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Old 01-31-2010, 10:21 PM
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Butters Butters is offline
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These Days
 
Join Date: 17 Oct 2006
Age: 38
Gender: male
Posts: 2,320
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There was a 60 Minutes special that aired in the US (and is available on youtube) about a town in Ohio that was devasted econocially in the recent downturn.

This particular town was hom to US owned company who operated their air-based delivery business from this town. In 2003, DHL, a german company, bought out the american company. The entire town's economy was dependent on DHL. A large proportion of the towns residents were employed by DHL, and many other tertiary businesses existed because of DHL. The people who worked for DHL did so with immense pride, so much so that they would wear their DHL ID as a badge of honour when they'd go out.

Then when the economy crumbeled DHL had to significantly downsize their operations which meant laying off innumerable staff who wanted nothing more then to go to work. This piece focused on this one particular woman who's job it was to walk each person out to the DHL gate and take their ID off them. She did this for weeks until she was walked to the gate herself and her ID taken.

The town's entire economy has been destroyed because of DHL pulling out and Jon was so moved by seeing these people's reactions that he got the idea for WFTWM. Many of the lines in the song are things the people in the show actually said.
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These days the stars seem out of reach
But these days there ain't a ladder on these streets
These days are fast, love don't last in this graceless age
Even innocence has caught the midnight train
And there ain't nobody left but us these days
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