Thursday, February 28, 2008

Bush has declared we'll have no recession..... Oh, Shit. We're doomed.

Woman who leapt from balcony was 'allegedly mentally ill'..... You think?

Now I know why there are so many lousy drivers around here. They're all driving around with a computer in their lap looking for Wi-Fi connections.

The Dick Tracy Museum is closing. Uh, who's that?

Time for Hitler to make a comeback. Since a quarter of the kids today don't know who he was.

Tiger Lily downtown closes....for 'personal' reasons. They had nice stuff. I can't tell how hard it is to get people to buy nice stuff -- especially if it's expensive. The last five years have been the exception, not the rule around here.

Plan moves skatepark to a more public view. Good....now we'll be able to see them misbehaviing...

Squirrel knocks out power in south Bend. I don't blame him. Enough is enough.

Sign of a slowing market? Hike fees. Sign of a busy market. Lower fees. Our government at krow. Back assword.

Honkers....Cousins....Fireside Red. Still a lousy location. (Actually, I don't know this....I'm just being snippy.)

Middle class or Rich. Know one thinks they're rich. They all think they're middle class. Except the ones faking it. They'll tell you.
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4 comments:

News Junkie said...

Dunc and Bilbo, you both make valid points. But the progression of the Bend bubble is really much simpler and understandable than you both are making it out to be… To make sense of the force that inundated Bend and left an anime monster of a town in its wake, you simply have to understand the minds of the real estate developers.
Let me first explain that I have never made a dime off of real estate. But, I grew up in a large real estate family in the Midwest. My father was a rags-to-riches builder-developer.
Real estate developers are first motivated by the sight of a beautiful piece of land; they see the potential of that land, and they begin to envision the best use of that land in terms of economics and also in terms of personal ambitions. What do they want to create? It is not unlike the thought process of an artist.
The measure of success for a developer is whether or not they can peg the best use of a piece of land. The secret of that success is vision and timing. The real estate developer, like any investor, enjoys the challenge. The thing is, the best use of a piece of land can change over time. What may be the best use of a piece of land in 1990 may not be the best use in 2010. But I digress…
What motivated my father to develop land? He was motivated by two things: 1)The personal satisfaction of transforming a piece of land into a development that satisfied the needs of a target market of buyers/renters, and 2) The need to put food on his family’s table. It is my opinion that those are the motivations of most real estate developers when they start out.
Here is the problem: There is a point at which some real estate developers lose sight of their life’s purpose. They begin to be motivated by GREED. They make their money, and instead of being satisfied with their success, they want MORE. Their motivations to develop land become CORRUPT.
As a result of that corruption, Bend was inundated with a real estate tsunami. Our city councilors, our chosen community leaders, got caught up in the undertow. Like a tsunami, greed has no bounds.
And the real estate brokers rode the wave. In my opinion, they, for the most part, should not be blamed for enjoying the ride. They have merely served their purpose.
Is it possible, as Bilbo suggests, that the real estate brokers made the wave bigger with their own greed? Allow me to answer that with another question: If brokers could manipulate supply and demand, wouldn’t they NOW, with the Bend bubble stuck on their faces, be capable of stopping the landslide that was created when the tsunami hit? But they can’t.
The real estate brokers cannot defy the law of supply and demand any more than they can defy the law of gravity. That’s a hard physics lesson for those brokers who are now having trouble putting food on their family’s table. A hard lesson, indeed, for brokers who also got caught up in the undertow, and instead of putting their money into the bank, put it into real estate that was developed in the name of GREED.
To summarize, GREED blinded the real estate developers’ vision, and GREED distorted their sense of timing. It’s that simple.
The sad ending to this story is that the anime monster reigns. My question is not: What created this monster? My question is this: Is there a superhero out there that can save us?

February 28, 2008 at 10:09:00 AM PST
Anonymous said...

Thanks for the Thursday morning chuckles - Bike enjoyed 'em and they balance out nicely your insightful non-humorous postings. Please keep writing both.

February 28, 2008 at 10:37:00 AM PST
Duncan McGeary said...

Economic bubbles are all about greed. You see a nice product, and everyone suddenly wants it. Everyone plays by the rules, everyone has to scramble a bit, but it's still something only they and a few friends know about.

Then it inflates a bit more, and it becomes harder to get, and more expensive, and more lucrative for those who can get supply (often by shoving aside the early adopters who are still playing by the 'nice' rules. The rudest, most aggressive people get the product.)

The golden age is over.

Now the general public jumps on the bandwagon, and the hole thing grows exponentially. It looks like it will never end.

Then, it reaches proportions that any sane, reasoning person would know is out of bounds. But you're inside the bubble....you are no longer sane, or reasoning. The sane and reasoning people are those poor saps who missed the bubble.

So you keep on going until it collapses.


The other story, about your developer father looking at a bare piece of land and getting satisfaction out of best use....that sounds like the way I feel when I see some buildings around town, and think about what I could do with them.

It is a very creative feeling.

But I followed the sport card bubble into four stores, and had my head handed to me. I mistook the exponential growth in cards as something I did.

When it was all over, and I was surveying the wreckage, I suddenly remember why I started a small business in the first place: because I wanted to be my own boss and do something I like.

Not to own an empire.

I'm fortunate in that I managed to give myself a second chance.

February 28, 2008 at 11:59:00 AM PST
Anonymous said...

They say the stock market is about Greed & Fear;

Greed drives up the prices, and Fear drives down the Prices.

Warren Buffet say's when other are buying I sell, and others are selling I buy; He also says when others are greedy I sell, and others are fearful, I'm greedy.

This is ALL fine, but OUR BEND BUBBLE, remember folks we're #1 toxic epicenter of the storm.

1.) RE PR&MARKETING paid for by city-hall.
2.) Easy money brought to US by DUMBYA ( ROVE ) for second term insurance.
3.) SDC's deferred which meant that every developer made a profit, by putting virtually no money up front for schools, sewers, and sidewalks.

Now we have a mess, the RE crowd wants to the party to continue, the public doesn't have a fucking idea what is going on, the problem is #2, the easy money is GONE, and most of RE&PUBLIC being financial idiots can only promote (HYPE) more PR&MARKETING.

Humpty Dumpty has fell off the WALL RE&PRESS(public) can NOT put Humpty back to together again, because there is NO MORE easy-money.

The builders will always be builders so long as there is MONEY, today there is NO money.

Bend tried to have it ALL, so yes they have created a monster. It wasn't accident that NOBODY had to pay SDC's, it wasn't an accident that city-hall tax-payer treasury still to this day is squandered to sell the 'Bend Brand'.

The builders have long gone, the excavators have packed and left today, the Realtors will leave this summer. Now the public has to bitch-slap the city-hall to quit using taxpayer money to HYPE the "Bend Brand".

Builders, Excavators, ... are smart men, they're all sitting on expensive 'time valuable' equipment, they'll always move it to the next big place to make money, and today that is NOT Bend, OR.

February 28, 2008 at 3:53:00 PM PST

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