I don't know about you guys, but I got used to momentous things happening all the time. Living in the Bush years was a Chinese curse -- interesting things happening all the time. War and rumors of war.
Two objects flying through the air. In a sense, the Bush presidency started with two planes flying into two towers. It ended with two shoes being flung at the President's head. From the powerfully affecting to the ridiculous.
You could turn on the T.V. and get a vicarious roller coaster ride by watching the Dow Jones, or see a huge, big name company self-immolating.
Or turn on the Oberdolferman, and listen to him rant about something outrageous that McCain did, or turn on Faux News and hear Sarah Palin say something incredibly stupid.
It was like living through the Sixties again, or something. You just think it's normal at the time, and then when things settle down again you realize you've just ridden out a storm.
I think the Israelies pulling out of Gaza just before Omama's swearing in was a symbol of all the crap that went on.
Or....we can hope.
We can hope Obama is an Eisenhower, not a Kennedy. Calm and steady and undramatic. A get things done, kind of guy. That the public will be consensus not contentious. That we'll all learn to live within our means again.
Or....most probably not.
Most probably it will indeed be a Chinese Curse century. That we're just seeing a lull before the storm.
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You might want to read up a bit on the Eisenhower Presidency.
It was a bit of a 'conceit.'
I'm not sure in this day and age if there will ever by non-momentous events.
It was the 'feeling' I was after, the feeling that we are in for a slow grind on the economy, slow grind on the wars.
And hopefully nothing too dramatic.
But, as I said, a forlorn hope at best.
Happy Lunar New Year! No bull, it's an Ox Year! May yer sales be strong like an ox!
Dunc, spent a couple of hours with commercial RE broker last night. Local, grew up here. Said rents were half of last year--he just put in an offer and he was amazed the counter was only a nickel more. Email me and I'll give you his contact info. Ammo for your negotiations.
What' interesting is this deal about 'growth', but EVERYBODY is avoiding the issue.
The reason that the 'reverves' are getting hit, and the reason that cracker-ass Bend can't pay the bills, and the reason they can't borrow there way out of this hole is that TODAY 1/2 the revenue goes towards paying debt. What's also interesting is that the real debt load didn't come along until 2005, well after the bubble got moving.
So today there is near $200M in debt, and NOBODY wants to discuss where it went, and who got the money. Today the debt-service ( monthly payments on debt ) completely wipes out Bends ability to pay for public safety.
Where did the $200M go?
Today Bend can no longer borrow money, the SDC ratio is to low, because there is now no SDC revenue. Bend's credit rating is now toast which means that Bend must pay more interest on the $200M. Bankruptcy is the ONLY solution to save this town, as to wipe out the $200M in debt, and start over, and restructure the city to #1 public-safety, #2 kids, and builders, & bankers LAST.
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There is this repeating theme about how much was paid to build a home in Bend. The SDC for a new home was set around $12k/home, in Wilsonville post 2002 it was close to $60k/home, so all our favorite builders left the 'valley' and came over here and built. The city had to 'borrow' to cover the lost revenue. Now that the building boom is over the city can't meet the loan payments. The problem is as simple as this.
The builders made their profits on having the general tax payer cover their expense. Builders run city-hall in this town. Now today what's their solution? Cut cops, schools, and fire, and build more STD's.
The reason that Bend was #1 in appreciation, and we had the building boom, and now bust is that city-hall was lobbied by the builder's who run this town, to keep the SDC artificially low. The irony is that the money was not collected in good times, and the city took on astronomic debt to cover the shortage.
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"Anyone ever heard of a RECALL? Stop complaining, start acting."
Who do you want to recall? The only people remaining from the old city council are Jim Clinton and Mark Capell, and the new guys have been in office less than a month.
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Excellent point hbm, the 'bandits' are long gone, Capell really cares about this town, and so does Clinton, all the other newbies to city-hall are pro-growth, but they don't look at the budget close enough to realize that Bend can no longer legally by State law borrow money or issue MUNI debt ( bonds ).
Hummel didn't walk from Bend he ran. Abernethy who largely played all along with the CACB debt game feeding tens of millions to Knife River knows that's game-over, and he's gone from public life.
So yes, 'recall' is too late. Bankruptcy is the only option, as in 1-2 years almost all of the little revenue that Bend will see will go to paying off the debt from the party.
The comments on HBM's piece about how high the SDC's are are kind of funny.
What, you want to build around a dirt road with no sewer or water? That's called DRW. - bruce
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No they want to keep doing what they were doing, building for cheap, and having the general tax payer pick up the SDC cost as muni bond debt. But guess what? Something happened.
Our credit is now fucked, we have max'd our 'muni credit card', and soon 1/2 our falling revenue will be credit-card debt, a debt councilor would call this a fucking nightmare, but so far all the KUNTS in Bend are ignoring this fucking elephant, its why I keep posting this subject, and why dunc keeps changing the subject, or even hbm's post, they want to make it sound like 'community hysteria' drove growth. BULL SHIT.
NOBODY WANTS TO ADMIT THAT BEND IS A FRAUD.
Insiders setup a PONZI-SCHEME backed by tax-payer credit. Now Bend has ran out of SUCKER's ( muni investors ) to screw, and its Bend game-over.
No the developers want water, sewer, power, flood-control, parks, schools that sell's STD's they just don't want to pay for it up front. See the SDC up front is REAL cash, even $12k/home, its up front CASH. Most of these builders were throwing up STD's by the 1,000's with nothing down. Thus the city SDC cost was their only real fucking problem.
Ok, so they filled city hall with HO's, and now are debt is max'd out, ... and we BK, so fucking what.
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