Why steel, soybeans, shipping may all bring us simoleons
It didn't take long for the steel market to respond and enable Granite City Steel to restart a second blast furnace. It's hard to argue with a total of 800 jobs returning to the area.
Let's add to that Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner announcing $20.1 million in freight mobility projects in our area. Investment in our region's essential strength — being a crossroads of river, rail, road, air and pipeline traffic — is the best use of our tax dollars because it has been a proven path to prosperity back to the days of George Washington building canals, lighthouses and a National Road.
Taken together, these are two great pieces of news. Although some may question timing of announcements by those who wish to remain in office, there is no denying these bits of economic progress are real and will make southwestern Illinois' economy stronger.
Happy news along the river, but then there's fretting on the farms to the east.
While community members are right to worry that the steel tariffs that are boosting Granite City Steel might also bring retaliation or a trade war, not every soybean farmer in Illinois is buying in to the theory. China may be our largest soybean export buyer, and Brazil may be on the cusp of a bumper crop, but Argentina is in a drought.
World trade is a moving target and export ag products are moveable, so it's hard to buy in to the cries of "doom." But then, cries of "trade war" are designed to sway voters in a way that cries of "another 50 cents a bushel" never will.
We elected a Manhattan businessman with a flair for the dramatic. We are seeing record levels of employment and the Dow is right about 25,000 even with all the trade fears.
We saw what we got when we elected a Chicago neighborhood organizer whose only fire was at the tip of his Marlboro. Slow progress from the recession, a 50-year low for home ownership and record debt.
The Trump trade roller coaster is far from over. But it likely has less to do "will I have a job" and more to do with "will that job's salary help me afford groceries."
We now know the answer for 800 residents. We may soon know it for a lot of construction workers and freight workers.
This story was originally published June 7, 2018 at 2:25 PM with the headline "Why steel, soybeans, shipping may all bring us simoleons."