The 'Eds and Meds' Industries

Where 'Eds and Meds' Industries Could Become a Liability - Richard Florida - The Atlantic Cities:

In my area, Eastern Indiana Teabagistan, the health and education industries are doing quite well (We appear to be a dark green dot on the linked map) but it isn't about economic growth as much as it is about watching over the aging and economic decline of the area while mining it for dollars for the corporate owners.

Teabagistan is a dying area. The population is old and requires lots of hospitals, doctors, and nursing homes,... oh,, the nursing homes. The medical industry here seems to focus on creating an income stream for the corporate owners who are just mining the sick and dying baby-boomers for some of the government supplied medicare cash until they can finally take their homes to pay for whatever ailment eventually claims their life. It is not about growth. It's about tending death to maximize revenue.

Teabagistan is also poor and lacks jobs. The bulk of the young have limited prospects. Most of the better manufacturing moved out years ago. Employment opportunities are Medical, Government, Education, or the various global corporate fast-food/strip mall players. The higher education industry is here nominally to train people for jobs but again they seem to really be better at mining the population for their government supplied education dollars than actually building a better local workforce.

Private schools are popping-up for the local elite's kids. Initially these schools were about a quality education but many now seem to be more about business than education. The elite who send their kids to these schools then bitch about  and cut the taxes required for the public schools eventually weakening their programs. It's a vicious circle continually moving a good education further from the poor and leaving the public schools as basically a day-care for the children of the strip-mall-fast-food-workers.

The amazing thing to me is that Teabagistaners hate the government? They hate the government that pays their retiree's medical bills. The government that pays their workers medical wages. The government that educates, feeds, and baby-sits their kids and pays the wages of teachers and officials, many of whom send their kids to private schools.

I don't get it?


'via Blog this'