"With 1,685 fewer people in 2007 than in 2006, the
four-county Toledo metropolitan area ranked among the nation's top
population losers last year, according to estimated figures released
today by the U.S. Census Bureau."
"Any population loss is something we need to be serious about," said
Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken. "It probably ties to the fact
that we've lost jobs. We've lost opportunity, and people tend to go
where there's opportunity."
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080327/NEWS17/803270...
Tsk Tsk.
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"Oh, Bother!" Said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.
More like "Tax Tax".
'said Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken. "It probably ties to the fact that we've lost jobs. We've lost opportunity, and people tend to go where there's opportunity."'
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Ding,,,ding,,,,we have half of a winner.........give Pete Gerken half of a prize!!!!!!
The other half is that the State of Ohio and the City of Toledo are very unfriendly to businesses. Consequently the businesses left. (And do you really have to be a rocket scientist to see this?!)
The dumbasses running the show in Ohio thought they wouldn't? Stupid. Just stupid.
In Toledo at least, the local government is also stupid as we saw the other night when they raised the illegal garbage tax. Their solution is to REFUSE to look at keeping any remaining businesses and entice any new ones - they are spending their time figuring out how to squeeze incrementally larger amounts out of fewer people. That's why we have a garbage tax in the first place. Desperate people will do illegal and questionable acts to raise money. Council is desperate.
So instead of looking at why jobs and workers (and thereby the tax base itself) is leaving Toledo - they are just squeezing us...and squeezing.
What makes them think the remnant that can pack up and move out isn't doing just that? Wait'll they see the numbers next year.
I wonder how they think they can tax people with no jobs who rent? Because that's what will be left in the very near future. Only those mis-fortunate few cannot leave.
for two primary reasons. Utility costs and transient neighborhoods. I just got my Columbia Gas bill for March. It was $310. We didn't put the thermostat over 66...not one time this month...My in-laws who live in Temperance, live in an older home that is twice as big (not as well insulatted) and their highest ever gas bill was $80. No need to explain why that is...I already know.
Also, it seems in just the last ten years, you cannot drive through Toledo for more than five blocks without being in a rundown looking neighborhood. Everyone walking the streets looks like they just slept outside for three days. Every neighborhood seems to have one or two of those weird guys...you know...the 40 year-old riding a ten speed going nowhere inparticular and carrying a brown bag.
Kooz, who's going to buy a Toledo house that costs $310 to keep at 66F during March?
And when gasoline keeps climbing, you're going to see a lot more guys riding bikes.
And it's going to fall a lot more when more businesses leave. Few who do business in this city or state would willingly stay here if they could leave. Unfriendly to business is an understatement. All the city and county inspectors act as if they would be happy not to have anyone to inspect. Whether it's the gambling issue, smoking, inspections, taxes or whatever, it doesn't matter. They don't care whether a business survives or fails and they don't try to do anything to help survival. I would leave this area in a minute if I didn't have such a large investment here. I don't mind the economic downturns that are part of any business. That comes with the territory. It's the intrusive and controlling government that gripes my ass. They want to dictate how you should lose money. Yet, at the end of the year, they stand there with their hand out for payment.
Post of The Week. Maybe the Month.
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"Oh, Bother!" Said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.
Post of The Week. Maybe the Month.
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"Oh, Bother!" Said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.
Worth saying twice, I guess.
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"Oh, Bother!" Said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.
You said it.
You said it.
My wife just got home from a garage sale in Maumee. The people holding the garage sale are losing their home to the bank, and their business has closed or is closing. It was Gary's Tropical Fish (I believe), open for nineteen years. She says, six months ago their business started going down the tubes and they weren't able to keep it going after exhausting their funds. I don't know the whole story, but it illustrates what's going on here. We are in severe economic straits.
It just galls me when I run into some city or county guv'mt yahoo, who doesn't know his ass from a dog turd, telling me I have to do this or that or, worse, can't do such and such. I tell them that if everyone goes out of business, they won't have anyone to order around and they won't have a job. I almost would like to close my business and take out a full-page ad in the local papers telling everybody that they provoked me to close the business of my own free will because I won't take their anti-business, and often dictatorial, bullshit anymore.
By the way, when Gerken says our population loss is tied to job loss and "we've lost opportunity, and people tend to go where there's opportunity", he is a piss-poor example of creating opportunity. The guy has never been in business, run a business, knows business, or can possibly boast of having helped business. He has been on the union teat his whole life, sucking away for all he's worth. Now he's on the guv'mt teat.
For those who don't know, Peter "The Pickle" Gerken is the County Commissioner. He and his wife, Polly, are something else.
You can only sell tropical fish to people who have a firm base of support. That can ONLY mean manufacturing. Manufacturing is the basis of wealth. (Specifically, the manufacturing of capital equipment -- the stuff that you can generate an income with -- is the heart of manufacturing wealth.)
So, those folks in Maumee should have seen all this coming. They saw manufacturing leaving the area. It was always their responsibility to foresee the future and to make appropriate, SAFE investments in that regard. That meant low overhead even when people were buying products and services from them.
I see this happen time after time. Small business may be the heart of the American sustainable economy, but small businessmen are fairly foolish with money. They generally equate expenses with investments, and that's a huge mistake.
So, too bad for Gary's Useless Tropical Fish. Maybe if "Gary" had taken responsibility, and had started a home-insulation business instead -- since any fool could have seen the increase in energy prices coming -- then he would still be in business today. Or, he could have innovated with shipping fish via the Internet. Or, he could have moved his tropical fish business to an area that isn't undergoing a wholesale financial collapse. Or ... well, anything but just staying here and hoping for the best while spending money you can't ever get back.
Sure, and the economy went south, and people are loosing homes, cannot afford home repairs and so on.
What business is immune from the downturn.
People can better afford home insulation than tropical fish. This is not about immunity from a downturn. It's about focusing on that which survives.
Here's how bad it's getting: 6,000 expected to apply for 25 firefighting jobs. [The Blade]
"Thousands of people are expected to apply to become Toledo firefighters during the next few weeks as the department formally begins its search to hire a fire class for the first time in two years, Chief Mike Wolever said."
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080329/NEWS16/803290...
Toledo is becoming a third-world country. Six THOUSAND for twenty-five positions?????? Maybe, joining up and fighting in Iraq may become the only job available anymore. We can hire ourselves out as mercenaries and make more money than flipping burgers at the Golden Arches.
When Costco opened, there were over 11,000 applicants for the jobs there.
People are wanting to work and need the employers and positions to be there.
But with the efforts of late, there is no end in sight for the upside down nature of the job market.
And with more buy outs in the auto industry, there will be more people looking for work.
... is the savings rate in America still NEGATIVE? It's like people can see all this hollowing out of the middle class, yet they still KEEP SPENDING.
I smell a lot of people who are not actual victims, here. They are in denial. For instance, the denial about the Great American Housing Bubble is still quite deep and complicated with slogans borrowed from realtors, mortgage brokers, buyers and sellers.
If 11000 people showed up to apply for 200 jobs, then I'd say that you'd only and rationally expect a lot of people in Toledo to be shopping at Goodwill for their clothing, to save dimes and dollars for getting the fuck out of Toledo. But the brand stores are still filled with people waving plastic cards. The curbs are littered each week with cast-off products that few people see fit to repair. It's just sickening.
Capitalism requires us to spend and not save to power the economy?
The President and leaders tell us to spend to boost up the economy.
Spend our tax rebate checks to spur the economy.
After 9/11, get back to spending so we can help turn the country around.
Borrow more and more to fund the invasions and wars around the globe.
Maybe it is not denial so much, as it is, they are not in the same place as others and the reality of the moment has not caught up yet to all, maybe it is because we are all different and there is not one size fits all plan for every one.
Maybe their is too much focus on name calling and labels and the possibility that some, loose their jobs and struggle to make ends meet and really are not the credit abusers that so many are thought to be.
Sure, they are not a necssity.
Sure, maybe some homeowners could afford to insulate, but the business along with the other businesses that cater to the home building or renovation are not immune from the downturn.
Menards, for one, reported a slump in sales related to home improvement.
Whether people, can, improve their home, while some are loosing their homes and new construction and renovations are down, and will when money is tight, are two different things.