 12 2014, @08:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the If-only-we-had-crumbling-infrastructure-in-need-of-repair. dept.

Barry Levine writes that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is urging environmentalists to have some compassion for the coal miners they help put out of work because they can't be easily retrained to do other jobs. "Mark Zuckerberg says you can teach them to code and everything will be great. I don't know how to break it to you but no" said Bloomberg. "You're not going to teach a coal miner to code." Bloomberg, who is an environmental activist, said while he gives "a lot of money to the Sierra Club" to shut down coal-fired power plants and to promote green energy projects, society needs to "have some compassion to do it gently."

Thousands of coal mining jobs have been shed throughout the country, there were about two thousand fewer coal miners in March 2014 than at the same time last year. Coal-reliant states, like Kentucky have been hit especially hard with more than 2,200 mining jobs lost in that state alone last year a 23 percent decline. Bloomberg suggested subsidies to help displaced workers, like coal miners, and maybe even retaining. But Bloomberg said retraining isn't always an option, especially in an economy becoming increasingly tech savvy. Bloomberg stressed the need for the retraining to be "realistic."

 
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12 2014, @07:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 12 2014, @07:27PM (#30584)

    If you bury 9 bones and release 10 dogs, 1 of those dogs is not going to get a bone.
    It doesn't matter how much TRAINING you give that dog who failed, the next time you repeat the experiment, 1 dog will end up without a bone.
    The problem is NOT a lack of training.
    The problem is that there aren't enough bones. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [ufcw324.org]

    Additionally, when there is an actual shortage of something, the price of that something goes up.
    Supply and demand; this is Economics 101.
    If there was a shortage of coders, there would be a bidding war for coders.
    The fact is that there is already a surplus of coders.
    People training as coders are simply depressing the market farther by flooding it with supply when there isn't an increased demand.
    Again, Economics 101.

    The logical place to put the surplus labor of displaced coal miners would be in manufacturing and installing SUSTAINABLE ENERGY mechanisms.[1]
    The Green Party presidential last time around had such a plan. [google.com]
    (How do I know that none of you heard about that, as you were consuming lamestream media?)
    The longer the USA puts off a real push on sustainable energy, the more of that market (read: jobs and profits) slips away and develops elsewhere.

    [1] If the USA gov't is going to subsidize something, EFFICIENCY would be another excellent market in which to invest.
    Another way to say that in broad strokes is INSULATION.

    -- gewg_

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