The Loyal Opposition

[tw]

Originally Posted by Griff

I heard a retired coal miner going off on Mitch, no love there.

Coal miners (especially WV region miners) are an angry lot that deserve to be angry. However they fail to direct their anger at the reason for their plight.

Name an innovation in coal in the past 40 years. Even new coal plants in TX are thermodynamically less efficient than one built in Philadelphia in the 1960s. Coal industry even rejected the IGCC method of making coal cleaner and more efficient. Coal industry hates innovation. So employees suffer even in mines where management even turned off or refused to repair fans necessary to eliminate methane explosions. We now know these decisions were made at highest level of management.

So they blame their declining living standards on environmentalists, politicians, free market economics, demands from other states for cleaner power, and McConnell? It would help if they first learned why their industry must be downsized. If a domestic industry fails to innovate, then free markets demand its destruction.

Maybe they should blame free markets?

Miners demonstrate why so many are angry. They don't first learn reasons for their plight. They seek soundbyte answers. Soundbytes - especially when not quantified - are akin to a lie.