Economics and How Green Was My Valley

Last week there was a mine accident in Wales. What caught my eye was the following quotation:

As of June 2011, 1,500 people in Wales worked in the mining industry, according to government sources.

1,500 people. That makes the automobile or cattle-ranching businesses look healthy. But the end of coal mining in Wales is more catastrophic to the identity of her people than Detroit jobs going overseas. Mining has been the lifeblood in those valleys for centuries. And its gone. Time moves on but can the people keep up with her?

My father grew up in a town with two industries: the railroad and a Celanese plant. As my father entered high school, the Celanese closed down. By the time he got out of college, the railroads were dying. There was no future for him in the town of his birth. Like others in his high school class, he left only to return when he was dying.

Wales is an example of that writ large: When the major job source left, there was a brain drain. What was left behind lives on the charity of the government.