re: #165 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

This does a lot more than “Hillbilly Elegy” to explain the world of Trump supporters. These people still dream of well-paid jobs that require minimal training and education.

Fer chrissakes, I do my banking on the Internet, buy nearly everything but groceries and household supplies through online offerings and send my work back and forth by e-mail (tight deadlines preclude being able to send discs by mail).

That is something America needs to fix in order to stay competitive.

It’s not an issue of well-paid jobs that require minimum education and training. Farming and ranching require both; the majority of my town has bachelor’s degrees and above. I am actually in a small minority of people who have never been to college.

Banking cannot be done on the Internet here. There is no Internet. Even if you had an app for a major bank (such as Bank of America), you could not do it here because there is no cell service.

Back in the early days of telephone service, Ma Bell and others rapidly expanded into areas such as this because the rural nature meant they could get lots of customers who wanted to connect to the world.

The same goes for automobiles: At one time Iowa and Nebraska had the most cars in the nation, because automobile manufacturers saw the potential for people here being able to travel without using a prairie schooner.

Fast forward to late-stage capitalism and such things as computers and Internet service, such companies simply do not care about making money from the people here. They want profit this week, not a couple years from now.