50 Years of Night in Eastern Kentucky

[DJD]

do you really believe Obama is the cause of the bad coal market, or could it be the greedy coal Operators pricing them self, out of business. with 110.00 plus per ton coal. the power plants are no different than any other company, get the bottom line down no matter who gets hurt. the natural gas market is booming and it is cheaper than coal. thats why the power plants switched over. Obama does want what coal that is burned to be burned cleaner, and to me that is a good move to try and clean up the air everyone breaths.

Your right because I remember his speech promise about this. It went something like this....."you can keep your coal powered energy company if you want" remember???

[GeoFisher]

do you really believe Obama is the cause of the bad coal market, or could it be the greedy coal Operators pricing them self, out of business. with 110.00 plus per ton coal. the power plants are no different than any other company, get the bottom line down no matter who gets hurt. the natural gas market is booming and it is cheaper than coal. thats why the power plants switched over. Obama does want what coal that is burned to be burned cleaner, and to me that is a good move to try and clean up the air everyone breaths.

Again, you live in a vacuum. The coal industry has been DESTROYED by environmentalist HATERS. They get up on their pulpit and preach and then drive off in their SUV to a private airport to jump on a 400 leer to fly to their next gathering of whacko, CRAZY environmentalists.

I guess this had NOTHING to do with the decline of Coal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Coal

Later,

Geo

[GeoFisher]

I have two family members that I talked to very recently on different subjects, but one very common issue.

They both are older, they both live on a fixed income, are rather uneducated, and make just above minimum wage.

Family member 1:

Has worked their entire life. Is a HARD worker and a pretty good person all in all. This person would rather work 5 jobs and die trying if it meant being self sufficient, and not taking a handout......EVER. I joked one time about gubment cheese with this person, and the **** near threw me out of the house. This person works at a school and the school is about to be closed and they are worried about their job, and what it means. Fortunately, this person has worked all their life and will eventually be able to draw SSI and Medicare.


Family member 2:

Has also worked their entire life, but most of it has been under the table, so there will be not very much benefit in the future. This person hurt their back a few years ago, and has been drawing SSI/Disability since. This person also works, but is only allowed to work a certain amount of hours/ make so much or they lose their Disability.

This weekend, I helped them calculate how many hours they can work and still keep their benefits. I'm torn with this situation.

They are a good person, and deserve some help, but I simply cannot get over the hump of if you can work you CAN WORK. You don't work less hours to collect a gubment check. you work MORE hours so you don't need a gubment check.


It is hard to respect them equally.............

Later,

Geo

[Hlleonard]

I have two family members that I talked to very recently on different subjects, but one very common issue.

They both are older, they both live on a fixed income, are rather uneducated, and make just above minimum wage.

Family member 1:

Has worked their entire life. Is a HARD worker and a pretty good person all in all. This person would rather work 5 jobs and die trying if it meant being self sufficient, and not taking a handout......EVER. I joked one time about gubment cheese with this person, and the **** near threw me out of the house. This person works at a school and the school is about to be closed and they are worried about their job, and what it means. Fortunately, this person has worked all their life and will eventually be able to draw SSI and Medicare.


Family member 2:

Has also worked their entire life, but most of it has been under the table, so there will be not very much benefit in the future. This person hurt their back a few years ago, and has been drawing SSI/Disability since. This person also works, but is only allowed to work a certain amount of hours/ make so much or they lose their Disability.

This weekend, I helped them calculate how many hours they can work and still keep their benefits. I'm torn with this situation.

They are a good person, and deserve some help, but I simply cannot get over the hump of if you can work you CAN WORK. You don't work less hours to collect a gubment check. you work MORE hours so you don't need a gubment check.


It is hard to respect them equally.............

Later,

Geo

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[Bonefish]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/04/world/...rticle_sidebar

[mhall]

Finally read this and it was pretty much what I expected. Some folks are taught to be sponges while others would love to do better but don't have the education or means of obtaining it in some cases. It is sad and I always think of kids lying in bed at night maybe cold with little to eat and their stomachs growling.

Obama is a Champion of Coal..he said this over and over and over on his campaign trail. Yep he's a Champion at KILLING it, he and his band of tree hugging minion idiots say they love it but do everything in their power to make it so **** expensive they can't operate. Ask Ashley Skudd she has single handily helped shut down Eastern Kentucky one of the reasons I can't stand the bitch.
I wish I had the answer, I applaud people like Don and his church for trying to help folks. The best market in that area now is tourism. We went this year and hiked, did the Zip lines, rented cabins ect. Go for a trip there with your families and spend some money it is truely one of the most beautiful places God ever made, raw beauty that takes my breath away everytime I'm there.

[kyfanatic]

Why do you think they have to price so high? The cost of Government Regulation is a bottom line killer. You really think they would just price themselves out of the market? No sir. They are smarter than that. They have to make money like any other for-profit company.

Kentucky has some of the cleanest coal fired power plants in the World...which, because of the EPA's regulational handcuffs, will be sitting dormant or converted to natural gas fired plants...which, guess what? They employ less Kentuckians and put countless others who make their living in coal mines or as service workers in other industries serving the mines and the mines' workers out of jobs. It's is a horrible scenario for Kentucky's economy and several other states. My company has done business in Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia in mining communities for years. When coal isn't running, it is not a pleasant place to be. No money, no growth, no consumer confidence of any kind. They go into full on survival mode. Coal is all they have in a lot of these places. Companies in other industries don't want to invest in these geographies because of it too.

Tough cycle to get out of.

This is correct,I have tons of Family in Harlan,Letcher,Perry,and Leslie counties in Kentucky and Lee and wise counties in Virginia,I was raised near Dryden ,Va and grew up running around on Black Mountain on the states border.Nearly all my family members are either Coal Miners or related,none of them are sponges and all work for a living,but if you could see how Obama and his SS EPA have decimated towns there it's sickening,schools are closing forcing kids to travel long distances to Elementary schools because not enough people left in some areas,the town Namesake of my family = Pennington Gap,Va is a shell of it's former self.

You will neber Catch Obama or his Communist Democrat Minions campaigning in that part of the country,they don't have enough secret service men to protect his sorry $%^

[waterdog101]

This is correct,I have tons of Family in Harlan,Letcher,Perry,and Leslie counties in Kentucky and Lee and wise counties in Virginia,I was raised near Dryden ,Va and grew up running around on Black Mountain on the states border.Nearly all my family members are either Coal Miners or related,none of them are sponges and all work for a living,but if you could see how Obama and his SS EPA have decimated towns there it's sickening,schools are closing forcing kids to travel long distances to Elementary schools because not enough people left in some areas,the town Namesake of my family = Pennington Gap,Va is a shell of it's former self.

You will neber Catch Obama or his Communist Democrat Minions campaigning in that part of the country,they don't have enough secret service men to protect his sorry $%^

I've been in every county and place you named, I worked the first 23 years of my life in the coal fields of eastern KY, and most of my family have worked in coal as well. and most of my family still do. my wife's uncle was a coal operator, owned a loadout tipple and a couple mines. and I know first hand how coal company's operate. they don't play by the rules. this is the truth, a big coal company I worked for back in the early 80's would have safety meetings, and some of the guys would complain about the dust being so bad, and this was the company's spokesman's reply, { don't worry about the dust you can see, it won't hurt you. it's the fine particles you can't see that will get you.} wouldn't you think the more dust you can see, would mean there are that much more fine mixed in you can't see. and for years the company safety guy, would come around and pin a dust collecting sample device on everyones jacket, and they would wear it for 8 hours. guess what happen? the company got sued fore Falsifying dust samples. I still stand by my statement the coal company's are as much to do with the bad market as Obama and the EPA. greed for an extra 2 or three dollars a ton every time they negotiate a contract with a power plant. when you work for a company, the talk of how they squeezed the power plants for the extra money, leaks down to the ears of the workers. and without the EPA or a President that will force them to play by the rules, people may have more jobs in coal, but the water and Air that your kids and grandkids drink and breath will not be very healthy for them.

[kyfanatic]

I've been in every county and place you named, I worked the first 23 years of my life in the coal fields of eastern KY, and most of my family have worked in coal as well. and most of my family still do. my wife's uncle was a coal operator, owned a loadout tipple and a couple mines. and I know first hand how coal company's operate. they don't play by the rules. this is the truth, a big coal company I worked for back in the early 80's would have safety meetings, and some of the guys would complain about the dust being so bad, and this was the company's spokesman's reply, { don't worry about the dust you can see, it won't hurt you. it's the fine particles you can't see that will get you.} wouldn't you think the more dust you can see, would mean there are that much more fine mixed in you can't see. and for years the company safety guy, would come around and pin a dust collecting sample device on everyones jacket, and they would wear it for 8 hours. guess what happen? the company got sued fore Falsifying dust samples. I still stand by my statement the coal company's are as much to do with the bad market as Obama and the EPA. greed for an extra 2 or three dollars a ton every time they negotiate a contract with a power plant. when you work for a company, the talk of how they squeezed the power plants for the extra money, leaks down to the ears of the workers. and without the EPA or a President that will force them to play by the rules, people may have more jobs in coal, but the water and Air that your kids and grandkids drink and breath will not be very healthy for them.

And who are you ,Obama,or the EPA to tell someone how to make a living or what to do with their land? The US Government is not here to be a Nanny and tell us what to eat,how to live,and what to do in our individual lives. My family came here from Northern England and Scotland some 400+ years ago to get away from such tyranny.
Free Enterprise and a thriving economy will never happen and we will remain in a welfare state so long as Liberal Communist idiots keep thinking we all have to live and think just like them.

[waterdog101]

And who are you ,Obama,or the EPA to tell someone how to make a living or what to do with their land? .

it's none of mine or anyone else's business, what a person does with their land, or what they work at to make a living. unless what they do messes, with the lives of everyone in their community, state or Nation. then the EPA or Government has to put forth rules, that will protect everyone. can you imagine what company's all over this Nation, would do to our streams and lakes, that everyone gets good clean drinking water from, if there was no EPA to keep them in check. it would be like not having any form of Police protection, to keep the criminal minded people held back. without laws and Police officers to enforce them, the criminal minded folks, would rape, rob, kill, still and do as they pleased to hurt everyone. same with big company's, without the EPA to keep them in check, they would destroy our environment, in only a short time. just to make a large profit. it would be wonderful, if our nation didn't have to have, an Agency to Protect our Environment, but our history shows that company's can't be trusted to do whats right, so we have the EPA in place to guide them, and I'm glad we have the EPA and a President that can see the good they do.

[MrSplitshot]

I've been in every county and place you named, I worked the first 23 years of my life in the coal fields of eastern KY, and most of my family have worked in coal as well. and most of my family still do. my wife's uncle was a coal operator, owned a loadout tipple and a couple mines. and I know first hand how coal company's operate. they don't play by the rules. this is the truth, a big coal company I worked for back in the early 80's would have safety meetings, and some of the guys would complain about the dust being so bad, and this was the company's spokesman's reply, { don't worry about the dust you can see, it won't hurt you. it's the fine particles you can't see that will get you.} wouldn't you think the more dust you can see, would mean there are that much more fine mixed in you can't see. and for years the company safety guy, would come around and pin a dust collecting sample device on everyones jacket, and they would wear it for 8 hours. guess what happen? the company got sued fore Falsifying dust samples. I still stand by my statement the coal company's are as much to do with the bad market as Obama and the EPA. greed for an extra 2 or three dollars a ton every time they negotiate a contract with a power plant. when you work for a company, the talk of how they squeezed the power plants for the extra money, leaks down to the ears of the workers. and without the EPA or a President that will force them to play by the rules, people may have more jobs in coal, but the water and Air that your kids and grandkids drink and breath will not be very healthy for them.

I don't dispute at all that there are probably some unethical and crooked folks running coal companies...it's the same way with any industry. I think it's a shame that people operate that way, but I don't think it's a huge contributor to the decimation of the coal business.

I do believe there should be some common sense government regulation that protects the environment and the worker from unethical corporate influence. If I want to save money by dumping toxic waste into the river, there should be laws against that. I shouldn't be able to cut corners on safety that seriously endangers the lives of my employees. The problem is that, typical of the government, they have taken all of it waaaaaay too far.

[DJD]

I still stand by my statement the coal company's are as much to do with the bad market as Obama and the EPA. greed for an extra 2 or three dollars a ton every time they negotiate a contract with a power plant. when you work for a company, the talk of how they squeezed the power plants for the extra money, leaks down to the ears of the workers.

Sounds like your talking about Unions here! Squeezing more money out of businesses??