Jackson Jambalaya

We need more private sector jobs with benefits and more Mississippians working.

Good LORD! A whole column to state the obvious.

Say what you want about Rick Cleveland, but I'm pretty sure he never wrote a column that said, "To win more football games, MSU and Ole Miss are just going to have to score more points than the other team."

Legalize marijuana. It's a multi-billion industry that we are missing out on completely.

Blasting Mississippi's new liberal public relations spin machine Mississippi Today is probably my favorite thing Phil has done as Governor. That thing is basically Mississippi's version of Propublica. Unbiased, my butt.

This column is the same as last week's - rerun season already for Mr Crawford?

I stayed in MS while a lot of friends and relatives left for greener pastures. They tend to make more money than me, but they also spend a lot more on housing. I landed in the middle class here, own a home, and while my life isn't luxurious, it's comfortable and the ends meet. I'd rather see a measurement of quality of life here compared to other states.

@3:01 you make a valid point

And comments like 3:01pm are why nothing ever improves around here.

How is that PP? You'd rather @3:01 had left?

I say end MS Financial Aid. Use the money to recruit pepsi to come back to jackson. We also need a Car plant in the MS Delta that has a connection to the MS river. We need to make cars that can be sold to the central america and south america. To pay for that plant I say open the state up for the lottery. Use the money to pay for the auto plant.

@7:30 Explain, if you can, how an average income of $70,000 in New York City is better than the $37,000 average in Mississippi when a 700 square foot apartment in New York costs $750,000+ and a 1500 square foot, 3 bd two bath home on at least 1/4 acre lot can be bought in Mississippi for less than $125,000.

The area I live in in Texas(zip code 78732) has an average household of just over $10,000 per month. Housing is very expensive and property taxes are very high. But no state income tax and public schools are excellent. Traffic is awful. A 15 mile trip can take an hour at rush hours. If you are young, educated and aggressive it can be worth the problems for the opportunity. If you are retired and have a fixed income it is expensive and tedious. I'll probably sell my house at a good profit and return to Miss where my money will go further and the pace is slower. All depends on what is important to you at that time of your life.

Mr Chandler may speak on behalf of a total doofus, but he's right about Mississippi Today. It makes the Jackson Free Press look like conservative propaganda. Fortunately it's easily ignored.

Mississippi remains conflicted.

Christians hate gays and remain highly segregated....but the church process remains all important.

I've watched young people question the incongruent positions only to accept it as habit.

Education is private/white v public/black (rare exceptions). Outcomes are vastly different.

Employers are few and shrinking.

Suburbs cannablize cities....creating false growth. It actually spreads tax base too thin creating too large of an area to adequately maintain.

There is no compelling reason other than family to remain in Mississippi....which is why it is losing ground.

Championing HB 1523, Feel cost MS big time in lost jobs and revenues.

Jobs, all about jobs.

Championing HB 1523, Feel cost MS big time in lost jobs and revenues.

How many jobs have been lost? Surely you having some empirical measure of actual job losses against which to make such a claim.

"We need more private sector jobs with benefits and more Mississippians working."

Now there's a NEWSFLASH! Of course jobs are a key component in the income formula. And when an employer decided to GIFT benefits, it's a good thing, yet simply a recruitment and retention tool.

Another component in the work/income formula is getting yourself prepared for work and seeking it. If government benefits had been ended twenty years ago I wonder what we in Mississippi would look like. Don't jump too quickly to comment....we might be much better off. A whole nother exodus to Detroit and Chicago may have taken place and it might have eclipsed the one that took place in the sixties. We would be more independent, have higher standards of living, greater income per capita and less crime.

BENEFITS? I can't help wondering if Crawford, like Eric Fleming and many others, simply believes the private sector ought to be mandated to pay and increase its benefits gifted to workers. I'm guessing he does.

The grass is always greener over the septic tank.

Even if you think it's just about jobs, you have to face that it's also about attracting jobs. We have to be a place where others want to live not just work.
Some of you might want to look at what works and what doesn't work in other States.
Our cost of living is lower, but if you are going to attract wealth, the corporations also have to factor in that their employees they have to bring in will have to pay for private school just to get an equivalent education. They have to factor in what the things we don't do that are taken for granted in other states like helping homeowners protect their property values with tough ordinances so that when their employees get transferred they don't lose money.
The states that cut taxes on the rich are not doing well. Look at Louisiana before and after Jindal as a example. Look at how the median income in North Carolina has gone down as has their educational ranking and they are losing revenue by losing business they already had.
To contrast and compare, look at California and Kansas ( and Kansas certainly doesn't have our natural resources) that raised taxes on the rich. California rose to the 6th best economy in the world and will be 5th now that Great Britain will withdraw from EU.
Remember that California was in dire economic straits before the latest economic crisis. What is different is Kansas and California had leadership that didn't adhere to party nonsense. They have had leaders who were realists and pragmatists and didn't pander to the extreme elements in the political parties or play favorites. They used the taxes well and as a result, attracted new, well paying jobs.
Mississippi works against itself. Our key cities need to be helped to become economic attractions. Vicksburg and Natchez need to be aided to turn them into accessible tourist attractions make the areas around the tourist attractions attractive and inviting. We have to do the same for the towns on the Delta Blues trails. Our Capitol city needs to be a shining star because corporations go to the Capitol of any State. We need to make the most of our rivers. We should take advantage of our hunting and fishing attractiveness but we can't do that with just private membership camps.
We can't do make a start because we don't work together and worse we bad mouth each other or say absurd things so that no one wants to come. We focus on why anything can't work instead of how we could make something work. We fight over who gets what to the point we get nothing.
We can't be practical or accept constructive criticism. So, we'll keep doing the same things over and over and stay on the bottom.

It all comes down to two main things.
Poor education and high crime.

Companies will not come to Ms. because the working force is uneducated. In other states people have a better education and can perform the jobs necessary to have a successful company.

The crime rate is too high. A company would have to figure the loss in company theft, lost work hours investigating crime, and loss of personnel from criminal related causes.

People are not going to move to Ms. for the same two reasons and people are moving out of Ms. for the same two reasons.

The last several posters need to learn the art of drilling. As in 'drilling deeper'. In a root cause analysis, you simply can NOT stop at education and crime. Those two things do not exist independent of the causes you will find if you drill a few steps further.

We 'need to be this', we 'need to do that', we 'ought to do this', we 'have to try that'. Those silly observations are as worthless as spotting a wrecked plane in a salvage yard and hollering out the car window 'you need to paint that damned thing'.

In states that are 'poor' as in parts of states that are impoverished with crime and poorly educated folks, there are very simple things called common denominators. Neither crime nor poorly trained people are common denominators. They are simply outcomes and symptoms of common denominators.

California is an economic basket case.

11:11, is one of those PC people who want to talk a problem out of existence. Talking will not work. Making excuses will not work. Action is required.

The people will pay for a high school education. We cannot force people to get one. If you refuse to take advantage of a free education you will not get a good job.

If you are a criminal you have already taken a step too far in the wrong direction. The people cannot change it for you. You decided for yourself that you did not want a good job.

I'm 11:11. It is my suggestion and belief that in order to move toward any sort of solution, one must first identify the problem. Nothing posted at 12:30 says anything about solutions and fails totally to recognize root causes. We can each opine all day long to no end and with no value, as just witnessed at 12:30.

I have no intention of 'talking a problem out of existence'. I am one of those types of people who believe the problem must be identified. You can dance around outcomes and symptoms (like education and crime) all day long for year (and we have done that), without ever getting anywhere near identifying causation.

12:30 is one of those PC people who believes we can discuss the problem of pressure cookers and backpacks.

2:16,
1. problem-education, possible solution-none without the cooperation of the kids without parents who care.
2. problem-crime, possible solution, get new law enforcement if the one we have do not do the job.

That should cover most of the problems.

From 8:01 a.m. - What is different is Kansas and California had leadership that didn't adhere to party nonsense. They have had leaders who were realists and pragmatists and didn't pander to the extreme elements in the political parties or play favorites.

Dry humor, I think? Kansas's financial situation is lousier than the Kansas Jayhawks football team after Charlie Weiss. Kansas's Governor Sam Brownback, Lieutenant Governor Jeff Colyer and Secretary of State Chris Kobach are not politicians most observers would call "pragmatists."

@ 5:43 - Once again, all you've listed are symptoms, not problems. Drill deeper or languish in ignorance.

Stupid PR release. Plays on the dislike of Obama to cover up poor results, not that it is all Phil's fault. We must change our image. Get rid of that da-- flag tp start with.

5:35, you fail to see them as problems as you have your own agenda. Don't try to over think a problem. You want to blame the problem on treatment of certain people and want money given to them to solve a problem that giving has caused.

9:53 - Your post is not only asinine, it could not be further from the truth. As to your first suggestion, a problem can never be over-thought. And no, the problem is NOT treatment of certain people and I would leave this country if required to give money to people who in fact ARE the problem.

It would seem that YOUR solution would include tinkering with the education system. Have we not tinker-toyed it to death for forty five years?

The education system is not the problem. If anything, the problem, in that respect, is the demographic that the law requires to be IN the education system who don't give one whit in hell about self improvement or education - coupled with the fact that their custodial parent feels likewise. Therefore they not only waste each day in school, they make it a real struggle for others to learn as well.

Those who suggest that CRIME is the problem are also deluded. Crime is an outcome, a symptom of problems. The same thing that causes individual failures within the education system CAUSE crime. Lack of motivation, lack of self respect, lack of respect for others, the only parent who is around not caring, no acceptance of personal responsibility and no respect for others and their rights.

The thing that causes those realities is a demographic microcosm which has gleefully abandoned all semblance of family unit, all notion of civilized behavior and all understanding of what it takes to live in an orderly, structured society. They have no intention of doing that and resist it forcefully day and night.

THERE are your problems. As to solutions, I'm afraid the courts have managed to strip us of any workable solutions. Therefore all we can do is round them up and throw them in confinement.

The notion that societal norms and expectations must be retrofitted and dumbed down to comply with the mindset of this demographic microcosm is being continually forced upon us by liberals and socialists. The majority (this includes reasonable blacks and reasonable whites) have lost the battle.

So, you continue to piss and moan about problems and can't wrap your head around one when it's presented to you on a plate.

11:36, you sound like a politician. Lots of words that don't mean a damn thing but makes the person feel good because they think people are listening.
You mentioned a lot of things but it all boils down to crime and education.
Did the people vote you out of office? If not they should have.

Look I'm not pretending to know what is going on in certain communities, but in my opinion the author is correct. Poverty is at the root of our problems in MS. Everyone can not work for the government and there needs to be more private sector employment in MS. From what I can see, its hard to learn to when you're hungry. It's hard to give a damn about abandon properties or upkeep on a property when you're just scraping by. Poverty creates hopelessness and hopelessness can creates self destructive behaviors such as drugs, promiscuity, and crime that can have a devastating impact on family structure and communities. I know we want to make this a black thing, but some parts of Rankin county are just downright ugly due to the poverty and rampant drug use. What I want more of our leaders to do is take heed to what this man is saying. Our current economic structure in MS ain't working anymore. Good people are people are being left behind and we need to figure out a new way to include these folks in our future economy. Everybody can't be a lawyer or a doctor so MS needs to create an economic atmosphere that makes it easy for entrepreneurs in MS to create jobs and attracts business to our state. This whole divide and conquer thing our politicians are doing is just killing it for all of us except the wealthy. I promise you I wouldn't mind living next an "other" if I could own a Mercedes G Wagon and have the house of my dreams and I didn't have to work damn near two jobs to afford it. Come on MS. Let's stop blaming each other and work together.

No, Poverty is not at the root. Sloth is. Poverty is an outcome and symptom of sloth. Poverty doesn't just HAPPEN. It results from sloth in too many cases. One does not rise above sloth. That would take effort.

7:18 and what causes poverty? Could it be the lack of education keeping a person from getting a good job? Could it be the police record that keeps a person from getting a good job?
Get an education and do not be a criminal and you are much more likely not to be living in poverty.

Assume I'm a CEO wanting to build a new plant. My choices of locations are Texas, Georgia, Mississippi or aw hell, any other state. Why would I possibly pick Mississippi?
When I tell my hand-picked 'about to be manager' of the new plant that he and his wife and kids will be moving to Mississippi to enjoy cheap living and public schools, do you think he's going to jump at the opportunity? He will..until he goes home and tells his wife. Game over.

11:31 pm. So who lives in poverty is lazy? Come on you know that isn't true for all. If you don't realize these issues are complex and intertwined especially in this day and age, God help you. 7:18 pm. You've gotta look deeper than that. What is the cause of the lack of education or police record? Did an entire group of people just wake up and say F it I'm not going to try because God made them that way? What demoralizes them in the first place? Probably our current economic system that mandates that some people have to be on the bottom in order for a few to succeed. This couldn't be more true in MS. You know that we've manipulated our economic and political systems for as far as we can remember to give certain groups more power and then again to give other groups equal opportunities under the law when they have protested. However, as we gave others rights, we just replace them with other exploitable labor. You think the residual effects of that just go away just like that due to a law? Not advocating for socialism, but I do think you have to invest in people and in some more to make up for the shaft these groups have historically gotten. Look some exceptional people escape poverty despite the obstacles, but face with those same obstacles most people don't. I'm just say don't write off entire groups of people as lazy and beyond help. Getting an education or not being a criminal does not seem to be as easy as we would expect if you are not born into a stable home. Life's all about choices, but a lot people seem to fall short whether they are impoverished, middle class, or rich. I really want you to think about the series of circumstances that came together to get you where you are today (assuming you are happy and living comfortably). Life doesn't come together as easily or perfectly for all people.

What do I think? Here is where my head is right now.

GE recently moved from its Connecticut headquarters that served it for many years. The search for a new site lasted for a long time. There is literally nothing the state could have done to land that plum. We don't have the higher education that is what GE expects. We don't have the educational systems anywhere in the state to serve their employees and I seriously doubt our A schools can compare with public schools in the Northeast. We probably don't have the workforce to provide what GE would need, either. We couldn't have paid them to come regardless of how much money we threw at them. Think about that.

I have no faith in either party right now to change that situation. The culture of cronyism and corruption is too embedded on both sides. The racial strife just amplifies our flaws even moreso.

Meanwhile our homegrown businesses sell out and they become corporate satellites that care less about the communities they serve and are always at risk of consolidation.

KF, you pretty much hit the right spots.
Neither party is going to do a damn thing for the people. Why should they? We keep electing life long politicians that do not know anything about the common people and care even less. They have the other party to blame for all bad things. The people seem to be good with that as their party does exactly the same thing they complain about the other party doing.

Education in Ms. is a joke. The educated people that might move into Ms. become the same as the native people after a short time. Before I came to Ms. I was an educated person that could carry on a conversation with most people. IQ-132. Now I sound like a grade school drop out.

A good % of Ms. people do not have the mind set to hold down a regular job. They just don't like to work. We are a welfare state.

Nothing will change until we get a hold on crime. We will not be able to do that as long as our future leasers come from the dregs of society. With the birth rate what it is for educated working honest people compared to the birth rate for the uneducated, welfare riding, criminal type of people, things are not going to get better.