You need her to come down and make things right for ya!
Posted on 10/08/2005 1:29:30 PM PDT by Lorianne
PORTLAND, Ore. — Something is brewing in Portland, and it isn’t coffee. The storm gathers at a distance from the coffeehouses and art galleries and wine bars that give the place such urban appeal. It is separate and apart from the upper-crust stores that sprout in proudly preserved neighborhoods, where every business seems to display a poster promoting this cause or that — an environmental rally today, a meeting to expand bicycle lanes tomorrow. This metropolis that is so often listed among America’s most livable cities is living the economic crisis of our times. For three consecutive years, median income has declined, according to City Commissioner Sam Adams, who spoke at a conference of editorial writers from around the nation. After taking a vicious hit when the tech bubble burst, jobs are back. But good wages aren’t. “We are getting our butts kicked in the world economy,” Adams says. This is not Detroit or Pittsburgh or a town in the textile belt. This is the prototype of the places we were told would catch the globalization wave and ride it — not be drowned by it. The Portland area has a young, educated and agile work force, a spectacular location with easy access to the Pacific Ocean, and economic synergy with innovative neighbors in California and Washington. Yet its middle class struggles to stay in the middle. Oregon has regained the jobs it lost during what was, for this state, a deep recession. But when the semiconductor industry began rebounding, says David Cooke, an economist with the state employment department, many of the new jobs went to Asia. “A lot of that production is being done in other countries where wages are much lower,” he said in an interview. The state’s biggest recent job gains have come in “leisure and hospitality” — the hotels and restaurants that are notorious for low pay and often nonexistent benefits. Work is to be found in serving the well-off. And so in a town where, according to local pollster Tim Hibbitts, the political spectrum usually ranges from “liberals to strong liberals to ultra-liberals to leftists,” a different undercurrent is churning. “There’s a lot of simmering anger out there and it’s mostly in the broad middle,” he says. In his polls done in Oregon and elsewhere, about 80 percent of voters say they are worse off, or no better off, than they were a year ago. The economic discontent is national and chronic — and chronically ignored. Neither political party gets it. Before Hurricane Katrina, before $3-a-gallon gas, before the latest airline bankruptcies reminded middle-class workers that they are one corporate strategy away from losing not just their paycheck but the pension they’ve earned over decades, the middle class was already overburdened and burning out. It doesn’t understand why globalization is good if it is so obviously concentrating wealth, not spreading it. It’s furious that it works hard and plays by the rules, as Bill Clinton used to say, but loses anyway. The middle class is fed up with a government and a political system that hasn’t seen fit to even talk about this turmoil as a first step in groping toward a solution. “We are facing globalization — I don’t think we have the capacity to change that,” says Adams. “But what’s the backup plan?” There isn’t one. That’s why the primal scream that Washington does not yet hear will become deafening — and soon. It is not just Katrina and Iraq and frayed national nerves over terrorism. Any politician who believes this risks a layoff. Median household income, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of government data. The political moment most resembles 1992, when Ross Perot burst onto the scene, a pyrotechnic display of middle-class frustration. The upheaval continued in 1994, when voters turned out the Democrats from control of what had been their congressional kingdom. No one can know what form the coming middle-class revolt will take. But any politician who wants to survive it had better be able to answer some questions. If we are no longer to expect American employers to provide affordable health insurance or decent pensions, what is the alternative? If the unrestrained forces of globalization don’t benefit — and indeed, hurt — the broad middle class, what would you do to restrain them? If education and innovation are the answers, then what are the education and innovation strategies? Really, what’s the backup plan?
FORMATTING!!!!
PORTLAND, Ore. — Something is brewing in Portland, and it isn’t coffee.
The storm gathers at a distance from the coffeehouses and art galleries and wine bars that give the place such urban appeal. It is separate and apart from the upper-crust stores that sprout in proudly preserved neighborhoods, where every business seems to display a poster promoting this cause or that — an environmental rally today, a meeting to expand bicycle lanes tomorrow.
This metropolis that is so often listed among America’s most livable cities is living the economic crisis of our times.
For three consecutive years, median income has declined, according to City Commissioner Sam Adams, who spoke at a conference of editorial writers from around the nation. After taking a vicious hit when the tech bubble burst, jobs are back. But good wages aren’t. “We are getting our butts kicked in the world economy,” Adams says.
This is not Detroit or Pittsburgh or a town in the textile belt. This is the prototype of the places we were told would catch the globalization wave and ride it — not be drowned by it. The Portland area has a young, educated and agile work force, a spectacular location with easy access to the Pacific Ocean, and economic synergy with innovative neighbors in California and Washington.
Yet its middle class struggles to stay in the middle.
Oregon has regained the jobs it lost during what was, for this state, a deep recession. But when the semiconductor industry began rebounding, says David Cooke, an economist with the state employment department, many of the new jobs went to Asia. “A lot of that production is being done in other countries where wages are much lower,” he said in an interview. The state’s biggest recent job gains have come in “leisure and hospitality” — the hotels and restaurants that are notorious for low pay and often nonexistent benefits. Work is to be found in serving the well-off.
And so in a town where, according to local pollster Tim Hibbitts, the political spectrum usually ranges from “liberals to strong liberals to ultra-liberals to leftists,” a different undercurrent is churning. “There’s a lot of simmering anger out there and it’s mostly in the broad middle,” he says. In his polls done in Oregon and elsewhere, about 80 percent of voters say they are worse off, or no better off, than they were a year ago. The economic discontent is national and chronic — and chronically ignored.
Neither political party gets it.
Before Hurricane Katrina, before $3-a-gallon gas, before the latest airline bankruptcies reminded middle-class workers that they are one corporate strategy away from losing not just their paycheck but the pension they’ve earned over decades, the middle class was already overburdened and burning out. It doesn’t understand why globalization is good if it is so obviously concentrating wealth, not spreading it. It’s furious that it works hard and plays by the rules, as Bill Clinton used to say, but loses anyway.
The middle class is fed up with a government and a political system that hasn’t seen fit to even talk about this turmoil as a first step in groping toward a solution. “We are facing globalization — I don’t think we have the capacity to change that,” says Adams. “But what’s the backup plan?”
There isn’t one. That’s why the primal scream that Washington does not yet hear will become deafening — and soon. It is not just Katrina and Iraq and frayed national nerves over terrorism. Any politician who believes this risks a layoff. Median household income, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of government data.
The political moment most resembles 1992, when Ross Perot burst onto the scene, a pyrotechnic display of middle-class frustration. The upheaval continued in 1994, when voters turned out the Democrats from control of what had been their congressional kingdom.
No one can know what form the coming middle-class revolt will take. But any politician who wants to survive it had better be able to answer some questions.
If we are no longer to expect American employers to provide affordable health insurance or decent pensions, what is the alternative? If the unrestrained forces of globalization don’t benefit — and indeed, hurt — the broad middle class, what would you do to restrain them? If education and innovation are the answers, then what are the education and innovation strategies?
Really, what’s the backup plan?
http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/reference/html_cheatsheet/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1285967/posts
Gotta forward this to my son, who resides in OR.
ROTFLMAO...
I feel their pain...really, I do. The solution to their problem is contained in the italicised phrase, above.
AMEN to that!
A.A.C.
A "red" brain in a blue city
"Neither political party gets it."
Oregon is a one party state.
Enact the fair tax and repatriate those overseas jobs.
The middle class is fed up with a government and a political system that hasn’t seen fit to even talk about this turmoil as a first step in groping toward a solution. “We are facing globalization — I don’t think we have the capacity to change that,” says Adams. “But what’s the backup plan?”
There is no backup plan. Employers are bolting to Idaho, Nevada, Washington, Colorado and there are lines forming to "get out of Dodge."
The governor has a lottery slush fund of about $ 400 million every year to spend on bringing employers to Oregon. But he uses the money to reward his political cronies. The kiddie rapist Goldschmidt collected about $ 5 million a year in lottery funds.
The legal system is totally corrupt and that includes the Bar and all the Courts. Illegal foreclosures abound. That is why the housing bubble is so dangerous to Portland. Home prices are nearly doubled in the 2004 - 2005. People making $ 40,000 a year should not be 'buying' $ 200,000 homes. Oregon is a rigged crap game. The entire state is run by native Oregonian elitists to defraud the public.
When the real estate bubble bursts, the economic fall out will be worse than anyone imagines today. Can you spell severe recession? 'Nuff said.
They do it to themselves.
You can't constantly bash industry and expect to prosper.
THIS is what LIBERALISM begets....HA!
No, no, no. When liberals are in charge and things fall apart it is the FEDS who are responsible. Always
Haven't you learned that yet?
Portland has this thing called the Urban Growth Boundary. Outside of it, you can't own less than 160 acres. So housing is really expensive inside the boundary because the politicians have limited supply. Then they do other crazy things like "traffic calming", i.e. making a four lane road into a two lane road. And spend oodles of money on a light rail system few people ride. So restrictive zoning and environmentalism has made Portland a much more expensive place to live than it normally would be.
The key to falling standard of living here? Our county (Multnomah) is the only county west of the Mississippi to have its very own Income Tax.
Socialist maroons.
Nam Vet
Housing in Portland is rediculously cheap, the cheapest by far of any metro area on the West coast. 300K buys you a very nice house indeed, inside the green belt, 200K a bread and butter house.
hey portland you're part of the u.s.a. not canada, i think you forgot that.
You need her to come down and make things right for ya!
300k rediculously cheap?? You can get a McMansion in utah for that price. It's not really on the west coast either. Portland is about 2 hours from the beach. A beach that has water temperatures of 45-50 degrees.
Portland is a hellhole.
-It rains 9 months out of the year.
-speed limit on the freeway 45-55mph
-terrible traffic
-won't widen freeways because "that'll cause more traffic."
-nearly every stoplight has photo radar and red light cameras with 2 sec yellow lights, not 3 sec.
-2nd most gay city in the world behind san francisco
-every tree has a environmentalist wacko hugging it
-north portland is controlled by the gangs
-can't pump your own dam* gas
Except for San Francisco, there's no more liberal, errr marxist city in this country.
Gee Portland...that's too bad.
Heck, Fresno is more expensive than Portland. Riverside is more expensive than Porland. Also are the economic stats of the metro area, or just the city of Portland? Portland is a great value. If one could move there with wealth generated form elsewhere to raise a family, that is the ticket IMO. By the way, I own three houses in Portland (Tigard and Cedar Hills) as part of my little real estate empire. I bought them in 1990.
The problem is the culture out there ~ legalized dope, legalized murder, John Muhammad, ..... volcanos.
Then there's their attitude ~ what it comes down to is folks have finally figured out that Portland is not all that liveable for normal people.
This rule is especially infuriating because it's the public that gets the benefit while an individual is forced to pay for it.
If they wanted to be fair, they'd offer a tax reduction or some other incentive for business to produce the art. After all, the business is making an aesthetic contribution to the community and should be rewarded for this.
No metro area I can think of is more splendid than Portland in the fall. The huge poplar trees turning yellow and red and brown, against the backdrop of the pines, in a sea of green, against a backdrop of understated architecture. Nothing is more grand.
Hey Tex, totally agree....can't wait for
it to happen...
Housing in Portland is rediculously cheap, the cheapest by far of any metro area on the West coast . . .Not any more. That was two years ago. Not true today.
A Graphic Illustration of the Housing Bubble in Portland, Oregon
Small Bungalow for $ 414,000 . . . Asking price is at least $ 200,000 too much. The home would have been sold two years ago for about $ 160,000.
Home Just Across the River $ 249,000 . . . Much larger home on much larger lot.
By next year homes across the river will be reduced even more. Portland real estate keeps the home prices higher in Washington.
Prices in Portland are much higher than Washington state generally. The exclusive areas of Seattle and Edmonds are very pricey. This is one example of a home in a less exclusive area of Seattle. The owners pictures are not the best for sale purposes. Asking price is about $ 100,000 too high for the area.
Nice3 Bedroom Home in East Seattle, for $ 299,000
My son has a good friend who bought a smaller three bedroom house on a tiny lot with a full basement remodel for $ 160,000 three years ago. Much bigger home than the Portland bungalow.
The real estate bubble will hit Seattle very hard. Portland will be hit harder than Seattle.
The bungalow has historic charm. Folks pay for that. The other house for 250K is vanilla, but seems to be on a large lot, and has all those pines. Cheap, very cheap. What zip code are they in?
Economies thrive on growth, and Portland has deliberatly shut down growth because they want to mimic some elitist east coast or european city with commuter rail and the high density that requires. It's cost them dearly.
Oh the horror. It seems Portland is headed into the pit of despair.
I doubt those numbers are adjusted for inflation. It may be that the 44 percent in Portland is a reduction in real terms.
Potland/Oregon should start a tax exempt industry: allowing the elderly and sick cheap free euthanazia options...all paid for by the insurance companies.
It isn't, but the point is, is that the gap in the numbers is hardly impressive as between spawl Atlantic, and anti sprawl Portland. Porltand is sprawling anyway. The green belt has not distorted prices much. That is all jive.
Nope. Republicans control the lower House, and before this past election, split the Senate with Democrats.
I can get a house in Detroit for 10K......
move to Canada
The Detroit ghetto is apparently cheaper than the LA ghetto. What you need is more Hispanics, a lot more. They do wonders for real estate prices.
Certainly not a paragraph blizzard.
By the way: There is a home very much like the Sweetwater home that is linked near where I live. Lot is not nicely landscaped and the home is very nice inside. It just sold for in excess of $ 550,000.
Well after the 'bubble' bursts it'll only be 290K
Portand has a better climate than Dallas, no matter what they say. Watts is even better, and near to high paying jobs.
You had better sell your Portland properties into the real estate bubble real quick. By the first quarter next year, you may meet Mr. Bubbles head on!
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