Another disaster is beginning today in Greeneville, Michigan. It won't get any news attention, but like Katrina, it will force hordes of people out of their homes and into the unknown.

Electrolux is shutting down the world's largest refrigerator factory, ending more than 2,700 jobs. Today is the last day for the first batch of 800 workers.

Greeneville's population is just over 8,000 people; the average household income has barely reached $30,000 a year.

About half the population are children, so today roughly 1 in 4 families lost their income. This in a state that ranks last in economic recovery.

Electrolux says it is building a new plant in Mexico, there labor is cheaper. They will be followed to Mexico by Federal-Mogul, Montcalm County's 2nd largest employer, which is also eliminating 39 of its 300 jobs today.

For the folks in Greeneville, there has been and will be no media attention; no calls for action and help from the Bush Administration- only new lives of quiet desperation.

Unless a miracle happens, Greeneville has just been effectively wiped off the map.

I thought you should know...

I have a couple of questions:

1) Reports from our government show the economy is not doing that badly. Yet, I hear report after report of manufacturing facilities closing. Good jobs generate four to five jobs for each good job. This should include the so called service jobs. How can the economy be doing well amidst all of these plant closings? I know the country is big, but I just don't understand.

2) Has it always been like this in the US and I was simply too naive to notice? Calumet once had 100,000 people after all. The state park at Fayette once thrived. Is this the normal course of affairs, i.e. boom and bust?

Well, the way I see it is that the economy stats don't reflect the reality, which in Carter's day was called 'stagflation'.

Say a CEO gets a $500,000 bonus. This shows up the same as if 100 top employees got a $5,000 bonus, but the economic effects are wildly different. (For example, little of the half mil would wind up in the local economy.)

No, it hasn't always been like this. Henry Ford -in the depths of the Depression - prided himself on good pay and good conditions for his workers- the tradeoff was he expected them to work hard. Americans thrived on that...

Now we are more or less like ancient Rome- importing most everything we need, and using sub-citizens (both overseas and domestically) for menial work and to scare the middleclass into meek compliance with 'management'.

I just heard a startling benchmark- on NPR they were doing a weekly roundup regarding Katrina, and one of the commentators said 'If we can go to the Moon, why can't we...'

Well, we can't go to the Moon anymore, can we? The industrial base is gone.

Guys,if the democratic party had not taken labor for granted these companies wouldn't be getting away with this crap.

The democratic party needs to make the working man the centerpiece of it's interests. 30 years ago if a company did something like this the Unions would have shut the MF'ers down.