The blast furnaces and coke ovens ran 24/7. The only reason to shut down is to reline them, and that is more than 10 years. More likely the wind changed direction and pushed the coal and ore dust towards their homes. My grandparents lived across the creek from the coke ovens at the Johnstown PA steel mill. It didn’t matter what color our car was when we arrived on Friday, it was red when we left on Sunday. The mill is long gone now and Johnstown and the surrounding boroughs are quite clean. Same for Dundalk.
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Yes, nice and clean.
The jobs are gone also, contracted out by corporate to overseas, where workers get paid per week what U.S. mfg. workers earned in just 2 days.
We must find a middle ground between both scenarios, and bring that work back here.
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The steel companies did not contract overseas. The contract they had with the USW would not allow that, and since they were manufacturing facilities, they wanted to run full time anyway. Companies that manufactured steel parts bought from overseas suppliers as long as the quality was satisfactory. For low quality products like nails and rebar that wasn’t a problem. Tire cord, on the other hand, is high quality high carbon steel and has to be manufactured by a high quality integrated steel mill.
A tax for driving an old car? GTFOH! That would (hopefully) never fly here. Although there are some people, such as myself, who drive old cars because they prefer the features and styling of the old cars, the majority of people who drive old cars do so out of financial necessity.
Inflation is a major problem right now, and it hits lower-income people the hardest. People who are already struggling to get by financially are not in a position to pay higher taxes/surcharges that much wealthier people are not subjected to.
Also, I question the legality of penalizing people for driving an old car, which met all emissions and safety requirements when it was originally sold. In the US, we have a Constitutional protection against ex-post facto laws, although maybe a clever politician could argue that a financial cost imposed on owners of old cars is a “tax” rather than a “penalty”.
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And then there are those people who could comfortably afford to pay for a new car in cash right now, but choose to keep driving our old(er) vehicles because we keep them in good shape and they’re pretty reliable
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Maybe they put something in the water.
It is a cousin to “Cash for Clunkers” which provided incentive to those who could afford to purchase new vehicles. Because they ruined the engines of older cars, it increased prices for used vehicles due to decreased supply. I’d be pretty sure it jacked up the price of parts at the salvage yard, too.
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I remember a Paul Harvey broadcast in which he stated something to the effect of “if you were forn before 1970, you are breathing the cleanest air you have ever breathed.” Driving to the airport in Phoenx in the late 60’s or early 70’s in the early morning, smog hung in chunks and globs in the air along the Black Canyon freeway. It was winter and the annual temperature inversion had settled in. I’ve been back since and no longer see the goop in the air though I recognize there are still plenty of pollutants.
I have a friend who brags about his multiple 401Ks in the millions, but drives a 2009 and refuses to get a new car.
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It’s called “investing”. Used car prices have been rising every month for the past 40+ months. Used car prices have never been higher, and folks who own used cars are keeping them longer than they used to, so if you buy a used car, it is likely going to have more miles on it than you may be expecting.
It’s called common sense.
Who needs a 2020-computer on wheels when a low mileage 2008-2012 gets the job done, without all the weirdness?
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I have a friend whose net worth is significantly less, because he has consistently made bad decisions regarding his investments, but he still has a reasonably large 401k. And yet, when his bathroom window was broken a few years ago by falling ice, he opted to not repair it when he got a price quote of $600 because “it was too expensive”. As a result, he only bathed/showed a few times during that winter because the temperature in his bathroom was usually extremely low.
A few years later, he paid a different company more than $1,400 to replace that window. In the process, he–supposedly–saved a few bucks, but none of his friends and associates wanted to get close to him because of his repulsive body odor. He lost many/most of his friends… but he “saved” a few bucks!
What price did he ultimately pay?
Broken bathroom window vs owning a 2009 car model, apples and oranges.
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I’ve got news for you Chris, those 2008 to 2012 cars still have plenty of weirdness, just quite as much as a 2020.
My 04 has 5 or 6 computers, my 2013 has 11, my 2014 has 14.
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Yeah, but back in 2012, cars still had cd players, conventional power steering, and no retarded tablet screen where a dashboard used to be! And most had an aux jack for your phone.
My 2000 Honda had electric power steering, my 2013 and 2014 do, too. I like them.
I agree with you about “tablets” stuck on the dash. IN the dash is fine but if it looks like it was mounted as an afterthought… no way.
The new Mustang dash is absolutely awful.
We have CD players in the 13 and 14 but never use them. I play off my phone via bluetooth or off a memory chip. I can carry a bushel basket of CDs worth of music on an SD card or USB drive or my phone, for that matter. And audio books, too.
I have some old friends who do not have $401…
Forrest Gump got it right, “Stupid is as Stupid does…” I am 73 and I have child hood friends who bragged about all the money they were taking home by being paid under the table, and there are those who always drove a relatively new vehicle (trading one in every 2, 3, or 4 years), choosing to spend their retirement savings on “today’s pleasures” and not saving a dime for tomorrow.
Now, those who worked under the table have little or no social Security (not having worked enough or barely working enough quarters…) and are living on welfare and those who drove nice cars all their lives (with not one ever being paid for…) are scraping by on social security, some with welfare, and some still having to work in their '70s…
I have some very mixed feeling about some of these “friends” I will not lend them one penny, I know they are living day to day, dollar to dollar, and never have a dime to spare.
Some have practically begged for a loan. I know, if I loaned them money and I was not getting repaid and I find out they spent it on some extravagance, they would be “dead” to me…
But if I “gift” them emergency money with no expectation of getting a penny back, and I find out they had a good time om my dime, then I merely “file” that away and consider it the next time they are “in need…”
For a few who needed a phone, I’ve bought them a Tracfone from QVC or HSN ($50 to $70) and these phones come with a year’s worth of service…
One thing I want to make sure is that none of them considers me “Daddy Warbucks,” good for a soft touch…
Yup…there are MANY people who didn’t take care of their own savings to retire in dignity. I started a 401k when they first came out. Whenever I left a job, I moved the 401k into an IRA to consolidate my retirement.
And then there are the ones who had their retirement STOLEN from them by the company they worked for. Ever hear of Tyco. I know a few engineers who worked there and had to working into their 70’s because of a few extremely greedy executives at Tyco. Their 401k pensions were tied up in the companies stock. There are now laws in almost every state to prevent this…but too late for these workers. One of the worse I knew about was a small circuit board manufacturer in MA that got bought out by a bigger company. The new company went to the employees and asked for their millions in their retirement fund to help expand the company with a guarantee growth and payback in 5 years. These people basically took the money…never invested it…and paid their executives huge bonuses…and it was perfectly legal until new laws were enacted to prevent this.
Days before polaroid filed for bankruptcy, executives at polaroid froze their employees from selling their stock. Although management had enough for warning that they were rewarded over $28million in bonuses.
It’s not always the workers own fault.
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I expect if I had simply invested my “retirement” money into a combo of real estate/stock market/bonds rather than 401k’s and IRA’s, my bottom line would have been better. Not complaining, but there’s a lot of fees involved w/401ks and IRAs and when you reach a certain age you can’t just leave it in those accounts. And when you withdraw it, there can be serious tax consequences, even making a portion of your social security income now taxable.
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What do you like about electric power steering?
Also, I keep my 2010 Honda’s 6 disc changer stocked with a variety of genres, ranging from Mozart to Malone, and also listen to stuff on my iPhone via the aux port.
I’m 53, and I want ALL audio format options available, including the aux port to plug my old Walkman in to play cassettes I bought or recorded 30-40 years ago. I never “give up” on older formats, the way both young gen-Zs and older boomers have.
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