Marketwatch.com: 12/3/08:
"According to the Global Insight report, only three metro areas are extremely overvalued: Atlantic City, N.J., Bend, Ore., and St. George, Utah. In 2005, 52 metro areas were deemed to be extremely overvalued."
USA Today: 12/4/08:
"Retailers limped through a miserable November that even a surge of shopping after Thanksgiving couldn't save, making it the weakest month since at least 1969 and deepening fears that the critical holiday period could be the most dismal in decades.
As merchants announced November sales figures Thursday, the malaise cut across all sectors."
Just saying, you know, in case you hadn't noticed.
I realize that isn't the original meaning of the title to the old spiritual. But you get the point.
I've always thought it was the height of stupidity to get hit by a train. Here you have a strip only 3 ft' or so wide, and a freight train that travels down it a few times of day, and you have to be so stupid as to be caught in that little zone in that moment.
Very Darwinian.
I guess people get caught because they underestimate the speed of the train. And the overestimate the ability of the train to stop and their ability to avoid it. They get impatient or they just aren't paying attention.
The difference is that we all have a freight train coming at us, and we all have to get out of the way.
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It's possible Bend is the perfect little shit storm. Got the high priced houses, the isolation, the lack of industry and dependence on tourism. (Add in no snow, and what you got?)
And, from my perspective, I think we are so over-retailed as to be a joke.
Went by a restaurant on the way home last night that didn't have a single patron. Ouch.
Those Nov sales numbers are even more unbelievable when you consider that in 1969 there were about 100 million few people in the US
"And, from my perspective, I think we are so over-retailed as to be a joke."
In 1995, you probably could never have predicted how much Bend has grown by now, right?
Could you have conceived that all this population and wealth was coming to town?
Back when Bend was a dusty little mill town?
*
OK, now I know that all that population increase and wealth influx is an ILLUSION.
But point is:
you probably didn't predict it.
So: maybe things aren't as bad as you think.
Because no one is very good at predicting these things.
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"Prepare for the worst, hope for the best"
The problem is more that you are on the train and the bridge it is heading for has just washed out.
There are some elements of this that you just plain cannot avoid no matter how well you planned. If it was a mtter of just stepping off the tracks then no issue. But in this case the best you can do is to fasten yourself in and hope you survie the ride or get ready to jump just before it goes off the end of the tracks.
"According to the Global Insight report, only three metro areas are extremely overvalued: Atlantic City, N.J., Bend, Ore., and St. George, Utah...."
Wasn't Atlantic City the birthplace of Monopoly (the game)? So Bend is lumped alongside of a town associated with the phrase "monopoly money"?
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