How "economic development" makes us poor

[jamil]

This brings back memories. As a newly minted ChemE [a number] of years ago, I received some numerically attractive offers from plants in Louisiana and with companies to work in the ME (Saudi Arabia). I made a plant visit to LA. I declined both offers because, for a lad only 5 years away from back east (even though I grew up well upstate in NY) it seemed like setting your watch back 100 years. At the time I couldn't visualize residing in either area as actually 'living'. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do graduate work, and neither area would facilitate that. There was a faint air of desperation that, combined with the offers, seemed to indicate they could be a pathway to entrapment as a plant engineer forever. My understanding is/was the refiners are there for a combination of proximity to shipping and lax environmental regulation

I got used to living in Mississippi, but it was a real culture shock at first. I lived well. Because wages are so low, so is cost of living. I was shocked first time I went to a self serve car wash. Put in a quarter and got two minutes. We lived quite comfortably. If Inwere to move away for retirement I’d think hard about moving back there. It’s kind of a tale of two cultures. There’s the unbelievably poor, and the rest.

 

[BigRed]

The enemy is always the state.