Love Letters From John
Hello newsletter nation!
I’m back from August recess…. Jesus. In the middle of that sentence I could feel myself fully adopt the persona of one of those recipe writers that post an epic tome before they get to the simple process of making banana bread.
Anyway… I went to a music festival for the third year in a row. Hinterland Iowa. Go there. You won’t regret it.
And now it’s the middle of August. I’ll be turning 32 tomorrow, and embarking on another year of making tiktoks in the hopes of adding to a working class revolution.
Hit me up with advice for crushing your 30s… or advice for fomenting working class revolution.
Here are a few Toks I whipped up this week. Lemme know what you think.
Love,
John
Beyond coal - the Centrailia, WA model
Video Transcript and Sources
If you care about coal towns or the rust belt, then you should know about Centralia, Washington.
Centralia was a one company coal mining town with a couple thousand people that got itself off of fossil fuels and into a greener, more diverse economy. And it worked. Especially for blue collar workers, which is the interesting thing. So here are the results of their green transition.
They doubled the GDP growth of the nation
Doubled the job growth of the nation.
Wages grew faster than the country
And so did local population.
It was a complete turnaround, and this is how they did it.
Centralia has struck a deal with the closing coal plant for $55 million in grant money they plowed that into things that make a town nice: great schools, public services and a ton of blue collar jobs, rebuilding the town to reduce emissions and save people money. Think windows, insulation, green building, HVAC, rewiring stuff — all skilled trades that blue collar fossil fuel workers knew how to do.
It makes sense why this would work. These are labor intensive jobs that are done by local contractors. Jobs grew. Wages stayed local. And the buildings that they got from that reduced emissions and cost less to own.
Doing it this way created two to three times as many jobs per dollar invested as the mining business. They also invested in things that make the locals want to stay and out of towners want to move there: greart schools, good infrastructure, not to mention getting rid of the pollution from extractive industry.
And the savings from using less energy means more money for the local economy. If residents spend less on energy bills, they can spend more at Main Street businesses.
Now I grew up and live in a region full of these towns, and for as long as I can remember, we have always been desperate for one magic polluting industry to come in and rescue us, and none of it has worked.
The latest is fracking for natural gas and by the same standards it has been much worse. In the 22 counties that produced 90% of Appalachian shale gas, our share of national income fell. Our share of job growth fell. Our population shrank. And pollution of critical resources like drinking water has skyrocketed.
And what did we get out of all of that? Not much. The workers are largely out of state. The billions of dollars that come from fracking go straight to the 1% on the coast. Our infrastructure is still falling apart, and roads are torn up by heavy equipment. And there's no savings on green energy because we haven't built it.
Centralia is a way forward for small industry towns. They did it in a way that not only lifted up blue collar workers but made them the focus.
With billions of new money for clean energy just passed by Democrats, the only thing standing in the way of a transition like this is big business and the fossil fuel lobby. The sooner we make a break with them, the faster we rebuild life out here.
How the economy *ACTUALLY* works
Video Transcript
I only have one garage, the Joneses have two.
I only have two garages, the Millers have three.
I only have three garages, the Johnsons have a heli pad.
I mean, I worked hard for this heli pad, but Kim Kardashian has a billion dollars from like, I'm not sure…
I have a billion dollars from like, whatever, but it's not like Howard Schultz who has 4 billion from coffee.
Why are these unions picking on me? It's not like I'm swimming in $76 billion dollars like Michael Bloomberg.
I only have $76 billion, Bill Gates is younger and has more.
One more divorce and an economic downturn could wipe me out. It's not like I have an extra $54 billion like Jeff Bezos.
Okay, I was the richest man like two weeks ago. How does Elon Musk have twice that?
How the fuck did I get here? The only profit my company makes is from selling carbon credits to keep polluters in business *thinking face* … I'm gonna smoke joint on Joe Rogan and get $100 billion more dollars.
Bar story — how to get a prison tattoo
Video Transcript
Last night I learned about prison tattoos from a guy on my dive bar… I have a huge zit on my face…. sorry.
First step is you have to go to prison. I'm just kidding. You don’t have to do that.
Every tattoo he has he got in prison and they're, like, surprisingly good? My other buddy did time and he told me about it and it was a different way but this is how this guy said to do it.
First off, the ingredients that you need: staples from the binding of a Bible, VO5 shampoo in a toothpaste cap, a chess piece, and a lighter.
So what you're gonna want to do is take the lighter and burn the tip of a chess piece until it gets soot on it. Then you dunk the soot from the chess piece in the VO5 shampoo to make the ink, and then you take the sharpened staple from a Bible page and make your prison tattoo.
*The more you know*