This bother anyone else, or am I just being a knee-jerk libertarian extremist?
Navistar International Corp. workers in Fort Wayne being laid off because truck and diesel engine manufacturer is consolidating operations at a new headquarters in suburban Chicago will qualify for help in job search, relocation, unemployment and similar areas.
The city has secured a $7 million federal jobs training program meant for communities that lose work to foreign competitors. The Labor Department had denied a request in April because it didn't think Fort Wayne qualified.
But a Navistar designer compiled data that showed work is headed to eight countries.
Of course, it seems churlish to complain about it. It's only $7 million, after all, the tiniest part of the smallest drop in the bucket. But that's $7 million for displaced workers of one company in one city. Even people who think such federal initiatives are questionable are sometimes silent when it's their community getting the help. One man's pork, etc., etc. That's how government grows.
But the markets of capitalism are driven by dynamic forces. Industries grow and decline all the time, new technologies replacing old, different regions thriving and then suffering. Workers have always had to be ready to adapt to new times and new ways. Why should the government pluck out one particular group of workers as warranting special treatment? Specifically, why should Fort Wayne be treated differently for losing an industry to foreign competition instead of domestic competition?
