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Rural Oregon Town Feels Pinch of Poverty
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/us/20poverty.html?hp&ex=1156046400&en=87d2fc4dfdb35536&ei=5094&partner=homepage ^

Posted on 08/19/2006 11:21:21 AM PDT by Grendel9

OAKRIDGE, Ore. — For a few decades, this little town on the western slope of the Cascades hopped with blue-collar prosperity, its residents cutting fat Douglas fir trees and processing them at two local mills.

Into the 1980’s, people joked that poverty meant you didn’t have an RV or a boat. A high school degree wasn’t necessary to earn a living through logging or mill work, with wages roughly equal to $20 or $30 an hour in today’s terms.

But by 1990 the last mill had closed, a result of shifting markets and a dwindling supply of logs because of depletion and tighter environmental rules. Oakridge was wrenched through the rural version of deindustrialization, sending its population of 4,000 reeling in ways that are still playing out.

Residents now live with lowered expectations, and a share of them have felt the sharp pinch of rural poverty. The town is an acute example of a national trend, the widening gap in pay between workers in urban areas and those in rural locales, where much of any job growth has been in low-end retailing and services.

Most parents here, said Shelley Miller, who heads the family resource center at the public schools, are “juggling paycheck to paycheck.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: economy; environment; jobs; logging
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Could there be a connection?

http://www.purepolitics.com/state/stateoregon04.htm

1 posted on 08/19/2006 11:21:21 AM PDT by Grendel9
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To: Grendel9
In today's market with the internet, you are only limited by your drive and imagination.
2 posted on 08/19/2006 11:25:47 AM PDT by Vision (God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, love and self-discipline 2Timothy1)
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To: Vision
In today's market with the internet, you are only limited by your drive and imagination.
Ever calculated shipping costs for selling logs on eBay? ;-)
3 posted on 08/19/2006 11:28:33 AM PDT by peyton randolph (No man knows the day nor the hour of The Coming of The Great White Handkerchief.)
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To: Vision
The article implies that the town may have been limited by environazis saving the trees and mexican labor replacing the manufacturing plants.
4 posted on 08/19/2006 11:31:15 AM PDT by kinoxi
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To: peyton randolph
Compress them to a zip file and email 'em.

This reminds me of a story I read about a rural town out west that was going to change its name from...I'm guessing..."Johnsonville" to "www.ChristmasStore.com" or something. There's always a way to thrive. Just takes thought which people don't like to do.
5 posted on 08/19/2006 11:33:04 AM PDT by Vision (God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, love and self-discipline 2Timothy1)
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To: Grendel9
They've gone from blue collar to blue state. Cause and effect if'n you axe me.
6 posted on 08/19/2006 11:33:23 AM PDT by stm (Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence)
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To: kinoxi

I doubt if it was depletion. Lumber companies have an incentive to manage their resources well.


7 posted on 08/19/2006 11:35:02 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
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To: kinoxi
That's a whole nother issue I don't want to get into.


8 posted on 08/19/2006 11:36:04 AM PDT by Vision (God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, love and self-discipline 2Timothy1)
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To: Vision

No attempted hijack intended ;)
Just a thought.


9 posted on 08/19/2006 11:37:10 AM PDT by kinoxi
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To: Grendel9
For a few decades, this little town on the western slope of the Cascades hopped with blue-collar prosperity, its residents cutting fat Douglas fir trees and processing them at two local mills.

And the Dodgers used to be in Brooklyn.

10 posted on 08/19/2006 11:41:01 AM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: peyton randolph
Ever calculated shipping costs for selling logs on eBay?

Turn them into books and sell them at Amazon.

11 posted on 08/19/2006 11:42:01 AM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: stm
Needed to be repeated.....

They've gone from blue collar to blue state. Cause and effect if'n you axe me.

12 posted on 08/19/2006 11:44:10 AM PDT by goodnesswins ( The Dems are so far to the left they have left America.)
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To: Grendel9

Reminds me that evenb for the down and out, a two parent family is betweetr off than a one-parent one.


13 posted on 08/19/2006 11:48:42 AM PDT by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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To: Grendel9

Algore's fault!


14 posted on 08/19/2006 11:50:51 AM PDT by ol' hoghead (***)
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To: kinoxi
The article implies that the town may have been limited by environazis saving the trees and mexican labor replacing the manufacturing plants.

Certainly, it "implies", but never avers, that the environazis were somehow responsible. As, indeed, they were. But I saw not a single mention or implication concerning Mexican labor.

Are you sure you weren't imagining something?

15 posted on 08/19/2006 11:58:32 AM PDT by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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To: Grendel9

The one lady in the story with the pink hair and tatoos moved to the town by choice because she figured it was cheap and a good place to raise her children. Not much of a sob story if you ask me.


16 posted on 08/19/2006 12:00:06 PM PDT by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
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To: okie01

Could be, wouldn't be the first time. :)


17 posted on 08/19/2006 12:05:25 PM PDT by kinoxi
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To: Grendel9

I looked at the real estate listings for this town, and there are some very plain houses going for over $100,000. The most expensive is over $400,000. I'd say the NYTimes is full of crap as usual.


18 posted on 08/19/2006 12:07:26 PM PDT by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
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To: Moonman62
I was on a bicycle tour along the Oregon coast in 1993 that went through several lumber towns. This was after the environazis had succeeded in shutting down most of the logging. Most of the towns were almost dead--no industry and no livelihoods.

I stopped by one house, adorned with hand made quilts--the former logger's wife was now selling quilts to provide an income. I talked for awhile with the former logger--he was extremely frustrated and down. He told me that the logging restrictions had nothing to do with depletion--it was all about spotted owls and tree huggers. Plenty of good timber to harvest, but too many in Oregon that now worship the trees.

I wonder if the econazis ever stopped to consider the fact that by severely limiting logging in the USA, timber prices have risen to the point where it is driving much of the logging of rainforests in the third world...
19 posted on 08/19/2006 12:20:35 PM PDT by rottndog (WOOF!!!)
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To: rottndog

There are probably a few, at the bottom rung of the socialist cesspool, that are so emotionally immature that they cry over trees, etc., but most just will pick any object to hold in higher regard than their fellow human beings.

Environmentalism, animal rights, etc. is not about caring about the environment or animals or raising their rights, it's about lowering the rights of humanity.

Socialism is slavery. To enact slavery in these more modern times, one has to go about it in a more indirect manner. Holding up animals and the environment as more important than human beings works toward that goal.


20 posted on 08/19/2006 12:27:41 PM PDT by kenth
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