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I'm not at all certain that it would be the old timers selling out, as much as the youngsters bailing after the old man dies.
There have been instances of this in the Bitterroot. Pop dies, and the kids divie up the land, sell it for profit, and then, leave the state.
I know I can't take it with me when I go, and I hope I've raised my boys well enough to hang on to a good thing.
Over the years, I've borrowed against it, to pay for college for a few of my boys, but that's been about it. I've been approached by some out of state interests in the past wanting to purchase portions of what we have, but each time I've politely declined their offers.
When I'm up on our property in the Bitterroot, I look at the growth below us and down the road to the north, and somehow feel that this all can't be a good thing for the value of my property. Taxes haven't been all that bad really over the years, but you can just bet that they will raise, the minute I replace the front gate leading in.
Most of the old boys I knew in the Bitterroot are either long gone, or moved to the east. We hold on to what we have, if not for any other reason than just because we've always had it. We don't hang on to it because we are trying to keep people out, or are trying to control growth. We hang on to it because it's ours, we paid for it because we wanted it in the first place, long before all of this business of building came along.
My cousins up in Lincoln County hang on to theirs for much the same reasons.
My brother and I still hold land in Granite County too, that belonged to Dad before he died. Dad never made us promise not to ever sell it, we hang on to it simply because it was Dad's and thats about it. We take turns grazing the stock, repairing the fences, and keeping up the place. The kids love it for the hunting and the fishing. I love it because it was Dad's.
Now I know folks will do whatever it takes to make money, and if selling their fathers land will fill their wallets, then that's what they're going to do. Most of us, that I'm aware of, however, pretty much hang in there and do what we've always done over the years. Land is an asset to us, it's how we make our living in many instances. The value is always going to be there for us so long as we use it for what we intended to use it for in the first place.
Now to address another of the ones that posted here:
Montana will never amount to, or meet any of the same demise as Oregon.
Simply because there are no industries here that can support the state in the long term.
Oregon has the waterways that allow for heavy industry. Portland has always been an economic powerhouse for Oregon..... Montana has no such cities, and never will have. It's all about the economics my friend. There can never be any long term sustained industry in Montana on the scale of what Oregon has. We are just too darn land locked for that. Supporting long term industry in it's own right would be cost prohibitive, simply because we don't have a "Willamette River", or better yet, a "San Fransisco Bay" or a "Los Angeles Harbor". It's not the people of Montana that keeps Montana out of the industrial spotlight, it's Montana herself, by her geographical location, that keeps her out of harms way with regard to it.
As a youngster, Dad sent me off to college in Eugene... and in the 60's, Eugene was the size that Great Falls is now..... Great Falls is "still the same size" or smaller, than it was in 1965.... The Eugene/Springfield area, on the other hand, is not.
Yea so take your own advice and don't move here !
One way of life was destroyed years ago, now we are destroying the second way of life.
otto-focus, I'm glad to see you understand that, so move somewhere else and encourage others to do the same, and maybe you can help prevent repeating the same mistakes of the past.
If people on this forum think I'm ticked about what is currently happening to Montana, try asking a 'native american' what they think !
PS: as a side bit, the tribes in montana may very well have not been the orginal inhabitors of the area going back 13,000 years, over that period of time many different tribes or strands of people were probably pushing and shoving each other all the time in and out of the area. Especially as new waves of people came in from asia. So who is really the decendents of the "FIRST" people to occupy this area ? Who knows. The current tribes, somewhere back probably just took it from someone else, who took it from someone else, who took it.....you get the picture.
I'm sure if we all go back far enough, we'd find that our ancestors at one point were shoved out of their land. Then again we are all from africa, should we all go back and claim our piece ?
i dont reguard the time spent in different cities,while working construction,a mistake.i do think it's a mistake to take seriously someone who uses so many may have,could be,may verywell words as you did, it means you don't know what you are talking about.
Montana will never amount to, or meet any of the same demise as Oregon.
Simply because there are no industries here that can support the state in the long term
NEVER say NEVER........We do have a huge industry in Montana, it's called selling Montana and building on it. If you live in the Bitterroot you know, what do you think would happen if the construction work ever stopped in the bitterroot...half the population would be outta work. Like I've been saying 'Growth' is the new industry, it's the new economy.
With our new 'growth' economy here in montana and the new economy which many say or call the 'assest' econony, yes we've gone past the service based economy, There really is nothing to stop montana cities from getting as big as any, just look at how much and how fast the missoula area has grown. You know it, Reserve St 10 years ago was a quite 2 lane, now it host 10's of thousands of cars everyday. At this pace it won't take that long.
I think your notion of montana cities not get that large as based on an outdate economic model, we not a manufacturing economy anymore, we're even moving past a service economy.
I don't blame people for selling off their land to make a buck, you do what you have to do. I'm just sorry to see what happens to it. And that is where the out side influence and the selling of Montana comes into play.
The sprawl in the Bitterroot valley is well on it's way to make any state jealous. Sprawl grows exponentially, meaning if the number of structures double every 4 years, then you go 8000, 16000, 32000, 64000, so you see how it excelerates, which is also what causes the 'boom' to turn into a 'bust', lets just pray the 'bust' is just around the corner. Actually I suspect it is closer than that. It will be interesting to see what will happen to the local economies when the biggest industry (construction, realestate,etc) begins to crumble. And I'll bet that idea just makes some people shudder, right some of you are shuddering right now just at the thought. I guess you have to learn to except change, and change careers and residence.
JoeJoe you made a good point afew posts back. The point being that many folks are moving to run away from crime,illegals, libs,overcrowding, etc. The illegals peaked my interest. If the many millions of illegals were not here it would drive down crime, hospital welfare, and really overcrowding in calif. Just think if calif, lost what say 5million of them maybe many americans would stay in calif. And folks in MT think illegal immigration doesnt affect them Cause and affect.
which is also what causes the 'boom' to turn into a 'bust', lets just pray the 'bust' is just around the corner. Actually I suspect it is closer than that. It will be interesting to see what will happen to the local economies when the biggest industry (construction, realestate,etc) begins to crumble. And I'll bet that idea just makes some people shudder, right some of you are shuddering right now just at the thought. I guess you have to learn to except change, and change careers and residence.
I agree, it just might soon, since the California housing market is taking a dump right now. I think it does tend to affect the rest of the nation.
Some of the real estate folks are turning a blind eye to it, but the simple fact is forclosures are up, and values are down. 1 in every 480+/- homes in my county (Riverside) is in forclosure right now. I couldn't refinance my house at the end of the year (2006) because the banks are afraid to do loans that push the edge of loan to value. I know my house has dropped about $40,000 in value in the last year.
I know my house has dropped about $40,000 in value in the last year.
But what you have to remember is that the price increase was unrealistic in the first place and none of those houses are worth the price they are going for even after the devaluation. Let's face it, a little two bedroom one bathroom stucco house with no garage and no front yard but an ok back yard was purchased by friends of mine 13 years ago at $139,000. in Oakland. Just a year ago they sold it for $650,000 and it's still the same crappy little stucco house with all the same problems it had to begin with. Where is the value in that? It's rediculously out of proportion to reality so no wonder prices are dropping. Get real!!!
JoeJoe you made a good point afew posts back. The point being that many folks are moving to run away from crime,illegals, libs,overcrowding, etc. The illegals peaked my interest. If the many millions of illegals were not here it would drive down crime, hospital welfare, and really overcrowding in calif. Just think if calif, lost what say 5million of them maybe many americans would stay in calif. And folks in MT think illegal immigration doesnt affect them Cause and affect
Yes, I would say I whole heartly agree with that, that is exactly what is happening.
I firmly beleive that the reason our government continues to allow it to happpen is because our economy would be sunk without masses of illegals moving in. I am by NO means in favor of illegals.
Our economy and monitary system is build on an ever expanding economy and money supply. It's kind of the dirtly little secrect the government doesn't want anyone to know, but it's the elephant in the room, right there for anyone to see, who wants to.
I won't go into details, (read up on fiat money systems), but our fiat system is based on creating money, loaning it out, and then creating more money so that there is more money in the system to pay back the interest on the principal of the last money they lent out, and so on, and so on, so the money supply has to keep expanding, ie the economy, I'm not saying I agree with the system and a lot of knowed people don't, because fiat systems have lots of bad consquences - we're seeing one of them now, the desperation to do anything it takes to keep them going, ie illegals, and grossly inflated realestate prices.
The economy in america, is suppose to be a beacon to the world, but really it's a shell game. We don't manufacture anymore, we've even sent alot of service jobs oversees, we've automated many jobs out of existense, and if all that wasn't enough, then send our jobs to China, (excuse me but I thought they were communist). And please don't think of them as just jobs, they were people's livelyhoods. Who are now people who have to go out of their way to find a new vocation in life, so the a 'communist' country can have their livelyhood. It's really a sick notion when you think of it.
That fact is that there just isn't enough jobs in amercia to go around anymore, so the government creates more and more government jobs, increaseing it's budget, and borrowing to the hilt, then it dumps money into the system with LOW LOW interest rates and over relaxed lending standards, add to that lots of illegal people flooding into the country who in turn force others to leave their home (california for one) those forced out people move off will need houses, so build more.....get the picture and you have makings of a housing BOOM the likes of which has been seen in a long long time.
But the whole thing is a house of cards that can't go on forever some say, and you can see the disasteric results now with the illegals, it's what our government has to resort to keep this phoney economy going, dump money into society and let the illegal masses flood in...........
As a side note the other big government lie is that "there is no inflation" which we all know there is, inflation is a direct result of the dumping money into the economy, as some would say, is like giving more booze to make the drunk feel better.
Simply put our government is ruining our country for a buck. Send what jobs we got overseas, bring in illegals to force wages down on the bottom end, corporate america has also become desperate and immoral to make a buck any way it can, and our polticians go right along with it.
The adult baby boomer selfindulgent old hippy masses are as much to blame as our government, why ? but that's a whole nother chapter....
Sorry to rant on but, it's pretty obvious to see what is happening, and I see it as one direct cause of what has happen to western montana, basically the raping or a land and a way of life for the almight dollar, phony economy and a government now put and kept in office by a selfindulgent, sex, drugs and rock & roll, baby-boomer generation. Who as long as they get their big truck, super-sized house, plastic surgury and next sexual encounter are perfect willing to look the other way, actually I think their self absorption has blinded them from reality.
But enough for now.
It's rediculously out of proportion to reality so no wonder prices are dropping. Get real!!!
I agree with you. I wasn't complaining. I am at least lucky enough to have a half acre here, but the house is still a 35 year old house, and I have had to dump some $$$ into to fix it.
I firmly beleive that the reason our government continues to allow it to happpen is because our economy would be sunk without masses of illegals moving in. I am by NO means in favor of illegals.
I wasn't even going to post anymore on this forum after our earlier exchanges but you actually said something I agree with. The illegal immigrant situation is completely out of hand and here in Arizona is one of the worst places for it although you have illegals everywhere. There is one particular area where Mexican workers are needed and that's in agriculture. You just don't see young American guys lining up to get those jobs. But ten percent of the entire population of Mexico is actually living in the US and we can't absord that kind of population. You can also thank the big corporations for sending thousands of high paying jobs to Mexico and overseas where the pay is low and they don't worry about the environment.
You mentioned China. I visited there a few years ago but now it's completely changed and it's becoming a really modern society with a middle class and cities with spectacular skylines. They're communist in name only. They've completely gotten rid of the old state owned industries and they're just as capitalistic as we are and they're really good at it. India is getting more foreign jobs than probably any other country. I called my Directv about a problem a few months ago and I talked to a woman with a strong accent. I asked where she was located and she said India.
This job loss affects every state, Montana included, and politicians of both parties are to blame as well as the freeloading CEO's of corporations who make millions of dollars even if their companies are losing money. I could rant about this subject but I'll let it go at that.
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Cause and affect.
