Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
FWIW, Hawaii is pretty happy with it's 'over reaction', we're not sick, we're not dead. Hawaii is all about family and ohana so we take care of each other.
...
One of the things of diversification most folks seem to miss is that it isn't just one answer. It's a whole bunch of little answers. The hotel worker who now starts a home cleaning business is part of the 'diversification'. The tour bus driver who now drives a delivery truck is part of the diversification. It's not just one big answer and it will be answered all across the state as there are less tourists.
Here’s hoping
My 55 year on again off again love / hate relationship with Hawaii grew most frayed by the increasing Oahu congestion over the years. Retired military, Oahu is where my benefits are most easily indulged. But just seemed less and less worth coming back. If tourism is down, I understand the burden for many and all have my respect and sympathies. But this will likely increase my motivation to return. I realize I’m a cheap date so my little wallet doesn’t mean squat. Still, that’s my $0.02 worth.
All because of a complete overreaction to a virus that has a mortality rate between .1%-.3%. This will go down as one of the worst debacles in human history. Because of the decisions made in handling this virus, there will a devastating affect that will last many years. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I’m pretty confident that this was a desired result.
A worldwide conspiracy with our economic shutdown as a "desired result"? Who benefits? The whole world loses!
Some Republicans are claiming that this will ensure Trump's reelection. Others claim the entire virus event was just to get rid of Trump.
Some Democrats think their chances are lost because of the virus. Others think this is their opportunity for a turnover.
How about a third possibility? It was just a random natural event that no one caused and from which no one will benefit. Perhaps we overreacted, perhaps we didn't react enough. Coronavirus is far from over and it may get much worse. Hopefully not, and I really have empathy with those who lost family members, homes, businesses, jobs, and more.
Meanwhile our economy moved closer to possible collapse with the creation and distribution of trillions of unearned dollars.
History has proven one thing: Whoever turns out to be wrong will grow quiet, then slowly start "adjusting" their earlier assertions and moving goalposts to make themselves "correct".
I'm glad to be here in Hawaii relatively safe from the virus, but it is only a temporary respite. Eventually it will spread here as well. Hopefully by then we will have more effective treatment protocols.
We're gonna see over 100,000 deaths in the continental United States from the first wave of this virus. Samoa? Zero cases, zero deaths. Hawaii? We didn't do as well. Alaska? They did better than us. I'd have to go see how Guam and Puerto Rico and the rest of the territories have done.
Puerto Rico had double the infection rate and 10X the death rate per capita as Hawaii. Guam also had double the number of cases and 4X the death rate again, per capita. Alaska did similarly well to Hawaii.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotzcatz
Tourism was becoming a bit much the past few years so less tourists on a day to day living here basis is a good thing. However, folks' incomes are down so that will be a hardship. IMHO, this is going to clear out a few malahini who don't have any resources. Hawaii families stick together and now there's gonna be even more of them sharing one house.
I would surmise the ratio of locals leaving to malahini leaving will be higher. Many locals don't have large family support networks to lean on. While I would strongly agree that it's more likely local people will take in down and out family than mainland people, that doesn't mean it works this way across the board. Many locals will suffer and I strongly believe this economic downturn will hurt locals far more than malahini.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotzcatz
But hopefully this past few year's upward spiral of increasing rents and increasing costs is gonna flat line and fall to go along with the decreasing jobs. Our economy was too busy before, it's good to slow it down a little.
I am not sure where you are getting your information but rents have been dropping over the last 3 years. Rents peaked about 4 years ago and have been flat and down every year since. Similarly, I am not seeing the increase in costs (of goods, services etc) that you are talking about. Prices have been very stable here for years. The only thing that has been going up markedly for me are my property taxes and sewer bills. Ironically, both of these bills will increase at an even more rapid pace with less tourists and people moving away.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotzcatz
Hawaii needs to take care of it's own people before it focuses on tourists, IMHO. A lot of housing was bought by mainland companies and owners and made into vacation rentals. A lot of Hawaii jobs are low paying service jobs. Getting even a few more businesses other than tourism will help strengthen the economy.
Unfortunately tourists are what supports our local people. Not sure how else you suggest we can support them if we have no industry to provide them jobs. We already did a decent job in tackling the illegal vacation rental problem. Do you have any viable suggestions of industries that can flourish here in the absence of tourism? I made the suggestion of medical tourism as the only viable "new" industry that could be established here. But not enough forward thinkers and total lack of leadership to ever get that off the ground.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotzcatz
Almost all the food and goods are imported. Getting it a little more in balance will be a good thing. Growing and providing our own food will create jobs outside of tourism and give us more resilience against things outside of our control such as dock strikes on the mainland.
One of the things of diversification most folks seem to miss is that it isn't just one answer. It's a whole bunch of little answers. The hotel worker who now starts a home cleaning business is part of the 'diversification'. The tour bus driver who now drives a delivery truck is part of the diversification. It's not just one big answer and it will be answered all across the state as there are less tourists.
1000% on board with expanding our agricultural sector here as a need to have not nice to have. Again, total lack of leadership with no reasonable incentives for farmers to open up shop here is what has doomed our agricultural industry. Instead of dedicating lands and providing incentives, we build sprawl housing over our most arable sun-baked lands. And these homes all being pitched to "working class locals". The irony... The farmlands the developers carved out are nothing but playpens for the residents' kids and will never amount to any decent agricultural output for our state.
Unfortunately the wealthy people that are contributing to our higher cost of living are the ones that are actually going to provide that job for the house cleaner. It's not middle income people that are hiring these people. And the lower and middle income people also are not hiring delivery people to drop off their groceries...
One area we should be generating thousands of jobs is solar. This is a perfect opportunity to build hundreds of megawatts of solar farms on undesirable lands for ag use. Work can start almost immediately. Just get the numbskulls, HECO, PUC and DPP out of the way. Shove a sock in all their mouths. The space these farms would take up is minimal and it could shift us away from exporting billions in local hard working paychecks to Indonesia and other foreign countries for their oil. Every day it blows my mind that here we are burning oil to provide 80%+ of our electricity needs when we have more sun than almost any place in the developed world and where solar has been proven to be cheaper than burning oil right now. We could even combine ag with solar... build solar farms and allow sunlight to hit the crops below. In fact I bet the partial shade can actually INCREASE certain crop yield. Win win for both energy and food independence. But alas, complete failures as politicians/lawmakers everywhere you look.
But hopefully this past few year's upward spiral of increasing rents and increasing costs is gonna flat line and fall to go along with the decreasing jobs. Our economy was too busy before, it's good to slow it down a little.
Hawaii needs to take care of it's own people before it focuses on tourists, IMHO. A lot of housing was bought by mainland companies and owners and made into vacation rentals. A lot of Hawaii jobs are low paying service jobs. Getting even a few more businesses other than tourism will help strengthen the economy.
Hawaii can't afford to take care of its own - especially with the number of unemployed. Many aren't feeling it yet with CARES money until end of July. But they will feel it. And it should be pointed out rent in Honolulu before the virus had come down 10% since the vacation rental ban. At least on Oahu - it was booming - everyone who wanted a job could have a job - people were making more money - even the fast food businesses were paying over minimum wage. It is clear when I walk around Ala Moana and Waikiki - many small businesses are already wiped out - or will be wiped out. No businesses in a recession are suddenly going to set up shop in Hawaii. None. Diversification is all talk - it'll never happen. I can't think of a single reason any business that wouldn't rely on tourism would set up shop in Hawaii - our low taxes, ha. Low electricity - ha. Highly skilled and abundant workforce - ha ha. Low shipping costs? Our lack of protesters - ha ha. There is not a single advantage to Hawaii unless you are in the field of telescopes (we know how that went) or oceanic in nature. About the only realistic diversification is an even higher reliance on the military - do we really want that - Large Army base on the Big Island? We are also very timezone unfriendly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotzcatz
Almost all the food and goods are imported. Getting it a little more in balance will be a good thing. Growing and providing our own food will create jobs outside of tourism and give us more resilience against things outside of our control such as dock strikes on the mainland.
More food will not be grown here - it will continue to decline. Besides, most food that most people eat can't be grown here or needs pesticide and pesticide and pesticide to be able to thrive. Most people in Hawaii do not have the tolerance to pay higher prices for food when that same avocado from Mexico is half the price and are virtually identical. It isn't like we have some superfood here - a pineapple here and a pineapple from Costa Rica tastes the same - and one is much cheaper, and it isn't the Hawaii one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotzcatz
One of the things of diversification most folks seem to miss is that it isn't just one answer. It's a whole bunch of little answers. The hotel worker who now starts a home cleaning business is part of the 'diversification'. The tour bus driver who now drives a delivery truck is part of the diversification. It's not just one big answer and it will be answered all across the state as there are less tourists.
That definitely won't work. You need businesses that can scale and employ at a minimum hundreds maybe even thousands of workers of the now shuttered hotels. Add home cleaners - now you have even more competition - and the hourly rate goes down. Same thing with Uber - as more and more Uber drivers hit the road - the less money the drivers make - competing with more money. And with less tourists - you'll certainly need a lot less delivery drivers.
More food will not be grown here - it will continue to decline. Besides, most food that most people eat can't be grown here or needs pesticide and pesticide and pesticide to be able to thrive. Most people in Hawaii do not have the tolerance to pay higher prices for food when that same avocado from Mexico is half the price and are virtually identical. It isn't like we have some superfood here - a pineapple here and a pineapple from Costa Rica tastes the same - and one is much cheaper, and it isn't the Hawaii one.
I disagree. If volume increases dramatically (I mean like 100X++ current production), you can absolutely be competitive with other states. On top of adding scale (which will inevitably drive cost down significantly), you have to subsidize the farmers. This can be done many ways. You could carve out sections of fee simple ag land that can be sold as "gentlemen" estates so that some rich guy can build a 5,000 SF mansion. For every 100 acres of arable land with potable water access, let them have 10 of these lots. Sell them at a premium and tax them. The monies used from these sales and future taxes can help to subsidize the farmer. If The People don't want any rich people with Land Rovers on ag land then carve out the same pcs of land but use them for light industrial use. Storage, truck yards, for local companies, whatever. Just rezone small portions of the land and use the much higher value of this land to directly subsidize the farmers. Nobody but the farmers get to put their hand in those cookie jars.
We have tons of cheap water here to water these crops. And sophisticated rain water catchment systems can be built to water crops - cost for these systems has plummeted over the last couple decades. Water is not any more expensive here as it is in competing states.
Harvesting technology has improved dramatically and much of the labor component has been reduced or eliminated with automation. It is marginally more expensive to operate the same machinery here as it is in other states or countries.
Invest in agrivoltaics (this is what I discussed in my last post). This is basically where you install massive solar farms and plant crops in between the solar arrays. You could install irrigation and lighting systems on these structures allowing people to pick crop when it is cooler at night. No more slave labor type jobs for these farmers killing themselves in the hot sun. They can literally work only when it's cool using super high efficiency LED lighting. Something we didn't have available 20 years ago. This can create some very desirable synergy between ag and solar where it's an obvious win-win for both.
We import virtually all our food. I agree we won't be able to compete directly with third world-ish countries but we can and should be able to compete directly with mainland producers. No excuse - zero. These things can be done right now to reduce the amount of food we import. Exporting may be a bit more challenging because of shipping costs but we do ship many containers back to the mainland EMPTY so I would assume there may be some opportunity with exporting of food we produce. The dream would be to be a huge net exporter again like we were with sugar and pineapple. And what is more marketable than organic Hawaii grown produce? People will literally and figuratively eat it up.
I disagree. If volume increases dramatically (I mean like 100X++ current production), you can absolutely be competitive with other states.
Volume on what - what crop? Corn? It'll grow here - but doesn't taste the same. Lettuce won't thrive except for Winter. Tomatoes are going to need a lot of pesticides.
Anyway - one doesn't even need to leave Oahu - with vast tracts of land on the North Shore (with plenty of rain) that used to be farms sitting with zero crops. The only large farm in Waimanalo went out of business pre virus.
Hawaii can't outscale a single midwest state - let alone Asia, Mexico, Central and South America.
What about the employees who have to pick these fields? First off, you need a workforce willing to do that - is the Hotel Desk employee wanting to sit outside in the sun picking crops? Your waiter - is he/she going to start picking crops. Moving to an ag industry is far more complex than just planting crops - sure, plant it - now you got to pick it and process it. Who's going to do that? If Hawaii wanted to be an ag State it needed to keep that momentum going from the 50's and 60's - all the farm workers (probably the hardest part - planting being the easiest) are mostly gone.
How much money does anyone think a person picking crops is going to make in term of wages? At least in the midwest and California - they have a near endless supply of cheap labor to work in fields all day. Think we have some poor people now - lets see what crop pickers make.
Besides coffee as a niche crop (with limited areas to grow) there isn't much else to net export from Hawaii. Even mac nuts on the mainland are largely not from Hawaii. We grow no sugar cane in Hawaii - and only grow .13% of the pineapple supply - (yes point 13) quite frankly, if the tourists in Hawaii paid less attention, Pineapple would go away also - tourists prop that crop up because tourists want a Hawaii pineapple - tourism goes away - the demand falls tremendously - locals don't each that much pineapple - but tourists with tropical drinks do.
Not to ridicule ... just to point out that your history of assumptions and analysis is less than crystal ball-ish, ok friend?
You really do not have to call me officer, but thanks. I’m a civilian now.
True, the deaths are beyond the 60,000 than thought, but the fatality rate has not changed. Millions of people were expected to die from this virus which has not been the case. Also, this 100,000 deaths is not solely C19.
What is important is this virus is no more deadly than the seasonal flu.
According to the CDC the more likely death rate is .26% which really doesn’t mean much being half the deaths were from nursing homes. Those who are not in nursing homes the death rate is .1% which includes people of all ages and all health statuses outside nursing homes. If you are under the age of 50 the mortality rate is 1 in 5000 of people who have shown symptoms. 1 in over 6,000 overall. Almost all those who die have specific comorbidities or underlying conditions. Those without comorbidities are more
Likely to die in a car accident. School children are more likely to get struck by lightning.
True, the deaths are beyond the 60,000 than thought, but the fatality rate has not changed. Millions of people were expected to die from this virus which has not been the case. Also, this 100,000 deaths is not solely C19.
Then you'd have to balance that statement by saying - the average of 40,000 deaths attributed to flu annually is not solely flu.
American Samoa was already under a lock down due to a measles outbreak. When COVID hit they ratcheted it up and stopped allowing inbound flights except from other Samoan islands.
As far as Hawaii's economy is concerned, our "leaders" should have been preparing for this for a long time and they chose not to. Put the Chinese virus aside and they should have been preparing for a terrible recession anyway. Any economist will tell you that recessions are a normal part of the economic cycle. Anybody who has been paying attention will remember that every modern recession has been worse than the one before it, and the last one almost collapsed the system. It wasn't a matter of "if" it was a matter of "when". The only cycles that politicians care about are election cycles.
Food grows well in Hawaii and it doesn't require a lot of pesticides unless you're practicing monoculture. We grow a lot of our own food and rarely use them. There is a steep learning curve to making it work though. Most of the seed packets at the stores are varieties that either don't grow well here, or they don't grow at all. The seeds that were developed by UH don't do well in most people's gardens. They were developed for commercial monoculture use meaning they require regular application of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Pineapples are easy to grow but it normally takes two years to harvest. That is a long investment especially considering one pig herd can come through and destroy 2 years of work in an evening. Commercial operations usually grow the plants large quickly by heavily fertilizing them, and then use chemicals to force them to flower and fruit early. That cuts the harvest time in half. We've never had problems growing tomatoes but it's important to mostly* pick tropical varieties that have a thick skin so they don't get fly strike. Nobody wants a maggoty tomato. Also we have to grow them under a clear tarp because it rains so much on the East side. They will eventually get blights from the soil so we grow them in containers and change the soil after about a year.
Irish type potatoes: Contrary to popular belief they can be grown here. The trick we found is that like bulb onions they have to be grown when the days are getting longer. Since they prefer cooler temps they can be planted mid-December so they are coming out of the soil after December 21. They are usually ready to harvest in only 2 months or so. It's not a good idea to succession plant just about anything but herbs but theoretically you can get 2 potato crops in a year. The type we've found that do best are yellow fingerling, though they don't really come out fingerling here just as oval yellow potatoes. They do not have a long shelf life.
Before sugar was a thing in Hawaii a lot of rice was grown, but virtually nobody grows rice here now.
*There is a German variety that is mostly unknown outside of Europe that does really well here. It's yellow, very tasty, and it was originally bred specifically for making wine.
[/color][/b]
A worldwide conspiracy with our economic shutdown as a "desired result"? Who benefits? The whole world loses!
Some Republicans are claiming that this will ensure Trump's reelection. Others claim the entire virus event was just to get rid of Trump.
Some Democrats think their chances are lost because of the virus. Others think this is their opportunity for a turnover.
How about a third possibility? It was just a random natural event that no one caused and from which no one will benefit. Perhaps we overreacted, perhaps we didn't react enough. Coronavirus is far from over and it may get much worse. Hopefully not, and I really have empathy with those who lost family members, homes, businesses, jobs, and more.
Meanwhile our economy moved closer to possible collapse with the creation and distribution of trillions of unearned dollars.
History has proven one thing: Whoever turns out to be wrong will grow quiet, then slowly start "adjusting" their earlier assertions and moving goalposts to make themselves "correct".
I'm glad to be here in Hawaii relatively safe from the virus, but it is only a temporary respite. Eventually it will spread here as well. Hopefully by then we will have more effective treatment protocols.
I’m not saying this is a worldwide conspiracy. The point I’m making is some are cheering this virus so the result will be the destruction of our economy for political reasons. Think back to what Bill Maher said? Imo, many people realize and aware of the charade that’s being played out and their hopes of a new administration will backfire.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
