The following is rank speculation and dubious math -- but it's my blog, and I'll do what I want to.

No really, I'd love to hear contrary opinions, and I wouldn't mind if anyone shows me where I've gone off the path. But here is what I have come up with. I've tried not to drop any decimal points, but as I said, math isn't my strong suit.

Yesterday's Bulletin talked about how much 'investment' income Deschutes County had; 22% average, instead of the national average of 15.8. My first thought is, regardless if that income comes from dividends, interest, or rent, it represents an enormous chunk of capital that residents of Deschutes County own. The national family median income in 2004, according to Wikipedia is 46,300. The average Deschutes County, 56,500 in 2005, so an assumption of 20% more income is reasonable.

Assume the population of Deschutes County to be 150,000.

The next step is purely speculation, but I'm going to assume a 5% return on the investment captital.

So: 6.2 % of 56,500 is 3500.00. At 5% interest, that represents 70,000 in capital. Multiply that by 150 thousand residents, and up that by 20%, and residents of Deschutes County have something in the neighborhood of 125 million dollars above the national average in capital.

To get really speculative, we can guess that 10% of that population owns 90% of that extra amount of money. So, we've got 15,000 people walking around who own between them about 112.5 million.

Anyway, even if the specifics are wrong, I think it is undeniable that there is extra capital in this here county.

All of this is a long way to make the point I wanted to make, which is: 112.5 million can open alot of marginal, vanity businesses. If I'm making tens of thousands in investment income every year, losing a few bucks in my dream business is no big deal. Of course, I always say, no one, even the rich -- especially the rich -- likes to lose money. Thus the turnover in businesses.

If I'm completely off base with my assumptions or math, I'd love to hear it. But I think that the basic points, that we have way more capital in Bend than is normal, and that that capital explains why we have so many frakkin businesses, are valid.