Posted on 04/16/2017 3:25:57 PM PDT by TBP
Americans are stuck. Locked into our jobs, rooted where we live, frozen at our income levels. More than at any previous point in our history, we’ve stopped moving — whether moving up the income ladder or packing up a truck and finding another home. We’ve grown ossified, rigid.
The flip side is that we’re stable. If we weren’t so content, we’d be more willing to gamble, to shake things up, to start a new firm or join one. Maybe we’re fine where we are. But maybe this period of stasis cannot last. Maybe it even portends a period of massive disruption.
In “The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream,” economist Tyler Cowen presents an X-ray of societal sclerosis. This isn’t merely another exercise in nostalgia, a sentimental yearning for a bygone era (when, for instance, crime and pollution were higher, people were highly likely to marry someone who lived within five blocks and you would buy an album containing 10 lousy songs because you liked one track). Something has changed in the American character and in the American economy, and the two seem to be reinforcing each other.
For instance, parts of the country (New York City, Silicon Valley, Texas) are doing extremely well, yet able-bodied adults sit idle in other areas. Why don’t the unemployed, and the large numbers who have dropped out of the labor force, move to the boom towns? Wouldn’t it be better to drive an Uber in Brooklyn than to get by on welfare in West Virginia?
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Better add Oregon to your list. My husband and I moved our family out of the Seattle area in 1994, with three children under 13. Hated the city, bought 14 acres in the middle of southern Oregon, and did not retire.
Now the politics have gotten so bad, dems are forcing through super liberal laws, especially property rights and gun laws.
We are feeling the itch to move, but our taxes on our home and property are only about $1500 a year, with no mortgage, no sewer bill, no water bill. Looking for another state, but more seriously at another country.
Thanks; I’m glad my children were born after the “good times”, because this would all seem so disappointing to them...
If four leave, the house will seem pretty spacious.
Thanks; I’m glad my children were born after the “good times”, because this would all seem so disappointing to them...
My oldest is doing well although part of it is the two incomes with her husband The second is finishing nursing school. There are not many nursing jobs but she will survive.
The third left his dad’s moved back with me for 18 months, saved over 12K and is buying his first place. The fourth is mentally ill and I doesn’t ever see here leaving her father’s spare room.
Arguments can be made either way for owning or leasing/renting cars or homes; for too many young people today that decision has been made for them.
Good for them; sounds like they have working plans, and accommodations are made for the fourth.
We’re going to have to get back to extended families living under one roof. Lord knows the houses are big enough.
If too many leave, it will seem empty!
I see that happening already in my area; many old homes are simply being retrofitted to accommodate three or more generations. They ARE big enough, though parking may be an issue with so many drivers in each home.
The picture you paint of SoCal is just horrifying, Yaelle.
Twelve years ago, I looked around L.A. and tried to imagine what conditions there would be like when my (then) little children came of age. I didn’t like what I saw in my mind’s eye, and concluded that I didn’t have the right to choose that future for them.
It’s what motivated my wife and I to uproot ourselves from our natural home, and relocate to someplace where our kids would have a fighting chance at having a normal life. That place turned out to be North Texas. I knew we’d made a good choice when we got here, but it took me three or four years to fully appreciate what an excellent choice it was.
At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll ever step foot in L.A. County again. My last trip to California in 2010 unnerved me so bad, I couldn’t wait to get back to Texas. I almost teared up and kissed the ground when I got to Dallas.
I’ve often thought that California may survive this era of degradation and rot, but they’re going to have to hit rock bottom before they collectively wake up to the fact that liberal, progressive, political ‘solutions’, do not work.
I hope for all our sakes that California turns back toward sanity, and saves itself.
“My last trip to California in 2010 unnerved me so bad———”
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Was it just crime or other things? (I have never been to the area.)
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No, not crime. It was more a general feeling of strangeness, as if I was in a foreign country (which I have lots of experience with).
It's hard to describe. Call it a psychic thing, if you will. It's just that the people I encountered, all emanated a 'vibe' that felt alien to me. It felt as though the very air around me was full of a certain cultural agreement that was invisible, yet palpable.
It was the same feeling you get when you're in a non-western country, and it spooked me because I really wasn't expecting to encounter such a thing in my own country.
We’ll get a dog.
OTOH, not too many people are leaving Boise, land of the $10/hr call center job, so maybe there's some truth to the article, too.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
It is such a shame. This could be such a great place. I love the good people sadly interspersed with the others. It’s hard to find them. But the illegals and the middle easterners have changed things.
I am living in the SF Valley taking care of Mom now. How this place here has changed is unimaginable. The homelessness -— I went to Calcutta when I was 17 and was completely culture shocked by the poverty on the streets. My daughter (5) at 17 will not be, because she sees these people in filthy rags bedding down under and beside the freeways every day.
Also, out here, there are so many Islamic centers. While I really don’t have a problem with any religion worshipping, what shocks me is HOW MANY SO FAST. It doesn’t fit. Why are there suddenly so many?
Besides Muslims, there are many people out here from the Middle East. Many are Christian (Armenians, Lebanese, etc) and many are Jews (Persia, Israeli), but they all have a hostile public demeanor until you get to know them or are in a specific place (school, house of worship). Which lowers the friendliness quotient of this area significantly. Already here are the anglos (at least half Jewish) who have an Industry Attitude (they are better than you because they do Britney’s hair or work on some tv show). New Yorkers are far friendlier.
I have my eye on Nashville. I didn’t know you could get crushes on cities but my infatuation is two years in, now. Those rolling hills (TX is so flat for an Angelinos!) and just the vibe. My son loves the recording studios built into some of the new houses too...
Thanks for your most informative answer——guess I’ll avoid the area.
Feeling like a stranger in your own country would be dreadful.
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Yes, some people do that, but it isn’t the same...
Two of my daughters (17 and 19) are dog- and house-sitting with a pair of elderly and infirm Golden Retrievers. The owners went to the beach for a week with their adult children. My girls feel like they’re in the lap of luxury, with only the two of them and the dogs in the big house.
We plan to move to a much smaller house when all the children have gone ... which won’t be any time soon: Kathleen is only 5. I’m confused by people who are “empty nesting” in the biggest house they’ve ever lived in.
It’s spiritual
They may have issues selling the homes, or sometimes they want family to be able to stay overnight for the holidays and such.
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