We are all just dollar signs

bar mill


Growing up in the Ohio Valley most of our fathers, brothers, brother-in-laws, husbands, father-in-laws, and friends work or worked in the steel mills. They managed to escape the hard life of working in the coal mine and moved up to working in the hot furnaces of the steel mills.

The economy bottomed out and a lot of men and women lost their jobs. Those that did manage to keep their jobs or were mercifully called back to work, put up with the constant yo-yo-ing of the job market. Rumors of the mill(s) closing circulated on a regular basis every other year or so. Leaving families, providers and all the rest wondering if they were going to have a job next month. The unemployment line became a familiar fact for a lot of people.

I realize that this did not happen only in the U.S. (As can be seen in one of my favorite movies The Full Monty - where a lot of mill workers lost their jobs in Great Britain).

After reading this paragraph in the Sunday paper, I begin to realize what is happening to us. Maybe I am naive and a little slow to catch on, but this really made me gnash my teeth.

Here is a paragraph about a local steel mill being sold to some Mexican-based company:

Bradford sees nothing ominous in the deal. "The previous owner had it for a year and a half, which is about right for a financial investor," he said. "You want to maximize your return, fix it up, get it profitable - and run."
Perry "doesn't want to run a steel business," Bradford said. "He wants to make money, that is why he's an investor."

As Bob Seger would say. "I'm not a number! Damnit, I'm a man!"