For anyone interested in knowing more about where our food comes from and what’s in the products we eat, I highly recommend watching this documentary:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-food
It’s about an hour and a half and even if you watch only the first 20 minutes you will definitely be shocked.
This is also quite relevant to our local area seeing as many of the companies and products mentioned are grown and sprayed all around us everyday.
Very interesting snippet in an automatically generated email I received from VOA (Voice of America):
2. BLOCKED FROM OUR SITE?
If you are denied access, you can try to enter our site through
a proxy server.In Iran, try https://isna47shabab87.com (when you see “voanews.com/persian”
change it to “voanews.com/specialenglish”)
I think it’s really neat that although most people are unaware, that we are providing news to Iranians.
BTW, that’s an instruction set for using a Proxy server. Proxies tell the internet you’re one place when you’re really another. I use one here to watch BBC programming online that tells the BBC website that I’m in Wolverhampton, UK 
We have also had quite a few Republican operatives post on here over the years using proxies that showed them being in Louisiana but since it’s all traceable, it was easy to call them out as Lamar did more than once.
Alexandria needs more bike lanes:
This community was not designed for bicyclists (or pedestrians). Old and new neighborhoods alike, for the most part, were designed with only cars in mind — no bike lanes and few sidewalks. Our quality of life would take a quantum leap forward by changing that, and some of us might even lose a few more pounds.
This afternoon, I read the recently published book, The Cul-De-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream by John K. Wasik. Throughout the past few months, I have been contemplating a post on how the current economic recession was fueled, in part, by the machinery of sprawl development and the unsustainability of what former President George W. Bush referred to as “the ownership society.” For decades, America has subsidized expansion and sprawl, neglecting and disinvesting in our urban areas and inner-cities and, instead, investing billions and billions of dollars in order to expand road, drainage, sewage, and utility infrastructure to encourage and complement the development of vast, never-ending swaths of suburbia.
Mr. Wasik’s book reveals, in no uncertain terms, how the economics and the subsidization of sprawl, along with an overbearing emphasis on home ownership (at any cost), have contributed to the blight and decay of inner-cities across the nation. The problem was, of course, amplified and underlined by the collapse of subprime mortgages and the proliferation of home foreclosures, but for many people, it should come as no surprise that we were doomed to failure. Not only were millions of people buying houses they could not afford, the government, on all levels, helped to create those conditions by rubberstamping and subsidizing this expansion, with little to no regard of the opportunity costs or of the negative effects– increased energy consumption, an over-reliance on the automobile, plummeting property values in formerly vibrant neighborhoods and downtowns, and, ironically, increased exposure to health risks.
When I hear people dismiss smart growth as some type of socialistic experiment, I can’t help but laugh. Without a doubt, many of the same folks who reject an intuitive reinvestment in inner-city neighborhoods have no appreciation of the massive government subsidization in the suburban sprawl they hold up as “the free market.” Nor do they really care. For critics, it’s mainly about lifestyle, not about economics.
And when I hear people argue that the public should not spend a penny in areas plagued by blight and crime, I usually cringe, particularly considering that, in my own experience, most of the people making such an argument are the beneficiaries of millions of dollars in public infrastructure and public services, augmenting the values of their large-lot single-family homes, their schools, and their parks and recreation facilities. (By the way, I am not, in any way, suggesting that people, like me, who live in large-lot single-family homes are somehow universally opposed to inner-city reinvestment– just that the vast majority of the small minority of critics are attempting to argue bad economics to justify a lifestyle decision, a decision, by the way, that is in no way being threatened by a focused effort in the inner-city).
Oh, and there is one more thing: Studies prove that reinvesting in existing infrastructure and encouraging in-fill, densified development can create substantial opportunities in the private-sector and, on the whole, best ensures the public’s return on investment. (I will expand on this in a subsequent post).
I don’t wear rose-colored glasses, and I don’t believe it’s honest or appropriate to gloss over the significant challenges that we face, as a community, a State, and a nation. If we could snap our fingers and immediately redevelop our inner-cities, we would have snapped our fingers years ago. It’s just not that easy.
We are all ill-served when we refuse to base our decisions on reality-based assumptions and instead prefer abstract hypotheticals. There are a couple of reasons that some areas of Alexandria have been able to attract retail and commercial opportunities and some haven’t, and we should all be honest:
1. Although traffic count is important, retailers care much more about population density and median household incomes. There must be a critical mass of residents within a certain pre-defined service area, and the median household income of the area should indicate that residents have the buying power to purchase products at the retailer’s price points. National retailers do not base their decisions on emotions; they look at the numbers. The higher the population density and the greater the median household income, the more attractive an area is to a developer. Incentives and infrastructure matter, of course, but in today’s recessionary economy, retail and commercial developers (at least those whose projects actually ADD value to an area) aren’t going to take on feel-good projects unless their business model is sustainable.
2. Again, incentives and infrastructure matter. Before our inner-city can truly avail itself to value-adding and job-creating private sector developments, we must improve existing infrastructure. No one personally courted Wal-Mart to develop a new super store on Highway 28, for example, and Wal-Mart’s decision had nothing to do with the desires of a neighborhood organization. (Incidentally, in an underdeveloped area, neighborhood groups are much more effective when they focus on the master planning and macro-economic issues of their neighborhood, instead of being preoccupied by political issues and the promise of micromanagerial control– which, to an outside developer, makes a neighborhood group appear more like a special interest and less like an authentic champion). For better or worse, Wal-Mart came because they knew rooftops were popping up all around the corridor, moderate and high-income residents, and all of the surrounding infrastructure was new and well-built. Moreover (and somewhat bizarrely), Wal-Mart actually received incentives to build on the edge of town.
As they say, patience is a virtue, and throughout the country, leaders are recognizing that improving and increasing access to affordable housing in the inner-city is the most critical first step in revitalization. Of course, in the inner-city, there is not nearly as much land for a massive development of large-lot single-family homes as there is in the suburbs; however, there are ample opportunities for densified developments (which can more efficiently increase population, raise household income, respond to a documented need, create a desirable environment for retail and commercial developers, and better maximize publicly-funded services).
We would all be mistaken if we believed the best way to redevelop our inner-city is by attempting to replicate sprawl models. The very first objective of reinvesting in an inner-city, not just in Alexandria but in communities all across the nation, should be increasing the standard and quality of life for existing residents, which means improving existing infrastructure and encouraging the development of quality, affordable housing. Until then, we won’t be able to attract quality retail and commercial developments.
It is a simple formula:
A = Median Household Income/ Population Density
B = Quality Infrastructure
C = Opportunities for Retail and Commercial Development
A + B = C
Certainly, home ownership is important, but if we have learned anything about this issue during the past three years, it is that home ownership is not a panacea and that (perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively) over-emphasizing ownership can cause people to live way beyond their means, inadvertently decreasing discretionary spending (spending that is often bankrolled by home mortgages) and thereby also decreasing buying power.
Even more importantly, private-sector development decisions are reality-based and evidenced-based; there is little room for “emotional appeal.” Your house may be worth $1 million to you, even though it’s only worth $150,000 to everyone else, but if you need the money and you want to sell, you should probably recognize that no one is going to pay a premium for your emotional attachment. Sorry.
And the same thing applies to commercial development: Despite America’s renewed interest in redeveloping inner-city and inner-core neighborhoods, development is still contingent on raw, objective, unemotional facts and numbers. If anyone claims otherwise, then you should ask them if they are willing to put their money where their mouth is; if not, well, they simply do not know what they are talking about.
Although this post is, in no way, a book review, I highly recommend The Cul-De-Sac Syndrome to anyone who is truly interested in learning about the history and the causes of the American housing collapse.
Low Hanging Fruit from The Town Talk:
Newspapers are changing. In the past five years most have shorter stories, fewer and skinnier pages, and less of just about everything. The Town Talk, like other community newspapers, however, still does the one thing that the New York Times, CNN and the bloggers don’t do — it chronicles the area’s history, day-by-day and year-by-year.
Riiiiight.
We spend huge amounts of money here in CenLa every year in attempts to spawn economic development. We have certainly have had some luck with a few new businesses opening and hopefully more coming to town than leaving. Unfortunately, however, we’ve seen the ugly face of traditional economic development efforts.
(had to throw a little yat into the title — for a translation it means “what’s up”)
Today, the White House announced that same sex partners of federal employees will become eligible for certain spousal benefits. There are a few problems with this: For one thing, the administration has yet to say whether or not benefits will be equally extended to same sex partners (as in the same benefits given in the same amounts and manner given to straight partners). Another problem is that in most states same sex partnerships are illegal. Because federal eligibility for benefits are based on a recognized marriage (which is regulated at the state level), it means that only those GLBT federal employees married in, residing in, and employed in NY, CA, IA, MA, NH, & ME who have locally recognized unions will be eligible. Basically, the President is attempting to satiate a core constituency with an olive branch that doesn’t actually have any olives on it.
Our Senators should know better. Both of them continue to misrepresent the people of Louisiana on this issue, though they are doing a fantastic job of representing the private insurance lobby.
The Public Option Is Not A Political Issue; It Is A Human Rights Issue:
I am a 27 year old with cerebral palsy. Fortunately, my disability is very mild, and it does not affect cognition. I have degrees in Religious Studies and English from Rice University, and I’ve spent the past two and a half years working as the special assistant to the Mayor of Alexandria, Louisiana.
Until I was ten years old, I was covered by my family’s private health care plan, Traveler’s Insurance. Because of my disability, I spent much of my childhood either in hospitals or in physical therapy.
I was fortunate to be born into a family that recognized the power of preventative, pediatric intervention and treatment. For most kids with CP, it is absolutely crucial to ensure that bones can grow correctly, which usually requires rounds of orthopedic and/or neurological surgery and years of hands-on physical therapy.
At ten years old, Traveler’s told my family that I was no longer eligible for coverage.
At ten years old, I was told that, essentially, I was the best I could ever be; as I recall, they specifically refused any additional payments for physical therapy.
I had metal screws and metal plates in my body– things that were implanted as temporary fixes, as a way of guiding and instructing my growth, things that needed to come out.
My disability is somewhat unique and rare, and as a result, it was and remains difficult to find a doctor who thoroughly understands proper treatment. When I was very young, I was treated by a neurosurgeon, T.S. Park, who was recently featured by NBC Nightly News for conducting rhizotomies, a procedure that I was one of the first in the world to receive (paid for, in part, by my family’s private insurance company). Afterward and until the age of about 15, I was treated by Dr. Jim Gage of Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon roundly considered one of the world’s top experts in cerebral palsy. (After I lost my health care coverage, Dr. Gage remained one of my champions, providing me with medical care, no doubt, at a loss).
So I lost my insurance when I was ten, and my parents were making (barely) too much money for me to get government insurance. They tried to get me included in other private insurance plans, but I was always summarily rejected.
I was uninsurable.
And I had screws and plates in my body that needed to come out. I had other surgeries that were needed. I had physical therapy too. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars in needed treatment.
There was only one solution at the time: My parents had to relinquish custody of me to my grandparents, who made less money than my family, in order to qualify me for Medicaid. I had to move out of my family home, away from my brother and my sister and my mom and dad, for an entire year.
You can say that I cheated the system, I suppose, except that “the system” allowed and actually encouraged such action. (Fair warning: If you believe I somehow cheated, then I will immediately dismiss you as inhumane. After all, I was ten years old, disabled, with screws in my bones, and in obvious need of medical care).
I don’t pay into any privatized health care plan in my current job because I fear losing the paltry plan I have today– public insurance that runs nearly $200 a month.
Access to health care should be considered a fundamental human right. And in the richest country in the history of our planet, this access should be unfettered and should include the services of the best professionals in their fields.
More importantly, this fundamental right to access should never be predicated on the whims and desires of a for-profit corporation.
When taking a stand against the public option, you are effectively standing against the poor, the elderly, the infirm, and the disabled. Period.
And most importantly: I know that I am not entirely unique. I know there are, right now, kids just like I used to be, kids filing through the doors of our publicly-subsidized hospitals, kids whose families can only hope that their child will be able to see the doctor who drove up in a Porsche (this, to be sure, is my experience with a certain doctor), kids who are deemed uninsurable, and kids who will never have the opportunities that I had because, fortunately, despite my disability, I belong to a family who believed in exhausting every option.
Today, because of the care I was provided, I am able to live independently. I walk without aid. I drive my own vehicle to work.
I have traveled the world. I snow ski in the Rockies. I have scuba-dived into the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, explored caves in the Galapagos, and “backpacked” through Europe. In a few months, I plan to be in Africa on a safari.
Without the care with which I was provided as a child, I would be confined and restricted, spastic and stationary.
Please be forewarned: Although I have never (seriously) asked for you guys and gals to come together to fundraise for a cause, I understand now that we can make an impact on this issue with only $10,000. I firmly believe that in the course of one or two months, we can raise much more toward a good cause.
PS22 sings “Don’t Stop Believing”:
Stay tuned.
Like Ryan at the Daily Kingfish, I have changed the background color to green, in support of those in Iran who are risking everything to protest against the stolen election.
Some area bloggers like to criticize the content of this site as pushing a “share the wealth” mentality. In reality the writers of this blog more than anything else work to bring a local focus to national and world issues. Often when you talk about larger issues on a local scale — especially in relation to a local area like Central Louisiana where poverty is still rampant and wages are considerably lower than the national average those discussions do tend to lean toward a progressive or “share the wealth mentality”. It’s just the nature of our local situation and at least the writers of this blog are honest enough in their views to discuss the true realities of our region’s situation rather than purporting that things aren’t that bad. Well, I want to take a few minutes to dose out a bit more honesty and discuss another national issue on a local scale. Consider this “share the guilt”.
It’s been no secret that the American auto industry has been failing for some time; it’s only been recently though that the true absolute failure of companies like GM and Chrysler have become open to us all. Certainly the impetus of the failures of these corporate behemoths lies with their corporate management. A chosen failure to react to consumer demands, improve company efficiency, and offer innovative products is by far the major reason we are in this mess today. Of course the greed of the United Auto Workers and affiliated unions is also to blame. I am in favour of unions as I feel they are overall a very positive force and without them we would still be in the era of Robber-Barons and impoverished factory workers. But in the case of the UAW’s relationship with automakers the creation of an impossible situation with overly inflated wages, redundancy protections, and workplace rules that actually discouraged productivity had placed an economic burden on all parties involved that was simply destined to explode into failure; and it did. But there is another party to blame…
Thus far most coverage of auto industry ills has been focused on the corporate level with all stories aimed squarely at Detroit. There is however somewhere else we should be focusing our ire — right down the street at our local dealers. Whether they be Hixsons, Walkers, Wards, Leglues, or any of the rest, our local Central Louisiana auto dealers are just as much to blame for an ailing auto industry as is Detroit.
Why you may ask? Greed really.
I could say dishonesty, but to call these business owners dishonest would be a stretch. Certainly some are. I worked for Allstar Toyota once for about 3 days before my conscience got the best of me. During those three days of “training” myself and the rest of the new hires spent hour after hour watching video seminars from something called the Cardone Method (get it “Car” “Done”?). These videos were a series of tactics and roleplay situations that showed salespeople how to carefully exploit every aspect of the customers’ visit to the dealership. They covered anxiety, psychology, need for acceptance, family guilt, and every other possible thing that could be played upon to pressure someone into a deal that was good for the dealership but not necessarily good for the buyer. The training involved shadowing the “star salesmen” and observing how they moved customers away from the car they came to see and over to one with a higher markup, how to choreograph the entire sales process to know when to “clear something with your manager”. They taught salespeople how to convince buyers to spend more per month than they could afford and how to get them out the door before they realized what hit them. Needless to say, after a few days of this “training” any illusion I had that you could in fact be honest in that business (at that dealership) was done and I quit. Now that was in 2004 and maybe All-Star has changed to more honest methods since then, I don’t know. And, maybe (hopefully) the other dealerships in our area behave in a more ethical fashion. We can hope.
Beyond this experience though is a set of practices that are common across the board and universal among our local dealers. You see, a car dealership is like any other retail business. The owner of a dealership buys his inventory (cars and trucks) from a manufacturer at a wholesale prices (usually called invoice price in the industry). That same car comes with a recommended MSRP or retail price at which they are supposed to sell the car to consumers (me and you). The difference between MSRP and Invoice is the dealer’s margin and once they have deducted their operating expenses what’s left is their profit. It’s not a huge profit. For some brands like Lexus it’s around 15% but the industry average is actually 8-10% (but 10% of a $20,000 car is still no small chunk of change).
The problem is that our local dealers are a bit greedy. They could buy their cars at invoice pricing and sell them at the MSRP and make a comfortable profit. But instead they employ a series of tactics that greatly increase their profits at the expense of the consumer (you and me). For one thing, they pad the MSRP price. Because local dealers tend to be the only ones selling a certain product (or one of only one or two other peers selling it) they employ a sort of price-fixing by which they set the price they offer a car for sale at the highest amount they feel the local population will pay for it. Added to that they charge “dealer preparation fees”. Often these are listed on the window sticker along with things like “paint protection” (aka car wax), “rust proofing”, etc. The fact is that most dealer preparation involves peeling off the protective shipping stickers, stenciling on their dealership logo, washing the car, and moving it to the lot. At anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, consider this the most expensive car wash you’ll ever pay for. This sort of thing is purely a money maker. If you doubt that, try ordering a car from a dealer and telling them you’ll take care of the “prep” . They’ll probably not be very willing to take off that fee.
Add to these price increases the fact that dealers actually make a commission off of financing and you have a bad recipe for problems. How many times have you gone into a car dealership and had the salesperson ask you how much of a monthly payment you can afford? It’s one of the first questions they are supposed to ask you. Why, because it gives them a range of how much they can plan to stick it to you. Salespeople are trained to know that if you say you can afford $300 per month that you are probably really willing to go as high as $500 and with enough coaching they can probably get you to sign off on a $700 per month note. What really irritates me about this is that math doesn’t work in that direction. This is like starting with the answer 12.7578 and then creating a formula for long division that will work in reverse to get me back to a whole number. These dealers use the monthly payment approach to reap maximum profit from the sale. They are very well versed in how to pad the prices and manipulate the interest rates and fees to get their numbers right where you’ve said your maximum will be. Once you’ve given them a “monthly payment”, you’ve lost. Walk away.
A little comparison if I may to bring some of this home:
A simple click on Walker Automotive’s website reveals their new car inventory. The first car I got to was a 2009 GMC Sierra 1500 SLE truck. Here’s the link:
http://walkergmc.com/New-Inventory.aspx?InventoryId=25401399
Walker Lists this truck with an MSRP of $36,440.
That price would not include prep fees and other dealer add ons. But it’s the base at which you would begin the process if you visited their dealership.
Autos.yahoo.com allows you to view the GM invoice and MSRP pricing. Here is the same truck, same color, same engine, transmission, trim and everything:
http://autos.yahoo.com/2009_gmc_truck_sierra_1500_crew_cab_2wd_sle1_short_box/
Now they list the MSRP as $31,515.
What?
That’s nearly a $5000 difference between the price GM says the truck should be sold at an what Walker is offering it to you for here in Alexandria. Yahoo lists the invoice price (what GM sold it Walker for) at $29,151. That would have given the dealership a $2,500 profit in raw numbers. Instead they’ve decided to go for a $7,500 profit (at your expense of course).
Again, these are the raw numbers. Incentives and rebates are also given. There are two types, dealer incentives and consumer incentives. Dealer incentives and rebates are given directly to the dealer by GM or other automaker and result in the invoice price being lower for the dealer — thus increasing their profit margin at the MSRP price. In addition the automakers offer incentives to the buyer (on this particular truck GM is offering $1,500 -2,000). There are often other promotions and sometimes even government programs that give consumers discounts on new cars. That is, they are meant to. But, often times when you see or hear a car ad there is a little line in there that says “All incentives and Rebates to Dealer”! Whoa! What’s that mean? It means that money they have promised to you the buyer is instead going to the car dealer.
Is this a big deal? Yes, sometimes these incentives and rebates equal up to $5,000 -10,000. When was the last time you walked into Wal-Mart and handed them a check for a few grand just because it made you feel warm and fuzzy? If you went into the grocery store and used a coupon for a dollar off a case of Coke would you be cool with the cashier pocketing that dollar and charging you full price? Probably not. That’s what is happening in this sort of case. Now I don’t know whether, if you went into Walker GMC and tried to buy that truck whether they would try to keep the consumer rebates and incentive or whether they would give them to you. Hopefully it would be the latter. But what I can say is that those incentives are given by the automakers to YOU so that you can more easily buy one of their cars and when the dealers keep those incentives for their own pockets they are taking money from you that was intended for you.
________________________________________________________________________________
OK, maybe none of this is news to anyone. But, the point I want to make is that sure, GM and Ford and Chrysler are to blame for the auto industry failure, but so are our local dealers. They are to blame because they have systematically made the car buying process more difficult. They have inflated the local prices that you the consumer pay. They are profiteering when a reasonable profit is already given. And they are defeating the proactive efforts of the automakers that are meant to encourage sales by pocketing money Detroit has given to buyers.
Again I am not saying all dealers or salespeople are corrupt. I’m not saying Walker is dishonest. I could have done the same comparison with every other dealership in the area and encourage anyone looking for a new car to do just that. But what I am saying is that we as consumers need to be proactive in our dealings with businesses we give our money to. And, as taxpayers who will be paying for hundreds of billions of dollars that is is taking to prop up this industry for generations to come, we should remember when we drive past those car lots on MacArthur and Coliseum Boulevard that our tax dollars, the check we will write in April help put the owners of those buildings in nicer cars than we can ourselves afford.
Don’t just blame Detroit.
I’m in Florida on vacation for the week, so posting may be light. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t share something that happened to me today.
Today, we headed down 30-A to visit Seaside, the little town made famous by The Truman Show. Seaside was one of the first planned ”smart growth” developments in the country and the brainchild of planner Andres Duany, a man who is often considered the most influential person in American land use planning.
Duany and his wife, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, are the founders of the Congress for New Urbanism and are both outspoken proponents of reinvisioning the way in which America plans communities. Needless to say, I am a big fan of his work and his books, particularly Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream.
I’ve been going to Seaside for well over a decade, and nowadays, I usually make the drive for one reason: To buy my summer reading from Sundog Books, one of the few remaining truly independent bookstores in the country.
So while walking up the steps to Sundog this afternoon, I noticed a film crew interviewing a man who looked exactly like Andres Duany. I asked around, and one of the guys at Sundog confirmed that it was, in fact, Duany; he’s in town for a big digital media festival in nearby Alys Beach (also planned by his firm).
Later on, I happened to wander directly into one of the shoots and had the opportunity to hear Mr. Duany speak about the differences between compact density and sprawl “density.”
When they wrapped up the shoot, I called out to Mr. Duany to tell him that I was a big fan, and he walked up to where I was sitting and sat down to chat.
The film crew obviously saw an opportunity and decided to film our entire conversation. We spoke briefly about the smart growth efforts currently being undertaken in Alexandria and the work that his firm is doing throughout the Great State (which he says is one of his favorite places in the world to work).
He left me with some sage advice, a few book recommendations, and, of course, a small role in whatever the heck they were filming.
If you haven’t read Suburban Nation, buy it now.
Incidentally, I have written about Mr. Duany before on this blog, way back in 2006.
PS: Mr. Duany offered nothing but praise for the work being done by my friends at C-PEX (the Center for Planning Excellence) as well as the ongoing revitalization efforts underway in Downtown Baton Rouge.
Watching HGTV, I can’t help but wonder at which point we (as a cumulative nationwide population) became idiots?
Sounds harsh of course, but seriously as consumers we seem to have become absolute imbeciles.
I’m currently watching an episode of House Hunters or My First Place or one of those regurgitations of the the same exact theme. in this episode someone is looking for their first “starter home” at $250,000.
At which point did we start viewing houses (much less those costing a quarter million dollars) as “starter homes”??
This whole idea of a starter home is insane. Why would you buy a home — a purchase that most people have to sign a promissory note based on 30 years of their income with the intention of treating it as a temporary asset?
OK, now this idea of buying a house and then reselling it in a few years can certainly make sense in some ways. But for me, it would be a situation like buying a house in say the Ivy League area of Alexandria for under $60k fixing it up while I lived there for a few years and then selling it for close to a hundred — an investment that also meet housing needs.
But that’s not what most of these guys I hear about are doing. They are buying a house that they can barely afford (or not afford) that they don’t necessarily like and treating it as a housing band-aid with the hopes of making just enough money a few years down the road to be able to buy another house they don’t necessarily like in a sort of odd stepping stone approach to getting the home they want.
Going into Wal-Mart tells me that it’s not just a housing thing. Everywhere you look you can find fairly crappy products whether it be furniture or electronics or what have you that people seem to be buying with the intend of throwing it away and replacing it with what they really want as soon as they can afford it.
I see this with cars too. Well I see it with a lot of things. The thing I can’t quite understand is where and when such asinine consumer mentality became the norm.
There are certainly some issues at play that I can think of. In the case of housing, home prices have risen much quicker than incomes (especially in Central Louisiana where incomes are effectively much lower than 30 years ago). Landlords generally charge exorbitant amounts for rents in our area (especially compared to real estate prices). And access to lending is nowhere near as fair and easy as it was for previous generations. So that could definitely be skewing the house-buying process, but the logic of “settling” for something that is meant to be a long term asset is still strange to say the least.
With the current average worker being a member of the first generation expected to do nowhere near as well economically as his parents, and with many young professionals unable to secure employment that even approaches the quality of life he grew up with, I can see where some of the other spending comes from.
When you simply cannot afford to live in a way that you grew up being told would be the norm for you (or even in the way that was the norm for you growing up), I can see where people would want to buy something (even if at a lower quality) that helps approximate the lifestyle they feel they are supposed to have.
Observations like this often solicit decrying descriptors such as “the entitlement generation”, but why is it that a generation expecting to be able to have a standard of living on par with their parents’ really an entitlement.
There are certainly some of every generation that do well and some who do not, but there are some strange things happening with our economy and our spending habits that beg the question of what has gone wrong in the last 20-30 years?
How did we go from the personal potential for prosperity and growing middle class of the 50′s, 60′s, and 70′s to the lack of opportunity that began to appear in the 80′s to the demand for more and more education and training in the 90′s to the 2000′s where none of that education or training seems to really matter in the grand scheme of things?
…and how did we become such idiotic consumers?
OK, I’m not going to write a big narrative on what I think first; instead I am inviting a discussion on this:
This economic downturn, with all of the bankruptcies and business makeovers it is bringing could be really good for a place like Cenla from an economic development standpoint.
Why?
