Well, we’re waiting here in Allentown
For the Pennsylvania we never found
For the promises our teachers gave
If we worked hard, if we behaved
So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real
Iron and coke, chromium steel
–Billy Joel “Allentown”
Salena Zito wrote this week for the Washington Post exploring the Mon Valley Works Irvin Plant in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, a U.S. Steel facility central to the region’s identity and President Trump’s second-term agenda. The plant, employing 850 workers, produces steel for everyday products using the nation’s oldest hot mill, built in 1938. Located in a state pivotal to Trump’s electoral wins, it benefits from his 25% steel tariffs but faces uncertainty over a proposed $14.1 billion sale to Nippon Steel, announced in December 2023. Initially opposed by workers, the deal gained support after Nippon pledged $1 billion to modernize the plant, a move seen as vital to its survival.
Plant manager Don German and local union leaders Jack Maskil, Jason Zugai, and Gary Pickett, representing over a century of experience, back the sale despite resistance from the national United Steelworkers and the Biden administration, which blocked it in 2024 citing national security. Trump, initially skeptical, now negotiates a partnership rather than a full sale. Workers argue this aligns with “America First” by securing jobs and communities, even if it involves Japanese investment.
The column contrasts the decline of steel towns like McKeesport, Aliquippa, and Duquesne-where mill closures led to economic collapse, population loss, and cultural erosion-with Johnstown’s resilience, where JWF Industries repurposed a Bethlehem Steel site. The loss of steel jobs devastates local economies, tax bases, and social fabric, fueling political shifts toward Trump, who promised protection via tariffs. Workers criticize Biden’s environmental focus for stalling upgrades, while a thriving eagle nest near the plant symbolizes hope for revival. Zito captures a complex debate over industry, identity, and survival, with workers pleading for investment to avoid further decay.
Every child had a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got
–Billy Joel “Allentown”
To mock a career in manufacturing is an insult. Multigenerational work not only built America, it builds community, and is a critical underpinning of creaturehood. It’s what made America and what allowed America to project power when the world needed it.
Billy Joel’s Allentown reflects the Rust Belt’s industrial decline in the late 1970s and 1980s, driven by globalization, automation, and foreign competition. Factory closures, like Bethlehem Steel’s gradual downsizing near Allentown, left workers jobless, as captured in “They’re closing all the factories down.” Named after Allentown, Pennsylvania, it symbolizes broader economic struggles across the region, contrasting post-war prosperity with generational disillusionment: “Every child had a pretty good shot / But something happened on the way.”
Allentown resonated widely in the 1980s, voicing working-class struggles amid economic uncertainty and rapid change. Its distinctive factory-like sound and vivid lyrics like “Iron and coke” made it a powerful anthem, contrasting Reagan-era optimism during the harsh 1981–1982 recession caused by the Fed raising interest rates driven by Fed Chairman Paul Volcker’s mission to crush the double digit inflation. Though initially divisive in Allentown, it later became a cherished source of local pride, embraced in community identity.
Allentown documents deindustrialization’s deep toll, influencing socially conscious music like Springsteen’s later works. It sparked revitalization talks in Allentown, aiding its economic shift, and remains relevant to ongoing debates about inequality, marking Joel’s evolution to mature, reflective songwriting on The Nylon Curtain.
The narrator of Allentown conveys entrapment-“It’s getting very hard to stay”-critiquing broken promises of mobility and prosperity. It echoes cultural works like The Deer Hunter and retains striking relevance to modern Rust Belt challenges and economic discussions.
Allentown is a timeless artifact of industrial decline, blending historical authenticity with universal human appeal. It gave struggling workers a resonant voice and critiques the American Dream’s fragility, showcasing Joel’s masterful storytelling prowess. Its powerful resonance endures today.
While Billy Joel’s Allentown mourns the Rust Belt’s industrial decay and fading working-class dreams, Don Henley’s Sunset Grill (1984) shifts to urban disillusionment in Los Angeles. There, the titular grill allegorizes a corporatist culture, its neon glow masking how big business squeezes out small establishments. Both songs, quintessentially 1980s, dissect American unease-Joel grieving lost factory jobs, Henley critiquing the soulless sprawl overtaking local life.
From Henley’s 1984 album Building the Perfect Beast, the song Sunset Grill and the real Sunset Grill, as described in this 1986 LA Times article, share a connection rooted in a modest, real-world location that inspired a broader artistic commentary. The song paints a vivid picture of a changing urban landscape, using the Sunset Grill as a symbol of a disappearing way of life-small, family-run businesses overshadowed by corporate franchises and sprawl. Henley’s lyrics evoke a sense of nostalgia and critique, mentioning the “old man from the Old World” flipping burgers and a gritty, open-air setting where one can “order a beer” and observe the street life, though the beer reference is poetic license since the real Grill only serves soft drinks.
The real Sunset Grill, located at 7439 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, is a humble, no-frills burger stand run by Joe Frolich, a Viennese immigrant who took it over in 1957. Far from the glamorous diner some might imagine from the song, it’s a “hole in the wall” with a capacity of under two dozen, where celebrities and street people alike sit on the same stools. The article highlights its unpretentious charm, with Joe visible from the open grill on Sunset Boulevard, working long hours and embodying the mom-and-pop ethos Henley celebrates. Unlike the song’s grander thematic scope, the real Grill is a simple, personal operation-Joe even bought the property to keep it running, not for profit, but to preserve his livelihood and connection to the community.
While the song amplifies the Grill into a metaphor for societal shifts, the real place remains grounded in its ordinariness, surprising visitors expecting more flash. Both share an authenticity-Joe’s Old World roots and the Grill’s lack of pretense echo Henley’s portrayal-but the song’s narrative expands far beyond the literal burger stand, blending reality with artistic interpretation.
From Allentown’s lament of industrial decline and Sunset Grill’s critique of corporatist erosion of small businesses, we trace a thread back to Alexander Hamilton’s Final Version of the Report on the Subject of Manufactures (1791). While Joel and Henley mourn modern economic shifts, Hamilton’s vision championed manufacturing as a cornerstone of American prosperity, advocating policies to bolster industry-foreshadowing the tensions of dependence and independence their songs later echo.
Alexander Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, submitted the report to the House of Representatives to advocate for government support of manufacturing in the United States, aiming to reduce reliance on foreign goods-particularly military and essential supplies-and bolster national independence and economic growth. He argues that the U.S. faces trade barriers and foreign restrictions on its agricultural surplus, making a strong domestic market through manufacturing essential, and points to early successes (e.g., textiles) as proof of its feasibility, enhancing both security and economic autonomy.
Critics contend that agriculture, given the nation’s vast fertile land, is more productive and natural, and that manufacturing diverts labor and capital from farming; Hamilton counters this by demonstrating that manufacturing isn’t inherently less productive and complements agriculture by creating demand for its surplus, ultimately improving overall economic output. He highlights how manufacturing increases productive labor through division of labor, machinery, and the employment of diverse groups like women, children, and immigrants, while diversifying the economy, stabilizing agricultural demand, and attracting foreign capital and talent to foster wealth and resilience.
Despite obstacles such as labor scarcity, high wages, and limited capital, Hamilton asserts these can be mitigated by machinery, immigration, and existing resources like public debt as a financial tool, with evidence of thriving manufactures (e.g., iron, leather) already in place. To encourage manufacturing, he proposes multiple measures: protective duties on foreign goods, prohibitions or high duties on rival imports when domestic supply suffices, cautious export restrictions on raw materials (e.g., bark), bounties to boost new industries, premiums for innovation, duty exemptions or drawbacks on raw materials and exports, support for inventions and foreign technology, quality inspections (e.g., flour, nails), and infrastructure improvements like roads, canals, and banks, along with a government-funded board to promote arts, agriculture, and manufactures.
He identifies key industries for encouragement-iron and steel for tools and weapons with higher duties, cotton suited for machinery with repealed raw cotton duties and bounties, wool for clothing with premiums for sheep breeding, and glass, paper, and gunpowder with targeted support-emphasizing their strategic and economic value.
Hamilton concludes that manufacturing strengthens national wealth, security, and unity, countering regional divides (e.g., North vs. South), and that temporary costs like higher prices are outweighed by long-term benefits such as cheaper goods and economic autonomy, justifying federal power to fund these initiatives under the Constitution’s “general welfare” clause. He urges immediate action, leveraging current economic conditions like foreign capital inflows and European unrest to establish a robust manufacturing base, viewing it as a critical step toward making the U.S. a self-sufficient, prosperous nation.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s data from 2002 to 2022 reveals a significant decline in American manufacturing, contradicting claims of robustness from pundits. Once the global leader, the U.S. now trails China by $2.4 trillion in manufacturing output since 2010. Over two decades, manufacturing firms dropped 21%, with sectors like textile mills and apparel shrinking over 50%, though beverages and tobacco surged 348%. Employment fell by 2.4 million jobs, a 17% decline, against a 14% national job growth, with only food, beverage, and chemical sectors gaining. Manufacturing payroll grew just 41%, lagging behind the national doubling to $8.2 trillion. Productivity and consolidation arguments falter-productivity rose only 1.3% annually versus 1.8% nationally, and the top firms’ market share barely shifted because maximizing productivity reduces value. The article urges policymakers to address this decline, prioritizing advanced industries for national security.
Amid rising U.S.-China competition, the Tax Foundation argued last fall that tax policy can enhance economic growth to counter China’s edge. The U.S. leads in GDP and R&D intensity, but China surpasses us in manufacturing output and offers better tax incentives, like a 200% R&D super deduction versus the U.S.’s new 5-15 year R&D amortization penalty. The U.S. corporate tax rate (25.6%) slightly exceeds China’s (25%), and cost recovery for investments is less favorable. The authors propose restoring full expensing for R&D, machinery, and equipment, and neutral cost recovery for structures, estimating a 1.7% GDP boost and 3.3% capital stock increase at half the cost of the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act subsidies. This broad approach, they argue, strengthens capacity more effectively than targeted policies or tariffs, which lack empirical support.
Loren Thompson writing at Forbes chronicled the drastic decline of U.S. shipbuilding, once a global leader, now producing fewer than 10 commercial oceangoing vessels annually compared to China’s over 1,000. The U.S. merchant marine, with under 200 ships, carries just 1% of America’s trillion-dollar trade, down from a third in 1951. The U.S. Navy, lagging China’s 350 warships with plans for only four combat vessels next year, faces potential maritime dominance loss by 2030. This collapse, part of broader deindustrialization, stems from policy failures like subsidy cuts during the Reagan administration, costing 40,000 jobs, combined with the failure to challenge foreign subsidies. With only one major West Coast shipyard left, Thompson suggests cargo preferences or subsidies to revive the industry, but doubts Washington’s polarized politics will act, risking U.S. maritime supremacy as China secures supply chains and regional naval power.
And now President Trump has acted.
Of course there’s a good reason why Trump included the penguin islands on his tariff list, and of course the left pretends not to understand. pic.twitter.com/AQmwCIs7c9
– JKash 🍊MAGA Queen (@JKash000) April 6, 2025
Margaret Brennan is an idiot.
Penguin stevedores unloading Chinese container ships preparing to reload them so China can pass through their trade through the Heard Island & McDonald Islands and avoid tariffs. This is what they did in Canada and Mexico. And now you understand why Trump put a tariff on HIMI.
China evaded the 2018 tariff by manufacturing cars and other goods in China and Mexico. Why did we place a tariff on HIMI? Because who says penguins can’t be trained to make Nikes?
Well, I’m living here in Allentown
And it’s hard to keep a good man down
But I won’t be getting up today
–Billy Joel “Allentown”
Hard to come away with anything that feels like dignity
Hard to get home with any pride–Don Henley “Sunset Grill”
