How Can Trump Say the Economy Is Bad?

Yesterday, we took a lovely ride through Vermont and New Hampshire just to savor the Spring air and looking forests which are now showing leaves.

We drove north on U.S. Route 5, which is the road that has been more or less replaced by I-91. Parallel to Route 5 is a railroad track which connects all the factories in this part of New England to Boston and the Connecticut coast. In places you can also see what was obviously the canal system which predated the railroads.

Most of the towns on this route still have the old, red-brick factory buildings which now contain hi-tech engineering companies or have been converted into country condos. What you see on Route 5 is the history of the Industrial Revolution which first developed in New England and then spread everywhere else.

What you also see as you drive along this highway are ‘help wanted’ signs in front of literally every manufacturing and retailing location. As we drove out of Brattleboro, VT we passed a large warehouse operation with a sign advertising jobs starting at $23 an hour.

That’s $48,000 for work which probably requires nothing more than an 8th-grade education and a strong pair of hands.

A two-bedroom apartment in Brattleboro runs between $1,200 and $1,500 a month. For all the talk about how rental rates have…