I’ve watched over the last 4 years, and sometimes wrote and commented about how ‘bad’ things are in my neck of the woods. Some understood what I was talking about as they’ve watched many in their own areas struggle to make ends meet during this most recent depression. However, I dont think many understood completely what I was seeing in my area.
The city I grew up in, Columbus Georgia, which I now live 15 miles to the north of has been hit hard. While the local news along with the mainstream news continues to paint a rosy picture, many know the rose is dead.
Columbus Georgia in it’s heyday was a bustling textile / mill town. It was also called a military town due to the adjacent Fort Benning Georgia. In all respects it is now only a military town. The mills shout down and moved off shore. What local business that remained through the years, many have closed their doors, unable to compete with the big box stores, or off shored the labor as well.
There are a few big name companies in Columbus Georgia. Few of them hire folk that worked in the mills due to lack of formal education, or who recently left the military and stuck around. We have AFLAC which insures more than 60 million people worldwide. We have TSYS the largest processor of merchant acquirers and bank credit card issuers. We have Synovus which is a a financial services company. Synovus laid off 850 employees and closed multiple bank branches in early 2011. We have what is left of the W. C. Bradley Co. the maker of ‘Char-Broil grill’. I say what is left because W. C. Bradley moved Char-Broil grill production from Georgia to China in 2006. The Char-Broil division is still headquartered in Columbus but the jobs are in China. Columbus is also the birth place of Coca Cola and RC Cola. My how times have changed.
To be honest with you, there isn’t much left around here other than civilian employment at the Army base, Ft. Benning. This was one of the main reasons I am so pissed off about the illegal immigration situation in this country, let alone my neck of the woods. No jobs, yet they let the illegals stay and take them. I mentioned this countless times on my old blog. If it weren’t for Ft. Benning, as much as I hate the military industrial complex [MIC], Columbus in my eyes would have been another Detroit. Detroit is number 18 on the list, which I might add, most of us have heard how bad it is/was in Detroit the past year or so. Ghost town
Over on The Daily Beast, they have just released a list of 30, what they call ‘America’s Brokest Cities’. Four of Americas brokest cities reside in Georgia and many more are throughout the southeast.
VIA The Daily Beast
To find the most struggling cities in the country, we used three data points weighted equally: the most recently available unemployment rate (August 2011), median household income, and average debt. Data is from a recent report by Experian and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average credit score for each city is included in the gallery, though not taken into account to determine the final ranking. If this data is any indication, the cities struggling the most right now—the ones that may take the longest to recover—are clustered in the South and along the Pacific Coast.
#1, Columbus, Ga.
Unemployment: 9.8%
Median household income: $36,553
Average personal debt: $27,928
Average credit score: 721
#10, Augusta, Ga.
Unemployment: 9.6%
Median household income: $44,477
Average personal debt: $26,204
Average credit score: 709
#14, Macon, Ga.
Unemployment: 10.4%
Median household income: $37,507
Average personal debt: $23,775
Average credit score: 715
#25, Savannah, Ga.
Unemployment: 9.5%
Median household income: $46,755
Average personal debt: $25,561
Average credit score: 716
Of course the 1% in Columbus dont see it that way. Of course they have no idea what the other 99% are going through. Here is what the current Mayor has to say.
Via wtvm.com [local Columbus GA news station]
Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson called the article "patently absurd" and "irresponsible".
"We know for certain that their data is wrong. The median income figure and the employment rate are not correct. Accordingly, we have no reason to believe their so-called ‘personal debt' level is current. Probably the most telling error is that even using their own incorrect data, their math is wrong. So, by the article's own alleged three-pronged criteria, Columbus is not the ‘brokest' on the list, much less America," Mayor Tomlinson explains.
"The numbers presented show there is no rational basis for the approach used. The slightest change, such as using the more accepted debt-to-income ratio instead of the personal debt amount dramatically adjusts the ranking. Including the referenced, but mysteriously excluded, ‘credit score' in the computation also dramatically adjusts the ranking. If there was any legitimate statistical point to be made here, the rankings would not fluctuate so when similar or related data is used", continued Mayor Tomlinson.
Yep, just like the rest of the 1%, 'those numbers are wrong'.









