plantsman wrote:

Bull! to Newsmax. I don't care how they cook the books on this one, jobs
are not being created in Tennessee and more are going way south or far east
every day. In just my area of NE TN, in the past ten years, we've lost
something to the tune of better than 6,000 manufacturing jobs and over 1,000
more engineering and support jobs for the area's industry. That's almost a
quarter of all industrial jobs here. Even Burger King has taken down their
"Help Wanted" signs. I'm a Republican but if the Bush team succeeds in
measuring burger flippin' as a manufacturing job, them I'm going to
reconsider my vote come November. Real estate here is a mini-mansion buyers
market, as so many white collar folks have had to pull up and relocate when
their $100K+ jobs evaporated due to cutbacks. It's still not over, more
layoffs are expected as the area's largest employer, Eastman Chemical, sells
off one of their divisions and potentially 2,000+ people will be impacted.
We've got Bechtel mechanical and chemical engineers delivering pizzas and
working for the newspaper in an effort to keep from having to move away and
loose their butts on their homes. It is the pits! My former employer
(industrial equipment/supply) (I retired in July due to illness) went from
having over thirty people working to only about eleven, due to the fallout
from Eastman basically stopping in their tracks. They're not optimistic
about surviving as a company. Several competitors and related companies
have already bellied-up. Everyone from car dealers, furniture stores, and
everyone except Wal-Mart has been impacted.

David S.
Kingsport, TN



Cheap labor...the dream of Republicans everywhere. If you want a sea
change, do what you can to ensure Bush does not steal a second term. The
Bush-ites don't give a crap about working men and women.