[PineHallGirl]

You are welcome, Heidi. ~Nice to meet you.

[PineHallGirl]

Originally Posted by Cliffie

I'd say it's EASIER to live a good life without much money. It forces you to keep things simple, depend on yourself, and do the kind of planning ahead that keeps your life under control.

Absolutely! Well said by both of you.

[Driller1]

Originally Posted by Cliffie

I'd say it's EASIER to live a good life without much money. It forces you to keep things simple, depend on yourself, and do the kind of planning ahead that keeps your life under control.

LOL I chose money. I still depend on myself.

[heidi777]

Originally Posted by PineHallGirl

You are welcome, Heidi. ~Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, too!

[Bhaalspawn]

Originally Posted by zthatzmanz28

Soon Michiganders will rule the nation as our exodus take us to the far corners of this nation, where our off spring will be born, mature into outstanding young men and women. After which they will remember their roots, their ancestors trail-of-tears. These future Michiganders by blood will remember the conditions that forced their forefathers and mothers from one of the greatest states out into the country to seek economic shelter from the collapsing financial woes.

...

This is the new GRAPES of WRATH...

Funny you should mention The Grapes of Wrath. I too have wondered if Michiganders will become the nation's new Oakies. You might say that Michiganders are trying to flee the state's Economic Holocaust. Unfortunately, eventually the entire nation will suffer from the American Economic Holocaust. (The depression or "transformation into a third world country" hasn't even started yet.)

[WheredoIlive?]

Originally Posted by Cliffie

I'd say it's EASIER to live a good life without much money. It forces you to keep things simple, depend on yourself, and do the kind of planning ahead that keeps your life under control.

There is a level where one can live a simple good life being frugal, but there is a point of poverty where even that ends. I have slipped under that line more then a few times. Poverty can be so bad it limits choices, When I lived in the ghetto in Chicago, I had the choice between staying or getting on a bus and just going away, and ending up in the streets. I could be looking at the street again now, it is like being on a tightrope and if I do not make the right decision, I could end up really in trouble.

Hope no one takes this the wrong way, but I figure my chances of survival as a woman alone are far higher in a rural-small town area, that is devoid of any ghetto. People can be poor but I want to be around some people who have at least a few human values. I felt safe in Hillsdale at least, and no place is perfect, but at least I could walk down the street there, without worrying about getting robbed or harrassed. I know I am trying to find the place most like Hillsdale that hasnt emptied out.

There are towns I have crossed off the list for being new move-in places for crack heads and degenerates.

[WheredoIlive?]

Originally Posted by PineHallGirl

Being poor (and by all accounts, we are poor) is alot easier on the pocket book in other states, Vermont would be the last place we would move to. Vermont will tax the shirt right off your back...I remember vehicle inspection was a big deal there. No loud mufflers...which would rule out 90% of the drivers here in Michigan! Vermont is an elitist state. We had to live there and live a day-to-day existence to come to that conclusion.
When you visit the beautiful state of Vermont, you are in awe of it's quaintness and nice people in the old country stores...but LIVING there is a horse of a different color.

Yes, no one place can be all negative or all positive. Vermont just wasn't our bowl of Ben & Jerry's! Eight years of living there was enough. We were just elated to see the "Welcome to Michigan" billboard...HOME again.

Vermont has that whole hoity-toity thing going, and to be honest any place being taken over as a vacation land for the rich, loses something, everything becomes formalized and based in how much money you have. Even St. Joe has that edge to it, and I do not like it but I am sure Vermont is far well advanced in that.

[WheredoIlive?]

One thing I want to ask, is why do people think other states are so much better off, like Michigan is far worse?

I am hearing from others their states are going down the tubes.

I tried the moving out of MI thing too when I moved to Chicago and it didnt work out.

The whole country is in a depression. It is scary stuff, it really is.

[WheredoIlive?]

But I digress...the issue / thread dealt with a dying HILLSDALE county..one of 30 others that are facing the same fate in Michigan? One of 1000s in the country?

You know what is creepy, is I am actually havint to be careful to choose a place that isnt emptying out. No one talked about it. They kept it secret. They are NOT talking about what is happening in this country. They are keeping it under wraps. Even the newspaper here, seems to only lightly skim the dying economy.

Frankly where is there to GO? The south isnt doing that well anymore. California which used to be the old place to go, is now a place where people are fleeing. Oregon is poor and bankrupt, I know they are cutting even needed services there, where is everyone going?

[WheredoIlive?]

Originally Posted by zthatzmanz28

hehehehe...the 28 is the HAVOLINE RACE car..DAVEY ALLISON...

I too have been here in michigan since 1960...all the way through 2009.

I was here when the blizzard came.

I was here when Chrysler originated the BAILOUT

I was here when Chrysler took the bailout and bought JAPANESE steel and decimated the US STEEL industry--Like GM is doing now with the $1 billion spent in SOUTH AMERICA---I WILL NEVER BUY GM AGAIN.

I was here when Michigan first talked about diversifying from the auto industry

When Engler drove his OLDSMOBILE until he got elected..

Yes, I was here for the riots of 67...the day MIchigan's reality changed

I was here when Coleman Young disbanded S T R E S S and the streets of Detroit were never safe again.

I remember Governor Milliken start the shut down of MENTAL HEALTH and SOCIAL SERVICES and 1000s being hurt

I remember thinking in 1982 when McLouth STeel shut down and I lost my job, I would always be here in Michigan

I remember the 1990s when I couldn't find a job that allowed me to own a house or pay for an apartment moving back home to go to college to get a degree so I could have a house or pay for an apartment.

I remember graduating EMU 1995 and barely finding a job with my 4 year degree as a teacher

I remember the late 1990s when 100s of teachers were going to TEXAS, SOuth CArolina and Florida because the schools here were hurting so bad and bleeding $$

I remember taking teaching jobs where no one else wanted to go--DETROIT, PONTIAC, LOCK UP, RESIDENTIAL....

ow I will remember all this and more when I pack my bags, load my 1995 Chevy truck (the 2008 was repo'd last month) and head out to North CArolina for work..

So you see PLANTHAPPY, I do not need to ask my parents, or grandparents, because life for them was so much better than it is for me now.

Except when my dad retired from the steel mill and was told he had NO PENSION after 35 years of service because the government allowed the corporatio to stop funding it and eve BORROW against it as the industry sank and the mill was NEVER upgraded--BUT WHY WOULD HE OR ANY OTHER MANAGEMENT staff need a PENSION--but the CEO and the BOARD sure took their $5-10 MILLION payday

I even believe house speaker ANDY DILLION walked away with his own GOLDEN PARACHUTE and the mill collapsed.

I was there, like FOREST GUMP, for every historic change MICHIGAN edured from 1960-2009.

One thing
Our generation is WORSE off then the one preceding it. My parents had jobs.

It is to the point where I and brother are seen as Losers, because we never got a plum job. I got sick. I took jobs no one else wnated to to survive, like working in a juvenile home, working in residential lock up with violent kids, working in plastic factories, but my health broke. I even tried a move to Chicago to try and make it, in the 90s when this was the thing to do.

I never have owned a house, even husband I am divorcing has never made more then 24.000 a year and that was a GOOD YEAR.

I havent been on a vacation since 1992, the kind where you sleep in hotel and that was with parents.

My life is so unlike my parents or some other relatives, we dont even live in same world, though I have the feeling even those relatives doing better are going to be seeing life the way I have one day...because of where this country is going.

I tried to move to NC too, LOL got caught in blizzard in 1993, when looking for work. It was the blizzard of century. My health was failing so I did not get job. I hope yours is good and you get a job.