It’s often been said that as General Motors goes, so goes the United States. Their impact in Janesville Wisconsin since 1918 when they started building Samson Tractors has had the small community in the farm fields of southern Wisconsin joined at the hip. In 1978 employment reached a peak at the General Motors plant in Janesville 7,100 employees and now 90 years later they’re all gone.

A paper mill was built in 1889 by Kimberly Clark Corp, in Kimberly Wisconsin. The town was named after the founder of Kimberly Clark. In 1976 it was sold to Repap Corp. In 1997 Repap sold to mill to Consolidated Papers Inc, which in turn sold the mill in 2000 to Stora Enso. Then, in December 2007, Stora Enso sold the mill to NewPage. On July 30, 2008, NewPage announced its plans to close the plant in August 2008. 2500 remaining jobs were lost in a town of 6,146. After 119 years, the mill was no more.

Today Harley Davidson announced it will cut around 1,100 in Milwaukee Wisconsin. In 1901, William S. Harley, age 21, and his childhood friend Arthur Davidson labored on their motor- at the home of their friend, Henry Melk. It was finished in 1903 with the help of Arthur's brother. Is Harley heading for the door too in the future? With aging baby boomers the main customers, you have to wonder if in the near future they don’t also go the way of the SUV.

However the current economic blood bath really hit home in Wilmington, Ohio with DHL's decision to shut its doors there. The closure is resulting in the loss of 10,000 area jobs, a knock out punch for a town that has only 12,000 residents within the city limits.
This community is said to be, “ground zero for unemployment,' " and most Americans still have no idea what is happening there. Like one person said "it’s a little bit like Katrina without the physical damage." Deutsche Post, parent of DHL, acquired and operated the Wilmington hub in 2003 in conjunction with ABX Air and Astar Air Cargo.



Iconic companies continued to disappear on the American landscape while the country continued drift less on the economic sea. Corporations and banks received billions and billions of dollars while off shoring their business operations to other countries to avoid corporate taxes. What have we solved giving $750 billion dollars away is nothing but replenished the coffers of the lost capital of those who ripped us off. The credit market is still seized up. Meanwhile we ignored the foundation of economic growth in this country at our devastating peril, new markets and most important growing small businesses. However the county continues in a spiral downward with unemployment rising at an accelerated rate and a real threat of a depression the likes we haven’t seen before. It’s well beyond any further monetary (interest rates) relief and the time to act is now to get capital flowing into the market place.



Tears are falling like droplets of
desperate rains from Heaven

On this scorched country,
Where hollow creatures who wish for their starvation
Come to whither and die.


The debate from the diminishing far right, who hope for the worst in America offer no solutions only the devastation they created? After all though, who wants to take advice from those who caused it and are always in favor of those that don’t need help? They’re rooted deeply in hollow deception and shallow intellect. The desperation is transparent as their discourse starts its fade in the new evolving historical reality of the 2008 election. The echo of the contract with America and the permanent majority seems now like ancient history. The party they demolished now stands naked to the wind with sails drawn, at port, no captain aboard and its anchor set firmly at the bottom of the sea. So all that is left is a shrill about how they hope America fails as she tries to reconstruct the carnage of their doing. Their idea as speading lies for a higher good, is simply darkness seeking darkness.The skeletal remains of theminority party of neoconservatives in Congress that is so clearly apparent offer no options but only hope for a failed country. They are the hollow ones, standing on their short stools preaching the need for starvation while knowing in the end that their time has finally come to whither and die.