If Liz were Queen

Although the people who will be attending this soiree for the rich in Pittsburgh were the architects for globalization, I find it ironic that they are holding their event in an American city that offers the strongest argument against globalization of perhaps any city in our nation.

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PITTSBURGH WAS ONE OF THE EARLY VICTIMS OF GLOBALIZATION.  These financial and world leaders at the G-20 are to me like ghouls dancing on a flower strewn grave of one of their victims.

When Pittsburgh was busy making steel (not for its local people, but for Detroit and the world), the city was a filthy, unhealthy mess.  It’s rivers were polluted to the point that citizens could almost walk on them.  It didn’t have to be that way, but it was because the owners of the steel mills like Bethlehem Steel didn’t give a damn about the environment any more than corporations today setting up shop in foreign lands give a damn about the people or the environment where they operate.

The U.S. advantage lasted about several decades, during which the U.S. steel industry operated with little foreign competition. But eventually, the foreign firms were rebuilt with modern techniques such as continuous casting, while profitable U.S. companies resisted modernization. (Of course the fact that other countries could hire workers at slave wages had a lot to do with the down fall of the U.S. steel industry too.)

Finally  the 1970s, imported foreign steel was generally cheaper than domestically produced steel.

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Beginning in the 1970s and lasting through the 1980s, steel mills in the city and across western Pennsylvania shut down. Businesses and shops that fed off the industries followed suit. The region lost 150,000 jobs in a decade. Residents fled, and the city’s population shrank from 424,000 in 1980 to just over 311,000 today.

Neighborhoods deteriorated. Schools shut down. The city’s confidence burst.  But with small, careful steps, the city began to climb out of the abyss in the early 1990s, investing in its universities and health centers.

Pittsburgh is not entirely in the clear _ in 2003, the state declared it financially distressed and two quasi-governmental boards oversee its finances _ but signs of improvement abound.

Smoke and smog are a thing of the past. The rivers have fish in them again and boats zip along the water, beneath bright, yellow bridges that attract the attention of tourists. An old rail line is now a bike trail connecting Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C. A riverfront trail is rapidly developing.

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The rich elite at the G-20 will point to Pittsburgh and say:  “See how rosy it is?  Pittsburgh is better than it was.”   But is it really?  There are many who would argue no.

“. . .A key component of economic power is the production of goods. Too often, modern Americans associate manufacturing with horse carts and buggy whips. We think of dirty old industries that economic evolution will naturally replace with high-end services in America and low-wage workers in other countries. We don’t appreciate that manufacturing still constitutes 12 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, 60 percent of U.S. exports and 70 percent of private sector research and development.  If we hope to move beyond the production of goods, we need to think what would replace it.

Services alone are no path to prosperity. Recent history makes that clear. Between 1970 and 2009, goods-producing jobs shrank from 39 percent of the private sector workforce to 18 percent (a decline of 54 percent). At the same time, service jobs increased from  61 percent to 82 percent (an increase of 34 percent).6 But service jobs don’t pay as well. Even in the broad category of “services” — which includes high-end professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and investment brokers — service-providing jobs have an average weekly wage of $610 compared with $810 in the goods-producing sector. The average weekly wage in retail trade is just $400.  .  .”

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For a more balanced perspective on Pittsburgh, I recommend that you read this report:

MAKING IT IN AMERICA
Pittsburgh, G-20 and the New Economy - Lessons to Learn, Choices to make by Eric Lotke
Institute for America’s Future
OurFuture.org