Who earns the 'original' dollar?

I'm probably going to expose my economic naivete, here. But here goes....

Someone comes into my store and spends a dollar. He's a plumber. He got that dollar from a school teacher, who got it from a mortgage lender, who got it from a landscaper, who got it....

See where this is going?

When I was growing up in Bend, the original dollar came from the forest industry. The doctors, the dentists, the storekeepers lived off of servicing that industry. What's been strange about Bend for awhile now, is that there is no strong industry. Where does the original dollar come from?

We're like a microcosm of the American industry. Supposedly, our country can survive by being a 'service' and/or 'knowledge' provider. But no matter how I look at it, these seem to be parasitic industries. Service to who? Knowledge to who? The Chinese?

Let's take government and basic services out of the equation. Teachers, hospitals, utilities. Every town has to have them, so they are a moot dollar. Sure, we're a regional center, so we may generate a bit more of that 'original' dollar than lots of places, but mostly, I consider it neutral.

What's left?

Tourism is the biggest industry in Bend, I would submit. But tourism for most of the people working in that industry, is notoriously minimum wage. I would pick retirement as our second industry, ditto. Not to mention, most retirees are unloading possessions, not adding to them. And I would point out that the retirement aspect of Bend was tied to affordable housing; that is, baby boomers who could sell their house in California for a bunch of money, come to Bend to buy and have equity left over.

What else is there? I suspect that Bend has a high percentage of dividend, interest, trust, and house equity money. Also borrowing off of that house equity. This looks like it might be coming to an end.

Over the last decade or so, much of the 'original' dollar has come from the booming growth of Bend. Bankers and mortgage, financial advisers and accountants, real estate agents, house inspectors, builders, plumbers, etc. etc. etc. But this wasn't ever an original dollar. It was pulling in money from growth. It was pulling in the 'original' dollar from somewhere else. If the service industries are parasitic, this kind of income is downright blood-sucking.

It's crazy to think that growth can create growth can create growth endlessly.

Without the 'original' dollar.

If the growth was happening because Hewlett-Packard was building a manufacturing plant or Apple was building their computers here, that would be one thing. But growth for growth sake is asking for trouble.

Without the 'original' dollar.

When that comes to an end, (76 housing starts announced in December; 32 houses sold in Bend as of January 20th), where is the 'original' dollar going to come from? Starting a new business, unless you're generating a product that can be sold outside Bend, is simply adding another parasite to the host body.

I simply don't buy that we have enough new industry to cover our butts. I don't believe that we have enough people who can hold down high-paying jobs somewhere else, or work out of their home, to cover our asses.

Life-style? Whatever. We aren't really all that unique, and it pretty much is part of the tourism and retirement boondoggle mentioned above. We can only attract so many rich folks; we aren't going to have a rich person buy every house we have.

Too bad we couldn't have created an 'original' dollar industry. Maybe wasn't possible with our isolation, (no real four year college, no real Interstate).

But we should have seen it coming.