Wyoming can use more good people and we have the jobs to support them, although I hope we don't aquire folks simply because things are going to hell where they live now. We need people who have taken the time to find a spot that promotes freedom and self sufficiency. We don't need the types who leave a spot just because things are bad. That is how places wind up with the wrong types of folks who then try to change things to be like where they come from. The right kinds of folks will want to come here and will have already had plans in place to come here, rather than being forced to come here because of economic reasons.
There are alot of bad places to live in this country, but I would like to believe that even those bad places have good people who would like to see things set on the correct path. The smart people in those places are either working on fixing the problems, or they have seen the futility and are looking for good and freedom loving places in which to move and raise their families. Those are the people I am trying to reach in my own efforts.
There are quite a few places in this country that simply aren't worth the effort of trying to save them at this time and thankfully there are smart people there who realize that. I have told a couple of people from this board and several others from some other boards I belong to that I don't broadcast the positives of Wyoming to just everybody. The smart folks have already figured it out and the dumb ones don't need to be encouraged to move here. Once the smart ones have figured out what a great place Wyoming is, they will usually start asking questions. That is when I step up and start trying to help and letting them know what all is here. When making a generalized post on some board though, I accentuate the negatives about Wyoming. The smarter people usually see through the ruse though and several times that has led to some very positive conversations.
I am sorry to see things so bad in other places that people are having to uproot their lives and their families just to make a living, but I don't see that as a reason we should start promoting them to move here. I remember when Katrina happened and TPTB in this area wanted to start recruiting all of the out of work people down there to move up here. That was doing nothing but asking for trouble. Sure we had jobs here, but the out of work people they were wanting to recruit didn't have jobs before Katrina and they didn't want jobs after. The people who did have jobs before would either have jobs afterward, or they would find another somewhere else. Some of them we even smart enough to look this direction and make a move.
With the internet and all of the information available these days, if a person is unable to see the economic advantages there are out here, I don't see how they could ever be an asset to this state or to the promotion of freedom. I am all for helping people as I have tried to help more than a few with a move to this great place, but I will leave it up to them to figure out the reason why they should move here.
Tex