[TheRealVille]

In principal I know what you are saying, but take the time to think about this. What about those guys that are in say their late 50's or perhaps their very early 60's and dont know how to do anything else? Who is going to give a guy like that a chance? Who is going to take the time to retrain a guy lat that age and then hire them? When you get to that age your options really dwindle to almost little and none for a well paying job that you are not trained in and may not have an extensive educated background in. Your fortunate that you are perhaps young enough to do something like what you say you do, and have training in a field that allows you to do just that. Not everybody is in the same situation as you may be. I dont think everybody expects the government to hand something over to them, but I think that most expect the government to exercise a little common sense in what they mandate.

I agree with you here. I know it might be a little hard to find a job or re-train, but if the government leaves you no option, what else can you do? Some people have their standard of living so high they can't afford to take a lower paying job without suffering. If this is the case they need to downsize. I am not really that young, I am 44. I plan on retiring in 11 years. I save for it though. If they are in their early 60's, they should have been planning for retirement about this time for several years earlier, while times were good. Yes, I have been fortunate to be in a flexible field, but if I have to downsize, I'm not married to any of my possessions. You know as well as me that the biggest percentage of workers live from check to check with no savings, and actually spend more than they make. I spend wisely and save wisely during the good times and when times get bad, am set pretty good. I took off 6 months this year(2 of end of last year and 4 this year) just because I had saved good and wanted to spend more time with my family. Right now I travel to another state to work because it's slow here in my field. I do what I have to. The first four years of Bush weren't so good for my trade, but I adapted and spent less. I feel for the coal business, it's helps me when it's up. When it's down, I go a different route. But, coal is on the way out, hopefully slowly, and we need to start adapting now, or it will hit us just as hard later. The coal companies are laying off all because of the EPA, though. The price of coal is down and part of the idle is because of that, the companies aren't trying to sell as much when it's cheap. If Kentucky would do what Alabama did 20 years ago, it might help us. All coal mined in Alabama, stays in that state. They don't sell out of state, or at least they didn't back then.