Awaiting Trump's coal comeback, miners reject retraining

[Edge-]

Then you post a graph showing an 8% bump up. That is actually amazing.

Yes, and? Temporary increases are not abnormal during Coals decades long decline, just as temporary decreases weren't abnormal during its rise.

Not sure what's so "amazing" about regular production behavior.

[Dontrike]

Then you post a graph showing an 8% bump up. That is actually amazing.

I wouldn't call an 8% jump all that amazing.

[Rasulis]

Then you post a graph showing an 8% bump up. That is actually amazing.

The increase demand for metallurgical coal is primarily due to decreased production due to stoppage and lock out in Central Australia coal mines owned by Glencore. Demand for steam coal on the other hand is still decreasing. In fact China has been closing their coal mines for the last 2 years. There are a lot of unemployed coal miners in China also.

[Breccia]

In fact China has been closing their coal mines for the last 2 years.

China historically loved them some coal. Then it turns out, they were smogging themselves to death. Not as big a fan of that. They're shutting down coal-fired power plants left and right, and just to be clear, aren't building new ones either.

[Draco-Onis]

Then you post a graph showing an 8% bump up. That is actually amazing.

So you did not look at the rest of the graph /facepalm.

Short term increases are normal and they also happened under Obama.

[Mormolyce]

It's honestly hard to empathise with someone who looks at a graph like that and thinks they can spend another 50 years in the industry.

You right wingers like to talk about natural selection, right?

Then you post a graph showing an 8% bump up. That is actually amazing.

You uh, see the trend vs noise in that graph right?

Of course you don't, if you could read a graph you wouldn't be watching Fox :P

[Omega10]

While the air is probably better, nursing jobs are just as back breaking if not more. I don't know a single person that works in healthcare on that level that is actually healthy. That is not neccessarily the most appealing job offer.

You are saying the coal miners refuse to take healthcare jobs because they think they are bad for their health??? And you lie, I mean complain, about lefties trashing coal miners.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Then you post a graph showing an 8% bump up. That is actually amazing.

Look at the bump in coal production in Obama's first year. It's even bigger than Trump's! Obama must be the king of coal!

[Dontrike]

Look at the bump in coal production in Obama's first year. It's even bigger than Trump's! Obama must be the king of coal!

Don't point out logic like that, it's confusing.

[Cosmic Janitor]

You are saying the coal miners refuse to take healthcare jobs because they think they are bad for their health??? And you lie, I mean complain, about lefties trashing coal miners.

You have no clue about my political leanings, I'm just saying that the nursing professions usually don't have a very good image and that for a very good reason. They are very taxing and require a certain inclination for social interaction. It's also not like every coal miner works like a 1850's coal miner with a pick in a 1 m² shaft, some of them most likely just operate machinery, which is certainly less taxing than lifting 80-120kg geriatrics around. I'm saying that this particular offer is certainly not for everyone. As you can see in the following posts when I discuss this further with the person I quoted, I think the main reason is that they don't really want to change (certainly not into a very social field) and I also doubt coal miner usually attract the smartest people to begin with, so I doubt many of them are eager to actually learn another job (like programmer, in the middle of "coal country", lol). If you have a retard like the cheeto in charge promise them bullshit, then obviously they will just swallow that hook line and sinker, even with some of the other offers being certainly more interesting (but probably requiring actual effort on their part).

Also how is the age distribution in these jobs? I would expect older people being less inclined to switch to another profession than younger ones (even the article obviously picked a 30 year old trumper). Edit: Nvm, the last part, obviously very few very young ones, but otherwise well distributed around 44 years, so only 30-50% have a valid reason to try to sit it out.

[ipaq]

I understand. It's non-sarcastically sad.

If I got fired for, say, having coked-up sex with a Vietnamese underaged student, I'd probably be tempted to hold out for a replacement teaching job while I lived off my savings.

Then, lived off the proceeds of selling my house.

Then, lived off my credit card.

At some point, a logical response would be to admit "It's over, man. Let her go." and just take a job doing literally anything else for which sleeping with an underaged Vietnamese student wasn't an immediate game over. I don't know when that would be, but it would be the logical thing to do, and the sooner the better.

The difference is, while I'd be lying to myself that another teaching job was somehow possible, the coal miners have been lied to about it. Imagine in my case, where after five years of wallowing in pointless self-pity and increasingly larger piles of empty Oreo bags, that someone told me "hey, there's a new group of schools being formed that will be popping up soon, and they'll be desperate for teachers. Just hang in there, it'll take them a couple of years, but then you'll be hired on the spot." Well, if I believed that, I would be tempted to eat into my remaining money and/or Oreos to wait that out, believing the end is in sight.

Of course, it would be childishly easy for me to research this new school system. It would also be childishly easy to check on how coal's doing these days. The answer is "not great".



Let's talk about the ridiculous bolded claim.

Let's say that Trump, somehow, does create 25 million jobs. He's nowhere near close, but let's pretend. If they were all full-time, that'd be an extra 20% of full-time workers. Now let's assume all of them go from "cannot pay electric bills at all" to "everyone pays their electric bill" and this also translates into "therefore the power companies need to hire more people".

There's a problem with that. The entire coal industry employs fewer people than Arby’s. Namely,



20% of that is just barely north of 15,000 total people.

Coal jobs have declined by a staggering rate in the last 30 years. In 2003, the number of coal miners was a temporary low of 70,000 and the number of coal miners now is 50,000. And those figures don't include other staff. But adding 15,000 more people won't even bring the jobs up to the 2003 levels, and they were themselves low. The more recent high was 2012, nearly 90,000 miners, and it's fallen like a rock with the easy access to oil shale and China cutting demand.

Even by Trump's rosiest predictions, it is impossible for the coal jobs to come back to even the most recent point where they started falling off, five years ago. We can't even get back to 2003 levels.

It's over, man. Let her go.

And ignoring the fact that green and renewable energy sector job count was about ~1m when that orange buffoon start pushing for coal votes ( and then get the EPA to allow them them pollute drinkable water sources ).

[Crispin]

jesus christ, arguments such as "clean coal" and "it doesnt pollute... I can't see any smoke and i live close by" is hilarious at best, the amount of mind gymnastics you'd have to perform, to actually belive thoose things are insane.

Btw the weather isnt getting any warmer where I live, so global warming is a total lie! /s

[Kujako]

Btw the weather isnt getting any warmer where I live, so global warming is a total lie! /s

In fact, it seems to be getting colder every day this month!

[Heladys]

Keep on believing, coal miners. You have a wonderful social safety net to fall back on, Trump is making sure of that.

Your families won't starve, Donald is gonna look out for you personally.

[Orbitus]

Much more accurate than cnn has been and the rest of the liberal media.

Sorry to say, Mr. Alt Account, that would be a false assessment. Especially since we have fact checkers that have confirmed that CNN is wayyyyyyyy more accurate than Fox News. Especially since you can't forget that Fox, the parent company of Fox News sued for the right to lie to you, and you bought into those lies.

[SoyBoy]

Sorry to say, Mr. Alt Account, that would be a false assessment. Especially since we have fact checkers that have confirmed that CNN is wayyyyyyyy more accurate than Fox News. Especially since you can't forget that Fox, the parent company of Fox News sued for the right to lie to you, and you bought into those lies.

Cnn's bias is sickly clear.

[Xeones]

I don't know how many of you live in coal country but I don't know if you realize just how much propaganda we get. State level democrats get into it too with "friends of coal" just look at Manchin.

Ad after ad gets ran blaming the epa and Obama on the job loss, when coal miners should know better than anyone that automation is a large part of the reason for job loss. But no we just need mountain top removal back.

[Orbitus]

Cnn's bias is sickly clear.

Bias doesn't mean they lie.

[Deja Thoris]

Hoping for a coal comeback is like hoping Trump will announce the building of typewriter ribbon or fax machine factories.

Move on.

[Mormolyce]

Cnn's bias is sickly clear.

I think you mean sickeningly.

You come to the country, learn to speak the language!