Oregon's future (3rd world)? (Portland: selling a home, unemployed, buying)
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Yes, very rural and where i live there is very high unemployment, with a lot of i've got mines that like visitors to come and spend money, then leave.
I do think this is a selfish (evil) approach. And not just Oregon, our country is on the verge of collapse, more so than at any other time in our history.
The greed on wallstreet and manipulations of global elitist's (sp?) matched by over regulation and taxation has us on course of 3rd world status, and it appears that Oregon has embraced that agenda.
Love the state, not the leaders. Now we have a repeat with Kitzhaber. So sad.
Hey modeerf,
Thanks for being such a sport. A lot of opinions flying on this thread.
I do agree that things in Oregon and the US are coming to a very uncomfortable state, where we have made promises we cannot keep (high pensions, low property taxes, tax cuts on the rich), and we have not invested where we should have. I also agree that Wall Street has been like a vampire on the jugular.
As for global elitists taxing us into Zimbabwe, I really don't know what you mean. Do you really think the rich oil tycoons are not elitists, whereas a Portland latte sipper is? Kitzhaber? Wyden? Obama? Pelosi? Funny thing about liberal elistists, they often (but not always) vote to help others less fortunate than themselves.
Exhibit A: Ashland. This town has been overrun by ex-Californians who cashed in on the bubble. Yes, they can be annoying with all the Stanford and Berkeley sweatshirts, feng shui, and yoga mats, and they have jacked real estate into the stratosphere (and I have whined endlessly about them-mainly because I did not sell a 3br/2b ranch in Oxnard for $800k! ). However, you know what, those elitists support the schools even though they are Grandparents now, or single, or childless. They also support parks, nonprofits, soup kitchens and the like. In short they care about their communities, and if they are the kind of elitists you discuss, I think Oregon might use a few more.
Compare those folks to a the Texas executives at Exxon-Mobil who use their immense wealth to try to destroy the prospects of Ethanol 85? They would throw the planet under the bus for a few more years of short-term profits. Is that elitist, or just good business? The last Exxon-Mobil CEO retired with $400 MILLION. Is he elitist? Rush Limbaugh also loves to use the word elitist, but he made $60 million last year! Just another good ol' boy heading home to a Bud and a burger, right? How about those charming fellows at ENRON? Elitist?
Now I will grant that not all elites are elitist, take Warren Buffett (though he live in Omaha, so he doesn't count). But I suspect you would see more hummers Dallas than Portland. More hot tubs in Houston than Eugene, and certainly more caviar in Lubbock than LaGrande! hehehehe....
I am not saying that conservatives or business CEOs are bad-but the elitist notion seems rather ridiculous when we think about all who really has the money and power in this country.
And I don't mean to defend Oregon too much, we have loads of problems, but elitist? Come on! We are closer to Kentucky than Manhattan.
Last edited by Fiddlehead; 12-29-2010 at 06:45 PM..
Thanks for being such a sport. A lot of opinions flying on this thread.
Keeps it lively and interesting!
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I do agree that things in Oregon and the US are coming to a very uncomfortable state, where we have made promises we cannot keep (high pensions, low property taxes, tax cuts on the rich), and we have not invested where we should have. I also agree that Wall Street has been like a vampire on the jugular.
Yes its like a corruption club sandwich. Bankers, Politicians, Unions, CEO's. No sector seems honorable in it's pursuits. Therefore the greatest middle class in the history of the world will have to carry the largest burden.
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As for global elitists taxing us into Zimbabwe, I really don't know what you mean. Do you really think the rich oil tycoons are not elitists, whereas a Portland latte sipper is? Kitzhaber? Wyden? Obama? Pelosi? Funny thing about liberal elistists, they often (but not always) vote to help others less fortunate than themselves.
Spend and Tax is only part, the Over regulation is smothering the entreprenuers, and garage start ups.
Planning departments in this state take months and years to get approval to develop industrial and commercial sites.
The liberals you mentioned could give a rats behind about the poor (imo). They are user's and creators of poverty.
I'll try to put some definition together regarding my use of elitist.
>Use power to oppress
>Money to corrupt
>Think the world is theirs and the sheeple must follow
>Abhor the founding fathers
>Anti- constitutionalists
>A-moral.
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Exhibit A: Ashland. This town has been overrun by ex-Californians who cashed in on the bubble. Yes, they can be annoying with all the Stanford and Berkeley sweatshirts, feng shui, and yoga mats, and they have jacked real estate into the stratosphere (and I have whined endlessly about them-mainly because I did not sell a 3br/2b ranch in Oxnard for $800k! ). However, you know what, those elitists support the schools even though they are Grandparents now, or single, or childless. They also support parks, nonprofits, soup kitchens and the like. In short they care about their communities, and if they are the kind of elitists you discuss, I think Oregon might use a few more.
Those aren't the elitists i'm speaking of, unless they are also involved in the things listed above.
Funny thing about Ashland is they are closing schools due to a lack of children. So i guess the residents are going to have to support less and less as time goes on.
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Compare those folks to a the Texas executives at Exxon-Mobil who use their immense wealth to try to destroy the prospects of Ethanol 85? They would throw the planet under the bus for a few more years of short-term profits. Is that elitist, or just good business? The last Exxon-Mobil CEO retired with $400 MILLION. Is he elitist? Rush Limbaugh also loves to use the word elitist, but he made $60 million last year! Just another good ol' boy heading home to a Bud and a burger, right? How about those charming fellows at ENRON? Elitist?
Those guys just need to be taken out and flogged, then de throned, then thrown to the mobs.
I like Rush. He uses free speech, no hiding, no back door bs. No real power to oppress or spend us into oblivion. I'm not so much interested in how much one has, as much as how one uses it to take my liberties from me and my countrymen. I don't see Rush doing anything to hurt this country.
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Now I will grant that not all elites are elitist, take Warren Buffett (though he live in Omaha, so he doesn't count). But I suspect you would see more hummers Dallas than Portland. More hot tubs in Houston than Eugene, and certainly more caviar in Lubbock than LaGrande! hehehehe....
I am not saying that conservatives or business CEOs are bad-but the elitist notion seems rather ridiculous when we think about all who really has the money and power in this country.
The thing is we really don't know the real wielder's of Mayhem. They are in the Global arena, using all these rooks, and knights and pawns to do their bidding, and therefore the hunting grounds are rich in this country for their claws to grip our appointed leaders. While the citizens slumber until they are awoken by Taxes, Regulations, Patriot acts, Scanners in airports, and eventually chips.
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And I don't mean to defend Oregon too much, we have loads of problems, but elitist? Come on! We are closer to Kentucky than Manhattan.
I know you don't want to be regulated, fair enough.
"I don't see Rush doing anything to hurt this country."
This I disagree with. Sure Rush has the right to say whatever he wants, but the talk radio pinheads like him have turned us into a bunch of shouters and whiners, who think we can typecast our fellow citizens as liberals, pinkos, whatever, and that solves the problem. Calling folks "elitist" is just an excuse to blame someone else for all the problems in YOUR life. My stepbrother never went to college, never married, never did anything with his life except work part of the year, whine, and put things on his credit card, complain about bills, file bankrupsy, and sponge off my stepfather. Kind hearted guy, and I really do love him, but everytime I would go home to my home town in the 1990s he would go on and on about how Clintons were killers, the Clintons were chasing him with black helicopters, the Clintons were evil incarnate. What he really needed was for someone to tell him to stop sniveling and improve himself. Rush Limbaugh was his salvation. He never had to do anything, the Clintons were holding him back! Now its OBAMACARE! I think talk radio blowhards are making us into a country of intellectually feeble cry babies.
Here is what really gets me. The Tea Party types (40-65 year old white Americans) have been undertaxed since 1980 relative to the social services and infrastructure they enjoy. They whine endlessly about further tax breaks in their last few earning years, yet I don't believe for a second that they won't be lining up for their Great Society paychecks, like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,etc. VERY SOON. They will be the biggest supporters of such programs when they are getting the checks and their kids are paying for it. Yet, we all know that expecting our kids to pay for Depends-wearing boomers will be far more crippling than anything we have experienced in our whole lives. We live in a wonderful country, with outstanding roads, universities, hospitals, airports, the internet, phone and mail services, and a great deal of what we enjoy was paid for by the taxes and sacrifices of our parents, who invested in our country's future. Our children deserve the same. All this gets lost in the culture of perpetual victimhood that passes for conservative politics these days.
Last edited by Fiddlehead; 12-29-2010 at 09:59 PM..
Haven't the folks who will be getting Social Security checks very soon been paying into the program all their working lives?
Sure, but in the crazy accounting of the revolving account, current income pays for current benefits. SS is more autonomous than the others, which will definitely go the way of the budget as a whole. Those will be way out of wack very soon. I know, I am late very late boomer, set to retire in 2030, and I am pretty sure the waterhole will be dry by the time I get there. But worse than that, my son will face taxes at TWICE the current rates to cover my old geezer butt. Not cool.
I read this book recently, and it really made me depressed for my son's future. I want to do something NOW to avoid this scenario.
And needless to say, cutting taxes on US,the boomers and the wealthy, and the Paris Hilton's who are set to inherit untold wealth, is not the answer. If anything, we need to raise taxes by 30-35%, or toss SS, Medicare, and the Medicaid and about half the military out the window.
Yes there are the whiners, i may come across as a whiner. It's not my intent.
The problem to me is not so much those that make an honest living, no matter how much is made. It's the spending.
How do we go from a surplus under Clinton, to a unfathomable debt under Obama?
War has something to do with it, but the piling on of crony favor swapping has brought this nation to the brink of collapse. Corruption kills, over taxation and regulation put the final nails in the coffin of growth.
Which effects the states tremendously.
This state will fall! Right after California. And it will be by 2012.
There is no trend minded economist that see's any different scenario.
I'm all for lower taxes, it allows the people to move the dollars, not the career criminal congressman. MOney is only valuable if it is moving.
Commodities will continue to be the haven for big dollars, and that will be a tax on the whole. Obama had no choice but to re instate the Bush bucks. The country would have collapsed a year sooner than expected.
Sure, but in the crazy accounting of the revolving account, current income pays for current benefits.
That's not literally true. The Social Security Trust Fund has a current balance of about $2.8 trillion. All us boomers have been paying extra SS taxes to pay for our retirement. Unfortunately, Congress has raided the trust fund and spent all the money, without even posting it as a part of the national debt.
The Trust Fund was still supposed to be running a surplus, but since 20% of the US workforce is either unemployed or underemployed, revenues are running a little short.
Things are not so rosy in Oregon either. Here is a public notice by the Coos County Sheriff:
It would be wise for everyone in Southern Oregon to obtain and learn to use sufficient firearms to ensure personal protection.
I was just talking to a Douglas County employee, and he said that Douglas County is planning on a 39% budget cut July 1, 2011.
People who wanted less government are going to get it. We'll see how they like clearing their own roads after storms, because the entire Public Works Department has been laid off.
That's not literally true. The Social Security Trust Fund has a current balance of about $2.8 trillion. All us boomers have been paying extra SS taxes to pay for our retirement. Unfortunately, Congress has raided the trust fund and spent all the money, without even posting it as a part of the national debt.
The Trust Fund was still supposed to be running a surplus, but since 20% of the US workforce is either unemployed or underemployed, revenues are running a little short.
Things are not so rosy in Oregon either. Here is a public notice by the Coos County Sheriff:
It would be wise for everyone in Southern Oregon to obtain and learn to use sufficient firearms to ensure personal protection.
I was just talking to a Douglas County employee, and he said that Douglas County is planning on a 39% budget cut July 1, 2011.
People who wanted less government are going to get it. We'll see how they like clearing their own roads after storms, because the entire Public Works Department has been laid off.
Wow, very interesting.
But you know, this doesn't mean it's permanent or it will get worse. Josephine and Jackson county went through similar things but they pulled through and now things are better. Libraries opened back up and Sherriff Gil started a volunteer sheriff department. If the community comes together they will figure it out. I personally still believe it will get better for Oregon soon. These days are tough but it will get better.
[quote=modeerf;17189055]Yes there are the whiners, i may come across as a whiner. It's not my intent.
The problem to me is not so much those that make an honest living, no matter how much is made. It's the spending.
[quote]
I did not mean to call you personally were a whiner modeerf, simply to point out that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk enable that mentality. No matter what possibly could be wrong in the world, or one's life.... it can be blamed on a liberal!
I share your concern about Oregon. However, the cut taxes mentality has gone too far. Yes, I agree we must cut spending, but we also must raise taxes (at least property taxes and federal). That is the only way to maintain a reasonable amount of infrastructure and governance. The paradigm that cutting tax on the rich would trickle down to us all is simply exhausted. The top 1% of Americans have seen their incomes increase by 500%, whereas all working to middle class Americans wages have failed to match inflation. That is, when we actually can find a job. Low prices of chinese imports are the only thing that has disguised the erosion of the middle class over the last 30 years. Reaganomics has served corporate America well, but the people?
Surplus under Clinton, huge deficit under two years of Obama? How could that have possibly occurred!???!!!....
I always crack up when I read these things. Where were the Tea Party Zealots when Bush wanted to do that second tax cut, right after launching the Iraq War? Oh, I forget, Mission was Accomplished, so why not cut taxes.....
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Yes, they can be annoying with all the Stanford and Berkeley sweatshirts, feng shui, and yoga mats, and they have jacked real estate into the stratosphere (and I have whined endlessly about them-mainly because I did not sell a 3br/2b ranch in Oxnard for $800k! 
). However, you know what, those elitists support the schools even though they are Grandparents now, or single, or childless. They also support parks, nonprofits, soup kitchens and the like. In short they care about their communities, and if they are the kind of elitists you discuss, I think Oregon might use a few more. 
How about those charming fellows at ENRON? Elitist?
