Global Economic Distress and Coatesville’s revitalization-Don Pulver

At the meeting sponsored by the Western Chester County Chamber of Commerce, the Brandywine Health Foundation and the Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry on July 21, 2010 (The goal is to make a spark a spark that continues) Mr. Pulver expressed his concern about the economy in this excerpt transcribed from his talk:


“The other really key thing in terms of areas like this is what I call global economic distress…The good part about that is that it qualifies us for public funding. And I’ll tell you that without public funding this would be no-where. And in fact, the funding that we have now for the hotel alone twenty three million dollars only nine million of it is private money and the balance is in essence public grants and low interest subordinate loans. And it can barely make it at that…


And then the other thing that’s important to revitalization, which is not true now, is to have the national situation be in a positive way, a growth economy. We don’t have growth; we have no confidence, so that makes it harder. When we started here we did, so that’s why we started.


Anyway, the goal of all this, from our point of view is to create a spark. A spark, in other words a reason to redevelop the area. And not only to spark it but to make it so it continues. And that’s where the hotel and the office come in. If you get those two in there it’s much better than either one by itself. It’s one and one equals three… The goal, it’s not our goal, it’s good for the area, is that we attract imitators and competitors and that gets the ball rolling… When we came here we tried to tie up as much land as we could… but we didn’t get much, but here we are. “


Mr. Pulver’s main talk is here, his comments on the economy begin at 06:50:

https://app.box.com/shared/pme11y900h

One out of six Americans are unemployed. 

Our infrastructure, highways, railroads, ports, power generation and power transmission lines are literally crumbling and falling apart. Our communications networks are at least a decade behind other developed countries. We are thinking about solar, wind and other non-carbon energy generation while China and Europe have been installing non-carbon energy generation for more than a decade and construction is growing rapidly. Our Federal Government could take the lead and jump start those industries and get people back to work and get the economy moving again and keep more bridges from falling down.  

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman’s Op Ed column in today’s New York Times is “Defining Prosperity Down”. Mr. Krugman is concerned that our government may conclude that unemployment is structural and permanent in today’s economy.  

We can do something about it in Pennsylvania.  All that it takes here is a large voter turnout and Democrats will win. If there is the usual low turnout the Teabaggers and the wealthy one percent could be the big winners here. 

So if you want the economy of the Clinton day’s back, come out and vote.