Income inequality

There seems to be increasing concern about the growing gap between the so-called rich and so-called poor in this country. This should be of little surprise to anyone who has been studying economic trends the last several decades. We are now immersed in a global economy. As long as people in other parts of the world are willing to produce goods cheaper than we can, the manufacturing jobs that drove post-World War II America will continue to stay offshore (and we will be stuck permanently with the low-paying jobs in the service sector).

Fortunately, there is a way out. Energy is a significant and basic component in any manufacturing enterprise. A national policy that incentivized the domestic production and use of gas, oil and coal to power industry would result in the return of a well-paid manufacturing class. No other country has our combination of technology, capital, labor and energy reserves.

Unfortunately, the same people who bemoan the rich-poor gap are most likely the ones who would find myriad reasons to stifle our potential industrial might and regrow a solid middle class.

Instead, they appear content to run in the hamster wheel of income redistribution, class warfare, and environmental-induced paralysis.

Steve Clemens

Fairfield