Bad news, good news.

A little graph I found on Calculated Risk.

What's interesting to me, is that it's obvious the decline in restaurant dining started in August of 2007, just like my store.

Meanwhile, they're still debating on some of the money channels if we are in a recession.

Ask people in stores or restaurants if we are in a recession.

So the bad news is the downturn started in middle of 2007 instead of the beginning of 2008.

The good news is the downturn started in middle of 2007 instead of the beginning of 2008.

So we are six months further into the 7 year cycle than we thought.


Since I already have the title subject, I've come back to talk about the articles in the Bulletin today.

Good news, I guess, is that Bend income is slowly catching up to the rest of the state. Bad news, we're still about 10% less than either Portland or the national average.

Not sure how that fits with the idea that we have a bunch of rich, or retired folk around here.

And if I'm not mistaken, Bend living costs are way up there, equaling Portland.

I've always just kind of believed that Bend has an 'overlay' of rich and sophisticated. And the old rural center, and then just average folk. Not really sure there is much trickle down, either. At least not if the so called rich tighten their belts. (Even the rich don't like losing money.)

It's hard to see how Bend can maintain such high living costs and retail costs in the face of a faltering real estate economy.

Tourism is a minimum wage job. High tech? Splattered here and there through the landscape. What I mostly see is store after store after store.