America's fastest dying cities

[kandrathe]

I am Pennsylvania....yeeeeeeeee.

Pennsylvania Dutch!

As I said before, what is happening is nothing strange. The other possibility would be no labour laws and no environmental laws.....well I rather work in a country that has these.

Right, this is how industrialism started even in Britain and the US. Child labor, unsafe conditions, open sewage waste, raping the land of resources, etc.

I mean if minimum wage does not exist anymore for sure you will get inflation, house prices will tumble (even more) nobody will be able to afford a car (not even one from asia) etc.

Ok, you lost me. Wages are a factor of supply and demand, and in this case it is people skilled in the desired craft. If you have a shortage of skilled labor, the wages go up. In some countries like India, there are few curbs on population growth so in a way its like each birth is devaluing the labor pool. House prices are also a factor of supply and demand. The problem we have in the US currently is that the quasi government institution of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac pressured banks to underwrite loans that were likely to default. This made the lending market skittish, and froze the available money for lending. Voila! Can't sell the house, and can't borrow to build new ones, so the bubble pops, housing market stalls and values descend. It was a problem of liquidity, and over pricing. It goes to show that when government gets involved they can muck up just about anything.

A rich country just needs to stay innovative and makes sure to do the right investments.

Well, countries are no longer rich compared to the citizens who live in them. Wealth is really very ethereal for those who have much of it as it is tied up in stocks, funds, holdings, and various other assets. Countries can craft policies and enact laws that encourage or discourage certain activities to be done within their borders. I guess if you nationalize (socialize) a particular business sector, then the nation could control wealth (like Mr. Chavez of Venezuela).

Referring to the energy thread, if a country like Holland wants to ensure a hassle free future, we need to make sure that we can produce our own energy. Maybe wind and sun are more expensive now, but when our oil and gas are gone....we'd better have something in place.

Trust me. You will need more than wind and sun, or you will be buying power from France or Germany.

For the US (and western Europe), as I said before our wealth especially relatively will decrease, it is up to us to make the increase of wealth in other countries (which gives us a much better market to buy our stuff) not at the cost of our own wealth. A city that gets deserted is just an insignificant thing (except for people that live there of course). Still with lower ground and house prices in a while companies might settle there again, who knows.

Actually, the mobility of people is like another vote (with their feet). Those places have serious problems to which their city and state governments are not responding well, similar to what happened between East and West Germany after the wall fell. The poor left to go where they could be richer. Ghost towns, like Leipzig, are probably not that uncommon in the former East Germany either. Often, somebody gets a good idea and reforms the area causing people to want to live there again. Take Las Vegas, why is it the fastest growing city in the US? It's in the middle of a desert.