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Someone said it in this very thread, it isn't Californians, or NY'ers or Chicagoans or anyone who should be blamed, it is the collective greed that afflicts all humanity that causes those that supply to price what they have beyond the point of pain for those on the consumer side. I fear it will take a Parisian style French Revolution, complete with beheadings and civil anarchy to let the ruling classes know just how far over the line they have taken things.
Instead of pointing a finger at the big and powerful, why don't you think about what all the "little people" are doing? High housing prices are better attributed to the people who put up with them. If everyone would take camping out in the woods over paying outrageous rent or taking out a mortgage, you would see a totally different market.
The fact is, sellers will sell for as much as they can get...that's a constant. Expecting sellers to look out for the best interests of the buyers is ridiculous. But they can only get what the buyer is willing to pay. If no one would use a credit card, if no one would spend more than they earn, if they wouldn't take out mortgages, if they wouldn't take out auto loans, refused to take a second job to pay rent/mortgage, etc...the costs of everything would be better mated to our wages. You can't live so far outside your earning power and expect prices to be be based on what you earn.
EDIT: And if you're willing to get more buried in debt, and pay a little more, sellers will find something for you to buy. Do we really need cars or houses as fancy or as big as we have? Hell no. But try to get people to buy a small house with no or small mortgage instead of a nice big house with a 30-year mortgage. Oh ya, that'd make it so they had to live around poor people, which means bad schools and probably minorities. Wouldn't want that.
Might not have as good air conditioning, heating, or appliances. Can't show it off really...and dear god, you might have to fix parts of it up yourself. It probably wouldn't have 14 foot ceilings or 500sqft per person. Maybe only 1 bathroom to share between 3-4 people....shocking. How could any person ever live in such poverty? Never mind the Chinese families living in 50 square meter apartments, we're citizens of god's chosen country, we couldn't possibly live like those people do in lesser countries.
Sorry to rant so much....
Last edited by Waterlily; 12-10-2007 at 09:24 PM..
Reason: off topic edit
What I have determined from a week of reading the various threads in the Oregon section is that there is a very real "me" mentality at work. Friends, the entire country is facing all the things that you are! In many places a fixer upper in a very, very bad part of town is approaching $300,000. One million gets you a livable two family in a nice part of town and mansions begin at three million. In California, celebrity mansions go over $20M.
Illegals are calling Iowa home, North Dakota, Utah, Montana anywhere there is land and work and many places where there isn't. It's better here, anywhere in the U.S. than in Mexico, Guatamala, the Phillipines, Somalia, Sudan, Ivory Coast, etc. etc.
The U.S. citizens that employ illegals and encourages them to send for friends and family and prefer their labor over legal citizens labor are the ones creating the current climate of instability. <~~This is SO true! There are SO many illegals working in the building industry it's pathetic. Ever wonder why the faucet handles are invariably backwards on new construction? C is on the left where the H should be? C = caliente, which means HOT in Spanish. My husband was in the building industry. Virtually "all" of the laborers who worked under him were illegals. He is now part owner in a rock quarry business based out of Jacksonville and they hire illegals.
The stock market is a greater source of income and profit for just about any organization of any size than sales. Companies please their investors and investors like to hear that their companies are being run lean and mean. If this means mass layoffs, so be it. If 10 workers can be coerced into doing the work of 30 with the payroll of 7, get it done. Jobs are now a privilege bestowed on the minimum number of personnel necessary to make a company look viable in a prospectus.
Oregon does not have more or less jobs than anyplace else, the unemployment percentages are identical across the country. <~~~~I disagree with this. Other states do not have the same unemployment percentages.
There is nowhere else to go where things are any better!! Maybe if the legal citizens of this country stop whining and beating down the places they call home and look to greener pastures there will be a change.
I am looking towards Oregon because as an avid cyclist and hiker and all round eco-warrior I like the things Oregon has to offer. I haven't been able to find work in NYC that befits my experience and training and when I do the wages will not be any higher than 15 years ago but rents are now quintuple what they were five years ago so effectively wages now are far lower than 15 years ago. Again, this is happening all across the country. Its just that for a variety of reasons Oregon's housing and food etc. cannot rise to NYC levels because you would have mass starvation and rioting if Oregonians had to pay NYC rents. Mind you, NY'ers pay NYC rents on salaries that in many cases aren't any higher than Oregon wages!! They live four to an apartment to do it. Again, that hasn't happened in Oregon.... yet. Why shouldn't it. Thanks to Craigslist any building manager in Duluth can see what building managers in Hartford, Conn. charge for a 1000 sq/ft single bedroom apartment and greed if nothing else motivates them to achieve parity, sooner if not later.
Someone said it in this very thread, it isn't Californians, or NY'ers or Chicagoans or anyone who should be blamed, it is the collective greed that afflicts all humanity that causes those that supply to price what they have beyond the point of pain for those on the consumer side. I fear it will take a Parisian style French Revolution, complete with beheadings and civil anarchy to let the ruling classes know just how far over the line they have taken things.
H
See above........sorry, I don't know how to partial quote.
I gotta echo Marko3 on these two points. Some building and road projects going on here in Corvallis have taken an E X C E E D I N G L Y L O N G time to complete. And the airport situation is really different from other parts of the country. My family and I flew to Michigan a couple years ago, and we had to split up and take separate flights. My wife and one child flew into Lansing and myself and our other child flew into Grand Rapids. Both cities have pretty large airports and are only about 70 miles apart. We also could have flown into Detroit or Flint or Kalamazoo or Bay City as well. Delta has recently started flying out of the Salem airport, so maybe that will give us another option.
The freeway in Medford has been under construction (at some point or another) for as long as I can remember.
FYI, there is an airport in Medford that's fairly nice. It is more expensive to fly in and out of though.
Instead of pointing a finger at the big and powerful, why don't you think about what all the "little people" are doing? High housing prices are better attributed to the people who put up with them. If everyone would take camping out in the woods over paying outrageous rent or taking out a mortgage, you would see a totally different market. ...
You are only partially correct, IMO. Shelter and food are not take it or leave it purchases for most people. Camping in the woods is not practical housing for the vast majority of Americans. And no, I did not unfairly target big corporations I said "the collective greed that afflicts all humanity". However, smarter, better trained people than myself find themselves heads of state and in positions of power all across this country and they are very well placed to put protections for citizens in place that could control the natural tendecy to want to exploit those who are in the position of being on the consumer side of an equation. The downside is that such controls would look too much like Socialism or (gasp) Communism to ever fly in the United States of America. IMO it is not the communism or socialism that is the terrible part of most communist or socialist states but the suppression of individual freedom and the fact that such political structures are headed by dictators. It IS possible to have a socialist economic structure AND an open society with individual freedoms and freedom of speech. But how to get it to happen here after 300 years of doing it the Founding Father's way is going to be the trick isn't it.
I've read a bunch of these posts and am so surprised. I LOVE Oregon! I grew up in Oregon but have lived in Minnesota and Colorado, neither of which can compare to the beautiful northwest. You have to be able to tolerate rain, which isn't too difficult when you realize that rain = green. Minnesota and Colorado are both seen as fairly pretty states by others but don't hold a candle to the beauty found in Oregon, particularly the Willamette Valley. You're close to the ocean, mountains, and desert, so there's always something to do. The "downsides" I've read are common to most other places, so as with anywhere, you have to take the good with the bad. But as for me, I'm nothing but thrilled to be moving back!!!
You are only partially correct, IMO. Shelter and food are not take it or leave it purchases for most people. Camping in the woods is not practical housing for the vast majority of Americans. And no, I did not unfairly target big corporations I said "the collective greed that afflicts all humanity". However, smarter, better trained people than myself find themselves heads of state and in positions of power all across this country and they are very well placed to put protections for citizens in place that could control the natural tendecy to want to exploit those who are in the position of being on the consumer side of an equation. The downside is that such controls would look too much like Socialism or (gasp) Communism to ever fly in the United States of America. IMO it is not the communism or socialism that is the terrible part of most communist or socialist states but the suppression of individual freedom and the fact that such political structures are headed by dictators. It IS possible to have a socialist economic structure AND an open society with individual freedoms and freedom of speech. But how to get it to happen here after 300 years of doing it the Founding Father's way is going to be the trick isn't it.
H
Yes, I was being a bit over-the-top with the camping thing, haha. But really, there are cheaper places to live than NYC or wherever. I'm thinking about moving to TX from OR to get cheaper housing...do I want to leave OR? Not particularly. I like it here well enough. But people with more money than I like it too. The pioneers didn't come out here because they loved the beaches...they came out because there was a chance to own their own chunk of land. Californians move here so they can have a house. Oregonians move to TX or AZ or NM to afford a house. Texans move to...maybe mexico? Mexicans move to Honduras perhaps? It's just human nature.
It is so easy to make it in America that no one can really complain. There is someplace for everyone if they're ambitious enough and willing to take a risk. No risk, no reward, ever. I mean, here we have so much money we worry about having the newest car, rather than A car, or a big house instead of housing. Most people here need a serious reality check. The sense of entitlement can be astounding.
Why would you want government controls on sellers? Then buyers get more and more lazy, more and more dependent on the government, then corporations influence the government, but people still trust the government, and BAM, consumer is screwed. With a free market, some consumers get screwed, but they learn to be keep on their toes and take accountability. When you start trusting corporations or the government, you're gone. The thought of someone trusting a politician, a banker, or a used car salesman sends shivers up my spine.
Please show me an example of a socialist country where individual freedoms are respected, and people are better off than they are in America. We have more individual freedoms and freedom of speech than any European country, and certainly more than China. Also, the labor laws in all European countries besides France have been dramatically loosened since their inception, due to competition from non-EU countries like Poland.
Capitalism sucks, but it's the best system we've come up with so far.
Have you seen the big ones there are currently building in Philomath? monsters who can afford those mortgage payments? why don't we create a larger problem in the mortgage industry so the Gov can bail people who cant afford those houses out? have we lost our good sense????
Have you seen the big ones there are currently building in Philomath? monsters who can afford those mortgage payments? why don't we create a larger problem in the mortgage industry so the Gov can bail people who cant afford those houses out? have we lost our good sense????
Usually the ones in the Monsters don't have bailout issues. The majority are
1st time home buyers and move ups.
I'm glad the gov't acted to freeze the interest rates for a few yrs. We all should be, taking a risk and stepping out does not have to lead to homelessness.
freedom
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Wow!
