(PIC)<strong>Scotland is the most economically distressed county in North Carolina</strong>. That's not news. The question is: <strong>What are we going to do about it?</strong>

We wholeheartedly agree with State Senator Tom McInnes, who recently stated: "The way it is right now, we can’t make anybody locate a plant in Scotland County if they don’t want to come here. We’ve got to give them a reason to come here. We’re going to have to work in a different way than we’ve been working..."

Despite longstanding and ongoing attempts by County Economic Development gurus, the fact is Scotland County will never again be a manufacturing hub. Mexico's highly automated, state of the art plants pay $2 per hour and No benefits. Even Chinese wages are higher, causing many factories there to relocate to cheaper places like Vietnam in order to compete with Mexico's export powerhouse.

As Senator McInnis said: "... we’re going to have to work together... to offer 21st century curricula for <strong>the jobs that we have available and not the jobs that we wish we had.</strong>”

The 'Free Market' economic system our nation was founded upon was largely a self regulating, self righting mechanism. It wasn't perfect, but a great, prosperous and free nation was built upon its sturdy foundation. We were indeed 'The Shining Light on the Hill' a nation others could look up to and seek to emulate.

It is our position that Scotland County, if left to market forces, would surely have gone through rough times as manufacturing fled first to China and then Mexico, but would have soon righted itself, and that the failure to do so is straight forward, easily understood and not complicated at all.

First, let us share a short story with you. We made an appointment to talk with a (former) Scotland County Economic Development Director. He was well educated, smart, articulate and courteous. He earned $80k per year salary, plus benefits.

We discussed our vision and plan to begin turning the County's moribund economy around. He listened politely, but soon enough stated clearly that unless we were prepared to bring at least 700 jobs to the County (for starters), it wasn't worth his time to talk with us. We inquired as to why 700 jobs was the magic number. He stated that he was putting the finishing touches on bringing a Japanese clutch manufacturing operation to the County which would employ 700.

We weren't ready to take no for an answer so we asked who we could speak to next. He responded that the next step would be to talk with the County Manager, who was not presently available. We left our contact information with his secretary and were assured we would be contacted. We never heard a peep, no phone call, no email.

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<blockquote>"<em>Based on its unemployment rate, median household income, population growth, and property tax base per capita, Scotland is consistently <a id="KonaLink0" class="kLink" href="http://laurinburgexchange.com/news/ap-wire/3568/county-could-lose-tier-status#"><span style="color: #595959;"><span class="kLink">classified</span></span></a> by the N.C. Department of Commerce as a Tier I county — among the 40 most distressed in the state.</em>" <span style="color: #0000ff;"><a href="http://laurinburgexchange.com/news/ap-wire/3568/county-could-lose-tier-status" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></blockquote>
This article: http://laurinburgexchange.com/news/ap-wire/3568/county-could-lose-tier-status

<center>*** EMBED VIDEO HERE ***</center><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;"> </span></strong>

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