Bend Oregon is Free At Last, Free At Last, Thank God Almighty!

Free At Last, Free At Last, Thank God Almighty!

Welp, if it's Sunday morning and I'm hung over, well then it must be time for a post.

And we are Free At Last! Free from endless Jew rants about AIPAC (whatever the fuck that is)? Well maybe, for now. Nope I mean we are free of Gee-Dub, perhaps the Worst President of My Lifetime or any lifetime. My God, what a turd. Nope, we're on to the next guy.
Yup, by this time next week, we'll be an Obama-Nation. OK, this guy is going to have his flaws, but he simply cannot be worse than what we have just endured. Twice! We have only ourselves to blame for the past 4 years.

And I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I am at least a little excited about this guy. I mean we're behind the 8 ball, and GeeDub has been a useless sack of shit. If anything, we could have at least used some Reagan-esque "One for the Gipper" speeches from G-Dub, but we're only getting them from The O-bomber.

Well, not much to do but wait... but it'll be nice to know that the next time I post it'll be with a chain-smoking black dude as our Prez. And we'll also have a Flilf in there too!

"I break with thee... I break with thee.. I break with thee.. and then throw dog-poop on her/his shoes" (Steve Martin... and hbm)

Well, we officially got dumped by hbm. How we'll survive is another issue, but his parting shot was rather interesting:

...why are you afraid to put your name on your posts, asshole?

Oh, I know -- you're afraid Mike Hollern and I will order a "mob hit" on you. Fucking psycho.

I'm through with this blog -- too many psychotic trolls eaten up by hate and spite with nothing to do but vent it here on any target that offers itself. I'll read it, but I'm done commenting on it.

Good bye.

And he seemed pretty serious. I mean he only commented about 30-40 more times, and that was it!

What's funny is that "hbm" really could be anyone. EVERYONE is anonymous on here. I mean, people put "handles" to comments, and some are quasi-public figures that many of us would recognize. But were it not for Buster, I wouldn't have a clue who "hbm" is.

But it's curious Why hbm would make all these statements to begin with. This thing has always been anonymous, for obvious reasons. Read the title: it's a blog about the implosion of really the only large-scale industry in this one horse shithole. And as we've seen, "continued prediction" of it getting ever worse by the minute is not a Make Friends And Influence People sort of recipe.

hbm jokes about MOB HITS... well, everyone who posts on here knows DAMN WELL commenting on here could have almost nothing but negative consequences if identities became known. Even BendBB hides his identity. Curiously he also harvests IP's.

So hbm, your accusations of Anonymous Comments = Worthless Blog, is itself pretty fucking worthless. You, and everyone else here, knows Damn Well the RE Juggernaut would not be above offing someone to clam them up. These fuckers are Killing Themselves over bad deals.

OK next: This idea about claiming that unless every comment is backed up by a litany of Courthouse-Ready facts then it's 100% USELESS, is again Bullshit. Your blog went on and on and on about what a TURD Gordon Smith was. OK, I agree... but none of that shit is PROVEABLE.

But hbm, I can agree with you on one thing: You open up a blog to Zero Moderation, and you're going to get some pretty lame shit, as was witnessed Ad Nauseum in the past weeks comments Re Jew Bullshit. Was that you hbm? Cuz if so, point made. I mean whoever posted that shit makes me want to ease back on the Jew Bashing... whoever posted that inane shit is doing enough J-bashing for both of us. My God.

I've said this over and OVER: I cannot & will not "moderate" this blogs comments. First, I can't do it effectively. There's way the fuck too many comments. I think if I turned my posts and All Comments into a PDF, the thing would stack 3-4 feet tall. Just writing this fucker is hard enough... it's like pushing a gigantic hemorrhoid back in: UNPLEASANT BUT IT'S GOTTA GET DONE.

Second, I would NOT be a good moderator, I wouldn't know what to leave in or out. I probably would have nixed early JR-comments. Even City Hall & City Councilor stuff may have seemed outside the fray. But clearly a hell of a lot of shit that doesn't seem relevant, is. The BAT buses? The water lawsuits? Fuck, we're going bankrupt as a town, and that sort of shit is a prime contributor. The finances of this town & the people in it are very interconnected in ways that aren't readily apparent at first blush.

Finally, I just don't like moderated forums. I mean BEM moderated OUT a lot of my comments back in the day, and I assume others. And a lot of people complained about that, and the fact that NOTHING got posted until he approved it... which goes back to #1. And BEM only had 30-40 comments a week or so. This fucker regularly breaks 500 a week. Without the immediate feedback of Immediately Live Comments, a lot of the vitality & back-and-forth "conversations" would just die.

So hbm, you've got a point: Anon unmoderated forums have their problems, but so do the rest. I actually think that hbm sees the writing on the wall, and sees this blog as somewhat of a "competitor" to TSW. Not in any sort of stolen readership or financial way... but just that Bully-Bashing brings a decent audience for both. For better or worse, our beloved hometown paper is a last bastion of journalistic ethical selling out.

And people are pissed about that. And this forum is Wide Open to bitching about it, something hbm also does on occasion. So he & I are birds of a feather really... but with the advent of blogging & open comments, combined with the irrevocable decline in print papers, there can arise the need to Impugn The Legitimacy Of Any Competitor.

Which is sort of funny. As was said in the comments, this thing ain't about me... people like pics of big tits so they know where the end of my interminable rants are. It's about the comments, good, bad, ugly, or interminably idiotic, Thank You Jew-Busting Buster, or whoever you are.

I do wish there was a solution to this. It would have to be Individual User Moderated though. Something where each individual could blacklist comments from given IP's... not me, mind you. You. Something that would simply mask or minify comments from user-selected IP's, or usernames, or something. I don't know.

As can be seen, No User Tracking System Is Perfect and hence no comment masking system would perfect. Ask Becky Breeze over at BendBB. So I hear you hbm. But you declaring this blog Unfit For Your Pedantry Presence because of the Anony-Troll nature of the comments is simply a declaration that Only Your Opinion Really Counts And It's The Only Opinion That Should Count. Which I have to say, I disagree with.

And you can disagree with me. As vehemently as you want. Cuz the comments are wide open.

Well, you've probably noticed but the Bubble Implosion has started to take a toll so heavy that it's Damn Hard to even keep track of it. Used to be that there would be only one or two decent scale shutterings every month or 3. Now shit is closing, or there are large scale layoffs or hourly cutbacks, happening so often that I can't even keep track of it all.

So, if possible, I need you guys' help to keep track of this stuff for the RIP board, which I am going to make a New Years Style Effort (short-lived) to keep updated. So maybe put in comments the term "RIP" and a list of closed down businesses, or places making layoffs or mandatory hour reductions.

I know the Bully has already instituted mandatory days off each month. I have to agree with this route, if it has to be done. Lots of places layoff people who they have expended lots of money to get proficient at their jobs, and with layoffs, this investment is gone forever, and you have to expend it again when things turn up.

I guess everyone knows that Gottschalks declared Chap 11, something I think Dunc spotted early. And once I looked at it, it seemed pretty clear to me they were going down. You know something is wrong when a company of 60-odd stores spends 3X on one crappy store in Bend OR ($6 mill) over what Wall St values the whole shotting match at (sub $2 mill now).

But anyway, I have a terrible memory, and the failures are coming fast & furious, and are too much to really keep up with. And, of course, rumors are Welcome! I know hbm, I'm opening this thing up to LIARS! Well, it's always been that way, and a whole lot of those rumors had a way of coming true. Even KTVZ has started to "speculate" on the true scale of the Cessna layoffs, cuz the company doesn't want a mass exodus of people they actually want to keep.

So rumor has it's place. Shitloads of the Negative Rumors put here actually happened, and even legit rags like TSW print rumors. But those are supposedly more believable cuz the rumor-monger golfs with hbm, or some shit.

But I would like to know if anyone has heard any other juicy nugg's on Cessna. Last I heard it was another 1/3rd of the workforce, for a total of 2/3rds canned. And it'll happen in March. Is that right?

I know The Bull has instituted 1 Mandatory Day Off per month for everyone. It's my prediction that they will start instituting large-scale layoffs there. Place isn't financially viable otherwise.

On a smaller note, I'd also predict that these "Dinner Express" places will start to close. 4 of these sprang up overnight, and this town can barely support one.

I know of some decent sized gyms are going to close. One is a biggie on the East side. Same reason as above, ridiculous overcapacity.

Walked by the new Subway/Coffee Shop downtown. Very nice inside. Not a single customer though.

I guess everyone knows the "temporary" closure of the Speedshop & Fireside Red are 100% bullshit. Always suspect someone who is closing down for CHRISTMAS. OK, that is retarded.

I know 12 O'Clock Tart is also gone, lunch delivered to you by The Hotness Owner. Too bad, she was hot.

And there probably a long list of other small 1 and 2 man shops like this that are just gone one day. So send them along in the comments with title "RIP" so I can search for them.

OK, you can stop scrolling! You've reached the comments!

I wanna get titty-fucked by Obama!

The Collapse of BEND, Has Not Even Begun,...

The Collapse of Bend, Continues...

Well, it's coming fast & furious now, Folks.

A seeming swarm of layoffs from all corners. Epic Aircraft & Jeld-Wen should come as no surprise. But Cascade Heatlhcare? That stuff is supposed to be immune, right?

No, seems when you do not have money, that visit to the doctor that used to be required can become "elective" pretty quick. You won't see a lot of folks out China Hat Road way clogging St Chas waiting rooms.

Nope, nothing is immune, not healthcare, not recreation, nothing. We've seen store closings of little guys (Westside Video, Bond Street Market, childs clothing seller Bonkerz), big guys (Office Depot, Linens N Things), and we'll see more in the near future of all kinds (Gottschalks, Cessna, City of Bend, The Bulletin, Les Schwab).

Retail is just the "face" of a slowing economy. There's plenty of "back office" type businesses closing; little public face, but quite a few jobs lost just the same. Even our little local Gubmint is in a constant state of layoffs.

We're at 10% unemployment, businesses are closing so fast it's hard to keep count, we've watched our local medians drop from $396,000 to $226,000. OK, this is the shit storm this blog has been yammering on about for 2 years as INEVITABLE. It's here. This is it. And NO, it is not even close to ending. The damage is not even close to being done.

So what would you do, if your own personal life looked this shaky? Do you fall back on (hopefully) saved up reserves? Do you keep piling up the money in a Federally Insured bank account, if you're lucky enough to still have a job? Do you scale back your eating out? Do you scale back the wine from $40/bottle to $15? Do you actually, God forbid, start cutting some of this stuff out entirely?

Or, do you borrow to the last of your ability and buy a new SUV? Do you expend the last of your reserves on building a fence around your back yard? Do you go for broke, and throw it all down on a new investment house with negative cash flow for as far as the eye can see?

See, to me, the answers to these questions are just ridiculous. It's pretty obvious. You STOP spending. OK, you do that whether you still have an income source or not. There are some people who do this innately. They're called Rich People. Well, they are at least financially insulated. People I know who are doing well right now have been saving their pennies. And I mean pennies. They don't make a King's Ransom. But they do save, quite a bit more than most people. They aren't really "cheap", they just have "lean" tastes.

But not our City Council. Not our local Paper. No.

No, they are advocating that we all spend as much as we can as fast as we can.

Yeah, we'll get great stuff, like a shed to house our broken down bus fleet. Or some blown up rock out in the Juniper Ridge badlands.

Costa is trying to convince us that we should run out and BUY cars with incentives that actually don't exist West of the Rockies. And by gum, with medians in the low $200's, "Some interest rates also at historic lows, could drive buyers back into Bend market".

Uh huh. Read the piece, and you'll find that "Some" interest rates applies to Bill Gates' FICO, not yours. Costa just doesn't get it.

Brucey posted in the comments that we're getting 100+ NOD's a week. That's 100 people (well, maybe not quite, but you get the idea) who will not be able to buy shit on credit for 7-10 years. You can lower the rates to ZERO (or less), and these people WILL NOT get extended one cent.

The Fed can (and has) pushed the interest rate/monetary policy string as far as it can (rates at 0%), and nothing has changed. What's funny is that this country is simply returning to "normal". We're returning to fairly "normal" credit restrictions.

But there's the rub. For about 7-8 years we extended credit to "non-normals", people who could NOT afford it. No income to afford the debt service. So how did it go on for all those years? Easy, simply "co-mingle funds", ala Summit 1031. Make "refi" money your New Income Stream. All that nasty old loan debt, is replaced by an even bigger loan, and what's great, is I Get Paid To Do It! Old $350K loan replaced by $500K refi loan and 2 years from now with a crooked appraisers help, I get another $175K, ad infinitum. Presto, Huge Income, No Work, Forever.

Well, the Minsky Moment arived on this Enormous Teetering Edifice, and the whole thing began toppling the middle of last year. And NO WHERE did it stand taller, grander, more magnificently than Bend Oregon. No where. It literally DEFINES this place. Scam piled on graft piled on deceit piled on fraud piled on schemes.

No where in the USA is the local economy more exposed to the crushing forces overwhelming our national economy than right here. I've said it before, Sit Back And Witness The Horror, Ladies And Gents. You are about to see an entire small city rip itself to pieces.

The Hollern/Moss/Costa Triad is crumbling. Hollern drank the Kool-Aid and bought Ironhorse & Yarrow. Moss financed that, and much, much more. Costa is in a 100% Dead industry, and is desperately trying to hold the buggy-whip edifice that is The Bend Bulletin together.

Again, you are about to witness a town completely implode on itself like nothing that has happened to any major town in the USA in 80 years. It's going to happen right here. This town will be the stuff of Legendary Collapses. This town will be the stuff of future editions of "Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds".

You're seeing it now. Our unemployment rate is at 9.9%. That's just amazing, but it will get Far Worse. It's going to get worse than you or I thought possible. The Viscious Cycle of the Great Deleveraging will take down HALF this town.

Of course, Costa will tell you with the Last Dying Breath of The Bulletin that Aspe... errrr uh, sorry, Bend is made up almost completely of multi-millionaire transplants from Saudi Arabia, Dubai or somewhere, and so employment doesn't really apply to this place.

Ummmm, OK, a little test. I work for a living. Do you work for a living? Do most of the people you know work for a living? Of course, I do know retirees around here. But not many, certainly not many in proportion to the number of people I know who Have To Work For A Living. This is a WORKING TOWN. Employment DOES matter.

And Bend has NEVER had a decent employment base. This place is built on low-wage shit jobs. And those are being lost in waves. No big deal, it's always been that way. But now we're losing the small, core base of family-wage level jobs. Fuck Gottschalks, we're losing jobs at St Chas & Les Schwab corporate.

Head over to BendBB (anon proxy ONLY!), and check out recent price changes. Used to be that you'd see only a few price cuts in the double digits. Now their practically ALL double digit percentage cuts in price. And it's worse than it appears. Some of those homes have been flipped between Realtors like the crack-whores of RE that they are. Desert Skeeze listings can be counted on to have changed hands several times.

When you look at the DOLLAR CHANGE in prices, you are looking at INCOME REDUCTIONS. These reductions USED to be INCOME GAINS, and these gains fueled Deschutes County growth for the better part of 30 years. This place slowly but surely went from one of the most undervalued to The Most Overvalued RE market in the country. The whole REFI-AS-INCOME game was played NOWHERE more intensely than it was here. And it was played far, FAR longer. In fact, a very precious few can attest to even pretend to remember the Bad Old Days of the laste 70's. This Game has been going on for 3 DECADES in Deschutes County. Not 5 years. Not 10 years. 30 YEARS.

Don't think the Great Unwinding will be over here when the rest of the USA is done, it won't. Here's the point:

There won't be a recovery here. Not in the way you think about it.

Remember last year, early, when the market started cracking here? People who dodged the bullet renting (Timmy, etc) started talking about buying at fantastically lower prices? Like "$250K"?

OK, so we all know NOW that is a suckers game. It's become clear. But that Speculative Mindset is STILL HERE. The idea that I will BUY AT THE BOTTOM in Bend.

And what? What comes after? It's unspoken, but it's there...

Yes. That little SPECULATIVE VOICE that tells you that YOU will make a great deal on a house... and then... the market will recover... AND YOU WILL GET RICH! Yeah!

OK, this very vague and almost unspoken mindset subtley infects EVERYONE HERE. Everyone reading this blog probably has some deep-seated desire to scoop up the bargain of a lifetime at what seems to be a ridiculous bargain prices.

BEWARE. OK. This is NOT going to happen.

Here's a little chart from the Jap Bubble:
You can see that once the collapse began, it was still going strong 17 YEARS later. Bend is going to have a Hockey Stick decline. It'll fall for years & years. And then it'll just flatline. Dead as a doornail, no Big Recovery, no Return to Normal, no Speculation, no Good Times.

The malls will be half empty, as will downtown. Most of the STD's ringing the Eastside will have been sold off piecemeal, and will have weed-infested half-built shitshacks sitting on them. HALF the retail will CLOSE. HALF the restaurants will close, at least. Cascade Business News is GOING TO CLOSE. The Bulletin is GOING TO CLOSE. Either Lowes or Home Depot will close. All these consumerist fueled nightmares are going down.

There isn't going to be a recovery here. It'll be like living in a depressed little version of Detroit, where the Heyday is over. Never to return. You will need your little shit job to pay for the little shit house on your little shit lot. And you will not make any money EVER on it. EVER.

I'm telling you folks, you will NOT recognize Bend in 10 years. Many, if not most won't be able to recognize it, cuz you'll have left.

OK, if you are thinking of buying RE, I ask you to think again. We're NOT EVEN CLOSE to fair value. Values are PLUMMETING. Rent-to-own ratios are STILL ridiculous. This town is going to go bankrupt. Industry & retail are being GUTTED as we speak. We're in a precarious period where it looks like a place you'll "want to be" for the long haul. But it's not going to be for long. Would you want to live in inner city Detroit at any price?

Because that's what Bend is becoming. And medians BOUGHT at $225K will seem like a HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE ERROR in judgement 7-10 years from now. Medians aren't going to $125K for no reason. They are going there, and they will STAY THERE, for abundant reasons.

No local incomes to support anything more. Burns-style entertainment. No restaurants. No fun places. Completely uncertain job prospects. No opportunity. Just straight depression. You WILL NOT want to be here.

What to do:

• Keep renting. Do NOT buy.
• Pile up the cash. Don't BUY ANYTHING.
• Cling to a paycheck as long as you can. If it's already gone, YOU LEAVE town.
• List your EXCESS RE Now. And you mark it down BELOW MARKET. It'll be 20% lower in 12 months.
• Start looking for INCOME PROSPECTS outside of Bend. Keep your eyes open.
• Sell your cars. Sell your other toys. Sell your crap. Keep the money.

Speculative Bend is done. Over. We're in Survival Bend now. No one makes DEALS anymore. No sexiness, no flash. What 's befallen Summit 1031 will BEFALL THIS TOWN. Utter collapse, with NO HOPE OF RECOVERY EVER.

It's time to HUNKER DOWN.
DO NOT BUY ANYTHING
CONSERVE YOUR CASH.
REMEMBER THE FOUR B'S

IT IS OVER
"I just come from Bend Orygun, where they done titty fucked me atop Volo till I couldn't take it no more! I'm certainly glad I stayed as long as I did, with no visible ill-effects!"

Happy New Year 2009 Morons of Bend

A Look Back on our 2008 hero's: Hollern, Smith, Denton and Osama.

Wow.

I can't believe this crazy-ass blog has survived over 2 years! My first post was Dec 17, 2006:

And to explictly state what this blog is about: Bend Oregon Real Estate, whether it is or has been in a bubble or not, whether this bubble is/has burst, implications for residents, businesses and others, and just about any topic relevant to the Bend Oregon economy and the surrounding region, and housing in general. With unmoderated discussion, I suppose anything goes though. Hopefully, people will realize the value of staying on topic, and will minimize personal "flame-wars".

I was so much younger then. And naive. In fact here is a picture of me eating breakfast right after that first post:

"Hey, give that to me. I eat anything."

And the greatest harbinger of things to come were the fanatastic 2 comments I received:

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

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Both almost bought a tear to my eye, especially the blog-spam one. Oh right, they were both blog spam. Here's a picture of me crying, I'm so overwhelmed:

IHTBYB crying his eyes out. (I am directly behind Britney in this pic, and only partially visible)

My next post, the very next day, had precisely zero comments. I think I finished out the year with a post of such gut-wrenching emotion and tenderness that one commenter was moved to pen these touching words:

Anonymous said...

this post is so dull that, after reading it, i wanted to claw my eyes out.

That's when I knew I had found my true calling: Inflicting pain on strangers via real estate blogging. Judging from the number of gouged out eyes I've seen in Bend, I would have to say: Mission Accomplished:

I love Bend Bubble 2 and Osama!

So there were humble beginnings. And most of the initial postings & comments were of a "defensive" nature: Even the idea that Bend was in a Bubble was widely derided as Insane. And there were some people who even denied (Bubble deniers) that a nationwide Bubble existed. Remember that?

Cuz, if you really remember that time, and contrast it with today, and what has transpired since, it just seems unbelievable. Bend was still caught in just an endless euphoria about the future. Bend is Immune was the mantra.

• deep, now closed, hadn't even opened way back then.
• Sally Heatherton had not yet been "born".
• Forum Meadows owner turned down ALL auction "offers" for his sacred Bend homes, before going broke.
• Brooks resources blew out their River Wild condos at Mt Bach Village.
• Yarrow & Ironhorse hadn't begun sales.
• The collapse of the home builders stock prices was as bad as anyone thought it'd get.
• No Bend developers had committed suicide.
• At the time Columbia Aircraft was alive & well.
• No layoffs at Brightwood.
• Seaswirl still alive.
• No firings at City Hall.
• Fannie & Freddie in the in the $70's.
• The DJIA had yet to hit 14,000, and fall to the 7,000's.
  
• CACB hit $32 in the last week on 2006. Now $6 and change.
• The Shire was still the proud brainchild of The Hatchery.
• Becky Breeze still owned The Plaza.
• Residential sales in Bend were in the hundreds per month.
• Medians hit $396,250 in May 2007.
• BendBB had not yet stricken any of my comments.
• Buster had not called any of us Stincking Smelly Cunts.
• I had not yet uttered, "It will get worse than you can possibly imagine."
• People actually Raised their asking prices back then. Really!
• That Olive & Nut store had yet to open & close.
• I had not yet voted Dunc for Mayor.
• We barely knew what SubPrime is, and no one knew what Alt-A was.
• Citicorp was still the largest financial org the World had ever seen.
• No bailouts of banks, automakers, or anyone else.
• Lehamn was still alive & kicking. Smith Barney too.
• No Cessna layoff's locally yet. The buyout was a "huge success".
• Unemployment was below 4% in Bend.
• Not a one Single Family Home was below $100/sf in Bend. No a single one.
• I had not yet lost my bet to BendBB that medians would go below $300K.
• Renaissance Homes was still smitten with Randy Sebastians flesh-eating AIDS.
• Holtz-Tek had not yet blackmailed our fair city out of Millions for JR "Master Plan".
• BEM had not yet penned his "cure" for Broken Bend.
• I had yet to post my first Picto-Plummet.
• I had yet to introduce into our lexicon the terms "Cali-Banger", "STD's" or "Flipper Bait".
• The Oregonian had yet to run "Death and Specualtion in Bend".
• Pronghorn & Brasada were still above the fray, and "selling out" on Day 1.
• Volo was still a glimmer in Bledsoe's donkey-cum-encrusted eye.
• The WSJ had yet to expose man-birthing or clothesline propoganda to the World.
• The ferris wheel blackmail of Broken Top had yet to occur.
• Bend was still in the grips of Tuscan mania.
• The Redmond water park would save us all from Central Oregons terrible seasonality with high-paying lifeguard jobs.
• We did not yet know that NOW is "The best time to buy in 20 years".
• Bend was still the most overvalued city in the country.
• Baby Jeebus had not yet smited us.
• I had not yet declared Bend the Best 3rd World City ever.
• Trono's Mercato had it's Australian financing All Lined Up.
• Norma DuBois had sold out Franklin Crossing for the 18th time.
• Measure 37 made every hillbilly Oregonian farmer a land baron.
• Tiny Ashwood OR took the prize for most ambitious housing development: 5,500 homes in a town of 120 people.
• NAR economist David Lereah still encouraged the financial merits of home ownership.
• Crook County had not yet approved resort properties that would saddle the area with 75 years of inventory.
• We didn't have a fleet of busted BAT buses.
• The city hadn't lost multi-million dollar lawsuits regarding water systems and whatnot.
• The August 2006 inventory top was still "temporary".
• We still hadn't been shown how to get rich losing millions by Don Bauhofer (aka Bauhumper).
• The Incredible Hulce continued to pander to RE developers in her completely discredited rag.
• We were yet to be introduced to the merits of Capstone Turbine Buttplugs.
• We were yet to receive a lesson in thermodynamics by a dude who dragged a tire behind his car to power his car, a guy who turned water into gas, and a company that turned trash into fuel.
• I had yet to recommend Rent & Invest The Difference as The Only Investment Plan you could be sure of in a place like Bend.
• There were many, Many businesses, largely invisible, that were still open, that have vanished in the meantime. Most mortgage brokers are in this category.
• Re/Max was still open. So was Sunriver Realty.
• COBA, COVA & the rest hadn't BOUGHT our City Councilors election for pennies on the dollar.
• My prediction of a collapse in California RE was still widely ridiculed: "California is Immune."
• 1031, Merenda, deep and other accessories of wealth for Bend's elite still held their glistening facade.
• NOD's were not measured in the THOUSANDS here.
• We had yet to have our first 1,000+ comment week.
• The City was not perilously close to bankruptcy.
• Black dudes were known for beatin' they wives, smokin the cracker, fuckin, and shootin whitey, not being President.
  

And there is probably more. Much more. The point?

It's been a hell of an eventful couple of years. Most of the real crazy shit has happened in the last 6 months. I mean The Giants of The Financial Universe have been hobbled.

Cathy Bates administer Good Olde Fashioned Hobbling. Feels so good.

I guess my main point is this: Having seen how far we've come, how people like Jody Denton's business eyes were too big for their stomach, you might want to exercise some restraint. Because this thing is, AT MOST, about half over.

We have gone from $396K medians to $239K, that's down 40% from top to bottom. Another 40% down is Very, Very Easily possible, which would take us down to $143K.

Folks, when we hit medians in the $140's, and it will happen, Bend is not going to be a place that about 70-75% of the population even recognizes. The old codgers will, but it will be the 4 Bees that rule the roost: Butter, Beans, Bullets, and Bullion.

This place will be like a hyper-magnified version of much of the US. We aren't going to sink back into the Stone Age, like some have posted here (IMO), but we will NEVER return to the hyper-consumption-fueled prosperity of the past 3 decades. That time is over.

But you'd do well to read into Denton's comments about What He Is Doing Now.

He's Leaving Bend, and He's Leaving Oregon.

“I had a very long and prosperous career before I came to Bend,” he said, “and I’ll do what’s best for me and my family. It will definitely be outside of the state of Oregon.”

He's telling us something.

When all is said and done, Bend, In The Best Of Times, left this very talented & decent person, completely broken. Broken financially yes, but worse, just broken from the experience.

“Getting to this point has been stressful and difficult,” the chef said. “For my wife and myself, there was a sense of relief once the decision was made.”

Once you make the decision, once you realize that you can stop fighting the impossible battle, there is a Huge Sense Of Relief. Denton is a talented guy, a guy with resources, a guy with a plan & the ability to execute: And this place broke him.

And I have to give him credit for one of The Best Lines Ever from a Bend Businessman quoted in The Bulletin:

“But the question became: How wise is it to keep feeding this thing when all it does is eat?”

I will leave it at that.

I hope no one notice I stuffed that motherfucking BendBubble2 blog in my humungous smelly twat! The coast looks clear! I gonna make a run for it! Happy New Year you fuckers! I hope you suffocate & die in my smelly cunt!