Is North Carolina the next Detroit? (unemployment rate, live, cities)

[zthatzmanz28]

Originally Posted by Teleprompter in Chief

Like Detroit in the sense that everyone would leave. Not apples to apples for how it came to be, but the end result the same with people flocking to greener pastures.

My wife and I "left" Detroit this year...Taxes were the least of our reasons...Crime and corruption were top two...followed very closley by property value decline....Taxes were in top ten..but closer to 8 or 9...

It is when those we elect do nothing about the infrastructure (including rampant crime) that people will flee...that and NO EMPLOYMENT opportunities..Michigan (mostly Wayne County aka Detroit) is at 22.5 % unemployment with no end in sight...

Hopefully NC has a LONG way to go before it does a Detroiter...and our new neighbors refusse to let that happen...

[NCN]

As for Charlotte being anything like Detroit, get real. The people are much more loving and less violent here. I remember when school busing was started for racial intergration. Charlotte did not like it, but peacefully went through the process. We saw buses in Detroit being bounced around by groups of parents. Big difference. Most people in Charlotte or North Carolina would never be act like that. We did have a lot of private schools open. That is a much more peaceful solution.

[Teleprompter in Chief]

Originally Posted by Lovely95

That depends. How is everybody doing? Struggling, working hard? In other words, how is the job market? If they are being paid well, I'd assume that they could deal with the taxes.

NC has an 11% unemployment rate. Around 22% when you factor in those that are underemployed or have given up.

People are not doing well.

[NCnut]

Originally Posted by NCN

This may be true for those people who flocked here to follow the money in the first place. Good bye, see you later, hope you enjoyed the short stay.

If I lived to shop, the tax rate might bother me. As it is, I am all for letting tourist pick up the tax bill while they are having fun and they probably won't even miss it. Even with the tax, our prices are probably lower than what they are used to.

Why do you want to spread such doom and gloom. North Carolina has always and will always be just fine. I do not mind it if those people who care mostly about money go somewhere else. That won't be a loss for us at all. They were not very nice to live around in the first place. Quality people will stay here and keep making North Carolina the "Very best place to be."

GREAT post!!

[Teleprompter in Chief]

Originally Posted by Mattman704

Yeah, I'm definitely leaving ASAP. Probably going to live in SC and work in NC. The amount of people I know that are feeling this way and moving towards it is staggering. Nobody I know wants to live in a East Coast version of California. Just mentioning us turning into that cesspool makes me want to vomit on my shoes. Crap. I just did.

This is what I am afraid of. You see this repeated over and over throughout history. Raise taxes, people spend less, companies lay off more and revenue goes down in the end. Lower taxes, people spend more, companies hire more to make & sell more product, revenue goes up. We keep repeating this cycle over and over.

I fear North Carolina is going to repeat history again. This will make the situation worse, when companies leave and our unemployment hits 15%+. It affects everyone in the end. When home values crash and your town becomes a ghost town, it won't be the North Carolina that we love. It might just be the next Detroit.

[anifani821]

Originally Posted by Teleprompter in Chief

This is what I am afraid of. You see this repeated over and over throughout history. Raise taxes, people spend less, companies lay off more and revenue goes down in the end. Lower taxes, people spend more, companies hire more to make & sell more product, revenue goes up. We keep repeating this cycle over and over.

I fear North Carolina is going to repeat history again. This will make the situation worse, when companies leave and our unemployment hits 15%+. It affects everyone in the end. When home values crash and your town becomes a ghost town, it won't be the North Carolina that we love. It might just be the next Detroit.

Detroit = Unions, wh/ have crippled the state coffers. It ain't the same. All NC needs to do is get the right Governor and Legislature in place, and start slashing programs - and get the damned budget in order.

Taxes have nothing to do with the layoffs in this state. Neither do unions, wh/ literally had the auto industry by the hamstrings w/ wages and benefits. The economic factors between Michigan and NC could not be more different.

[silverwing]

Originally Posted by Teleprompter in Chief

It might just be the next Detroit.

*pffft*

Detroit was based on one economy - the auto industry - just as NC was once based on tobacco and textiles.

NC continues to develop a more diverse base for its economy. Not just the white collar jobs, but tourism and retirement - which brings in potential growth for the health industry. That is an area of unemployment that hasn't been hurting.

I'm with NCnut - the fair weather transplants can take a hike; don't let the door hit your @ss on the way out. Some of us are here to make this place our home and will make whatever adjustments are necessary to stay here. And some of us were sensible about transplanting in the first place. None of this "oh, I sold my home in <insert whatever state that experienced a triple number growth in home value> and bought a house 3x as big. they're ever so cheaper here." Yeah, well, with a big house comes bigger expenses to maintain it and a whopping tax bill - which becomes more onerous when those taxes must be raised. We moved, bought something sensible, and pocketed our savings as a hedge against bad times. Greed has been part of the downfall, with carpetbag developers following to feed it.

Frankly, I'd love to see the spike in population drop. Less sprawl and a more sensible attitude toward development and retail. We've seen plenty of Walmarts construct, then abandon, those ugly @ss buildings as they move up from regular to super to mega-mart stores. With the population drop comes a lesser strain on gov't services. If NC has reached the end of its boom, then it will take some time to reorient its economy for life on a plateau. That will mean shaking off a lot of the waste we were able to accept because the economy could bear it, telling the fluxing migrant population to move on or go home, and give an airy wave to those who were only here because of jobs, cheaper housing and lower taxes. NC has more going for it than just those qualities; those of us who appreciate that won't miss those who don't.

[PeaceChild]

Originally Posted by NCN

As for Charlotte being anything like Detroit, get real. The people are much more loving and less violent here. I remember when school busing was started for racial intergration. Charlotte did not like it, but peacefully went through the process. We saw buses in Detroit being bounced around by groups of parents. Big difference. Most people in Charlotte or North Carolina would never be act like that. We did have a lot of private schools open. That is a much more peaceful solution.

How do you know the people are much more loving and less violent in NC, than Detroit? How many people do you personally know up here? Or are you getting all your information from the nightly news? Believe me, I've run into some pretty violent people in the South before and had to call the police because of threats of bodily injury. I've also had to get in the face of some men down there because of the way they were acting. One I witnessed break a girls jaw in a bar. Most of the people I met were nice, but some others were not. The nicer I was the nastier they got. All because I was a Yankee.

Yes, Detroit crime is high, even higher right now because of the economy. But, Detroit is not what Michigan is all about. It is only one city among many. It is a beautiful state, with lots to offer. NC must be a nice state to live in where there is no crime. I didn't know there were any states in the Union that were crime free.

I doubt that you seen the buses from the 70's being pushed around by parents from Detroit. Maybe the suburbs, but not Detroit. Big difference.

Sorry, but I can get a little defensive when one wants to bash us Northerners.

[chance2jump]

What I have noticed with the NC economy and job loss is that most of the job loss has been industry specific. However, Charlotte job base is a lot broader than Detroit's has ever been. That is the fist major difference. It wasn't just GM and Ford dumping jobs, but it was the domino effect passed on to all the suppliers. Detroit was devestated because there has never been another industry to pick up where the auto left off.

Secondly, what is going on in Detroit has been several decades in the making. Poor leadership, unions having the strong-hold over government, etc. GM started to take a downturn as early as 2000-2002, and it really started hitting in 2004 as they eliminated makes of cars. I was working in Lansing, MI for a supplier and was laid off the day after they cut off the Olds Alero and Pontiac Grand Am (I was never a union member, BTW). GM started to make it known to the unions that things had to change, but the unions wouldn't budge. GM said workers and retirees needed to start picking up the part of the tab on cost of benefits, the unions threw a fit. There has always been a sense of entitlement among the GM workers that, as long as their time was served, their path would be paved in gold as they retired out. GM simply could not support that as profits decreased. You wouldn't believe the outcry by retirees when GM changed their medical coverage from no co-pays to similar copays that the rest of us pay. Oh lordie, you would've thought the world was coming to an end. That was in 2004. No one in Michigan was ready for the inevitable with GM, and THAT is why Detroit has turned into shambles. No one saved for a rainy day, no one prepared with educating themselves in another field, and no one was ready for the economy in Michigan to tank. Many, MANY people of Michigan lived well beyond their means because in the 90's they couldn't put in enough OT to meet the demands. My aunt and uncle are spinning their tires near bankruptcy because they financed much of their lifestyle on his OT wages that no longer exist.

No, North Carolina vs Detroit is not a far comparison. While the banking industry bottoms out, other industries are still moving forward. While the taxes are raised -and, compared to what I am used to, NC raises are minimal in comparison- life will continue to prosper. Yes, it may require some cutbacks and financial responsibility, but NO it will not cause the entirety of Charlotte to go belly up and bust. The housing market will take a hit, but it is the same hit that the rest of the country has already had or is taking now. It is a national ripple effect that just took its time getting to NC.

[PeaceChild]

Originally Posted by chance2jump

What I have noticed with the NC economy and job loss is that most of the job loss has been industry specific. However, Charlotte job base is a lot broader than Detroit's has ever been. That is the fist major difference. It wasn't just GM and Ford dumping jobs, but it was the domino effect passed on to all the suppliers. Detroit was devestated because there has never been another industry to pick up where the auto left off.

Secondly, what is going on in Detroit has been several decades in the making. Poor leadership, unions having the strong-hold over government, etc. GM started to take a downturn as early as 2000-2002, and it really started hitting in 2004 as they eliminated makes of cars. I was working in Lansing, MI for a supplier and was laid off the day after they cut off the Olds Alero and Pontiac Grand Am (I was never a union member, BTW). GM started to make it known to the unions that things had to change, but the unions wouldn't budge. GM said workers and retirees needed to start picking up the part of the tab on cost of benefits, the unions threw a fit. There has always been a sense of entitlement among the GM workers that, as long as their time was served, their path would be paved in gold as they retired out. GM simply could not support that as profits decreased. You wouldn't believe the outcry by retirees when GM changed their medical coverage from no co-pays to similar copays that the rest of us pay. Oh lordie, you would've thought the world was coming to an end. That was in 2004. No one in Michigan was ready for the inevitable with GM, and THAT is why Detroit has turned into shambles. No one saved for a rainy day, no one prepared with educating themselves in another field, and no one was ready for the economy in Michigan to tank. Many, MANY people of Michigan lived well beyond their means because in the 90's they couldn't put in enough OT to meet the demands. My aunt and uncle are spinning their tires near bankruptcy because they financed much of their lifestyle on his OT wages that no longer exist.

No, North Carolina vs Detroit is not a far comparison. While the banking industry bottoms out, other industries are still moving forward. While the taxes are raised -and, compared to what I am used to, NC raises are minimal in comparison- life will continue to prosper. Yes, it may require some cutbacks and financial responsibility, but NO it will not cause the entirety of Charlotte to go belly up and bust. The housing market will take a hit, but it is the same hit that the rest of the country has already had or is taking now. It is a national ripple effect that just took its time getting to NC.

I agree with some of your post. Although, if you seen all the traffic daily around here, you would be asking; "what recession?" Some of the neighborhoods with empty houses would give it away though.

After losing my home to foreclosure in 2007(was injured in car accident and fought insurance company), I was able to buy a house for a quarter of what it had sold for 4 years prior. The only bad thing is that city won't lower property taxes and have told me they don't count sales of "bank owned" homes in part of their calculation of taxes. They did get an earful from me.

I definitively agree with us having poor leadership, especially in Detroit. They are trying to clean up the mess though after decades of corruption. Actually, the domino effect didn't only hit the auto suppliers, but everything else too. I have a friend that works at Ford and she likes to complain that she is having a hard time with house payment, car payment and travel trailer(she keeps on campground up North at a cost of $5,000 per season)payments. Believe me, she gets no sympathy from me.

I did see this coming in the past couple of years, but when I spoke with people about this, they laughed and told me that would never happen and I was just being paranoid. I remember all the auto lay-offs around 1980, so I knew it could happen again.

We do have a new film industry here and federal money for building batteries for electric cars, but who knows how long or how many people that would help.

Yes, it's a little scary, to say the least.