Posted on 11/17/2016 1:00:42 PM PST by beebuster2000
Hello, All! The oyster hatchery has now been effectively shut down for close to a month and I am delighted to report the joy of lower propane and electrical bills.
I just got back from 5 days chasing elk in the Willapa foothills. We did not get an elk, but it was a magical trip. We hiked around 20 miles a day up and down ridges, through clearcuts and along swirling logging roads. We saw a lot of elk, but no 3 point plus critters, the legal minimum. Anyhow, we need more meat like a hole in our heads. It is wonderful country down there. This year Pacific County went for Trump, the first time they have voted Republican since Reagan, I believe.
Driving around, we saw almost nothing but Trump signs. interesting times, but it makes sense. Over the last 30 years, timber harvest volumes are down by 75% as the federal lands, then the state lands have been shut down. Private lands are subject to heavy buffer requirements, meaning about 30% of private lands are now unharvest-able. So they are trying to hold onto a timber economy on 20% of the land they had available 30 years ago. Productivity is way up on the remaining private land, but it just isn't enough.
Then the state shut down the dairy farms, on the premise that the cattle were degrading water quality. There went another 15% or so of economic activity Then the state more or less shut down the gillnet fishery on the Willapa and Columbia. We visited a hatchery one morning and they were loading surplus fish into a rental truck to take to Andy Vitalik in Bellingham. He specializes in processing nasty river fish. And these fish were horrible. Hatchery staff have been shipping 4-10,000# per day, and they are one of roughly 10 hatcheries around the bay. These are fish that in the bay were worth $2-4#, and in their degraded state go for $.30# or less. So transferring harvest from the fishing fleet to the hatcheries means a reduction in value of 90% or so, spread out over 2-3 million pounds per year. And, of course, the money goes to the state, not to the fishermen.
Oysters are still big, robust business down there, but between the Army Corps and the outlawing of ghost shrimp spraying, the business is at least hobbled, if not crippled.
The next thing coming is federal recognition of the Chinook tribe, and incorporation of the Shoalwater tribe into the fishing mix in the bay. If this happens it will transfer 50% of the still thriving crab industry from current permit holders.
Overall, the region has lost maybe 90% of it's economic potential in the last 30 years to government actions. The only things to replace it have been meth and welfare. Tourism is big, but seasonal and ephemeral.
It is interesting to listen to the various liberal pundits yammer on about the archetypal Trump voter. In Pacific County, it seems, Trump voters are just people who have had almost everything taken from them, in the name of "the greater good" and were asked to choose between more of the same and something different. I can't say that I blame them.
yeah, but the word count was too long to put in “county”
Heard from a friend in Washington that the weed business has difficulty converting all their cash ( no credit cards, etc allowed) to “usable” funds. They are sending the money to Mexico in suit cases for a 50% haircut so the cartel is still making a large cut of the profits.
Is Wahington great - or what?
Not by a longshot, dude. Pure fantasy. Those idiots vote Dem all these years and Trump cheerleaders want to trumpet the razor thin margins as some sort of revolution.
That bubble will burst. Thank Assange for Trump, cause it may the last time in my life a non-Dem non-aligned with lameduck pubbies wins a national office like POTUS.
To be clear, I am hopeful Trump truly drains the swamp and turns the system upside down. However, I am both pragmatic and cynical as well.
In 2012 Romney carried 22 counties. If you exclude the 3 counties of King (where Seattle is) and the 2 counties immediately north and south (Snohomish and Pierce), Romney had slightly over 50% of the vote in the rest of the state. I don’t know how Hillary’s numbers compare to 2012.
In 2012 Romney carried 22 counties. If you exclude the 3 counties of King (where Seattle is) and the 2 counties immediately north and south (Snohomish and Pierce), Romney had slightly over 50% of the vote in the rest of the state. I don’t know how Hillary’s numbers compare to 2012.
It’s indicative of many many counties in WA State.
Most of the state is red but the most populous are King and Pierce which are blue.
Most of the liberal base is government and schools, dependents on federal/state assistance.
Creating good private sector jobs in the state can reduce the liberal base or its turnout and shift momentum to red counties.
The write-up here is a good synopsis and accounting of the damage that liberal policies have wrought on the state especially in the red counties which make up all but about 2 of the 39 counties in the state.
The problem is most of them are too stupid to realized it was the liberal policies they loved so much that trashed California. They will just keep voting for leftist garbage, but now in Idaho.
Liberals are like locusts: They destroy the area they inhabit then move on to another location and do it again.
Years back, when the same decline in Oregon started, we were on vacation up there. My wife made the prescient observation that of all the cars we saw, the newer ones were from out of state, with the rust buckets belonging to the locals.
Someone there said that Oregon's economy was like a three-legged stool: Fishing, Timber, and Tourism - and that Fishing and Timber had been kicked out. You could see the creeping poverty moving in.
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