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I have been living in Hickory, NC for all of my life and am planning on expanding my furniture stores in North Carolina. How is North Carolina's overall economy and where is it heading?
North Carolina did get hit hard by the recession, mainly because it is a state that is built on Banking (Especially Charlotte), but what's the future of North Carolina?
1. Is Charlotte going to be growing much faster now? (downtown, south park area, etc.)
2. Is the expansion of CLT good news for the state?
No disrespect, but if you've lived in Hickory all your life, you've seen where NC was and should have a good view of where it's going. Hickory got hammered from loss of furniture and textiles industries....but recovered a little from tech manufacturing and as a bedroom community for the halfway point between Boone and Char/Meck for transplants who want to live in the country but close to amenities of Char/Meck and recreation of the mountains in Boone....and near the Interstate system of I40 and I77 and I85. Politically....NC is going to continue to become more and more purple.....not hard red and not hard blue. Economically, we are rapidly becoming a service sector state, not industrial or manufacturing, although we still have good amount of "heavy" "old fashioned" industrial sector. Look at the other threads for NC: 100s of threads of people from all over the US saying "I'm moving to NC......" so we will become the next "florida" for snowbirds who don't want to go all of the way down south, but are tired of the snow and high taxes up north. Our economy got hit from the Great Recession, but not just b/c of banking industry....more b/c of the housing industry that burst. I encourage you to try to figure out to reinvigorate NC's once great furniture industry instead of exploiting the forests of places like Vietnam and Malaysia and Thailand for the crap made for places like IKEA or Big Lots or Pier 1 or Restoration Hardware ....and then shipped halfway around the world under the guise of being 'green'. We can grow more better trees more environmentally friendly than anywhere on the planet right here in NC. And don't even get me started about bamboo....or cork....sorry I went on a tangential tirade. NC's economy is slowly recovering but the tax laws are outdated, bottomline our taxes will be going up in the future.
In the shorter term, the disparity between the Triangle and Charlotte areas and everywhere else in NC will widen. The reason for their current survival is that banking and healthcare are government subsidized (through bailouts/QE and Health care subsidies) The loss of the manufacturing and agricultural base of the rural areas has sealed their fates.
In the longer term, the standard of living for the middle and working class in NC, like the rest of the US, will gradually deteriorate over the long term. Capital, power, and most importantly influence will accumulate in the hands of a few who will shape public policy in their interests - hastening the demise. People in rural areas could be reduced to subsistence farming or criminal enterprise. Some may return to a sharecropper style of arrangement, working land under a perpetual cycle of debt from which they will never escape. Without a sufficient tax base to support emergency services or an educational system, violence, crime, and ignorance would be rampant in certain areas.
Publicly, government reports regarding the state of the economy would become so far from the reality that, much like the third world, no one would consider them to be in any way indicative of the true state of affairs. Lower echelons of government would become rife with petty, corrupt bureaucrats who impede progress through an obstacle course of unnecessary regulations and requirements.
On the other hand, a major technological (not readily outsourced) or social development could breath wind back into the economic sails once again and the US (and NC) could experience a short resurgence of prosperity, prolonging the inevitable for at least another generation. This would be good for everyone in US, including furniture sellers.
The above scenario is admittedly pessimistic, but there are an infinite number of possible scenarios, just follow your gut!
Banking props up a lot of what is good, and that is just one or two shareholder votes from taking a huge nose dive if corporate headquarters and major operations centers leave for greener pastures.
With the K - 12 education system in disarray, and on a steep negative trend, not much hope there. The once wonderful state university system has about priced most folks out even if they learn enough in high school to get accepted, and the continual assault on student loans, by uneducated politicians, exacerbates that situation for those contemplating college.
Oh, the large number of illegals, initially drawn here by the ease with which they could obtain a drivers license (in the past) has strained the welfare budget to the max
Manufacturing is pretty much done, so you have the public dole.
And then, there are the nitwits running the state government. Need I say more.
I'll admit I don't know too much about the furniture store business...but I do know that you have to have discretionary income to buy furniture....therefore you need a good economy where your store's are. It is one of those purchases you can put off.
NC is becoming two economies...one where people are relocating to...and one where people are relocating from. Just look at the population increases in certain cities to see where the good markets are. I would only set up shop in those places. The suburban Charlotte and Raleigh markets....Greenville and Wilmington in the eastern part of the state also stand out. That would be the only markets I would go after because people relocating are likely the one's buying furniture.
I have been living in Hickory, NC for all of my life and am planning on expanding my furniture stores in North Carolina. How is North Carolina's overall economy and where is it heading?
North Carolina did get hit hard by the recession, mainly because it is a state that is built on Banking (Especially Charlotte), but what's the future of North Carolina?
1. Is Charlotte going to be growing much faster now? (downtown, south park area, etc.)
2. Is the expansion of CLT good news for the state?
Thanks everyone.
North Carolina (especially Hickory) got hit hard in the 90s because all the manufacturing disappeared overnight. Banking doesn't have much to do with it. This place was booming in the 70s and 80s when there were dozens of hosiery mills and furniture factories within a stone's throw. The only thing we make now is food at restaurants.
As for growth, Charlotte is still growing at a pretty good clip, as is Raleigh. Most of the areas around Charlotte and Raleigh are growing as well. Iredell County is growing, as is Gaston and Catawba. Notice any vacant property on Highway 70 in Hickory? There'd be a lot more of it if Hickory wasn't growing.
Whether expansion is good or not, depends on what you're talking about. Good for the tax base and for businesses? Yes. Good for traffic and crime? Probably not.
...... and the continual assault on student loans, by uneducated politicians, exacerbates that situation for those contemplating college.
Oh, the large number of illegals, initially drawn here by the ease with which they could obtain a drivers license (in the past) has strained the welfare budget to the max
Manufacturing is pretty much done, so you have the public dole.
And then, there are the nitwits running the state government. Need I say more.
Yep, pretty bleak I would opine.
Easy to get student loans, backed by the taxpayer, is what has made College so expensive. Raise tuition? No problem students will just get bigger loans. Bigger loans more loans. It's the problem not the solution.
As for NC? The biggest enemy is the never ending tax increases. What ever you're forced to give is never enough.
Easy to get student loans, backed by the taxpayer, is what has made College so expensive. Raise tuition? No problem students will just get bigger loans. Bigger loans more loans. It's the problem not the solution.
As for NC? The biggest enemy is the never ending tax increases. What ever you're forced to give is never enough.
You are wrong on both points. Government backed student loads for all but the indigent (or dishonest) cover on a small portion of college cost now. Youngest daughter looking at $3500 govt load for $17,000 semester. You are several years out of date on that talking point.
NC does not take a big tax bite, but what it does is misspent. I would gladly pay more for better roads, schools, and more efforts to attract viable employers. The ROI would be huge.
Unfortunately the likelihood of additional taxes going to good cause is nil, and that is why the economic outlook is so much worse than most realize.
Total Student loan debt is bigger in the US than total credit card debt.
Additional taxes? NO Bring higher education into the 21st century. There is massive waste on College campuses.
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