Do you feel your local economy and the surrounding area has improved

[JM Aggie08]

Booming, I'd say.

 

[Mai72]

I live in a resort area. I see a lot of people coming down to the shore, and suspossedly hotels are booked. On the other hand herion is out of control. A lot of drug bust have happened recently.

 

[rcpratt]

I'd still be happy if Detroit fell off and floated away.

:'(

 

[boomerang]

Things are massively better in Grand Rapids.

Our housing prices didn't swing as much as you guys but our unemployment was out of control, businesses closed down and the city felt dead. Now there is tons of commercial construction, new businesses are popping up, unemployment is at 3% and businesses have "NOW HIRING" signs all over the place.

I'd still be happy if Detroit fell off and floated away.

You guys, Traverse City and the Ann Arbor area have got it going on. I'm between Detroit and Flint so not so much here. I'm depressed looking at what homes are selling for in my area.

 

[boomerang]

I'd still be happy if Detroit fell off and floated away.

Just read an article this morning saying that Governor Snyder wants to repopulate Detroit with imported Syrian refugee's. Sounds awesome.

 

[boomerang]

I live in a resort area. I see a lot of people coming down to the shore, and suspossedly hotels are booked. On the other hand herion is out of control. A lot of drug bust have happened recently.

I think Heroin is a national problem. I was just talking to a State Trooper last evening who was telling me that it's a huge problem here. She's doing two to three calls a day. A day.

 

[BoomerD]

We weren't here during the "recession" but since we moved here 2-1/2 years ago, real estate is up, unemployment is down, more businesses seem to be opening than closing.

 

[rudeguy]

You guys, Traverse City and the Ann Arbor area have got it going on. I'm between Detroit and Flint so not so much here. I'm depressed looking at what homes are selling for in my area.

Its because we refused to wait for something to happen. We made shit happen. Lansing was still under Jenny's rule and her plan for saving the state was the Obama Stimulus (its in her State of the State speech) and we weren't going to rely on that. We actively brought in new businesses with *gasp* tax breaks and incentives that our kids wouldn't be paying for down the road. We gave *gasp* tax breaks to developers to get downtown going again and now the place is crawling with new businesses and housing.

Meanwhile Detroit and Flint are still relying on state handouts to survive and dreaming that the UAW would give them more money.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Nashville area has exploded. We're screwed though due to poor infrastructure that can't keep pace with the growth.

Likely par for the course relative to other areas experiencing significant growth though.

 

[boomerang]

Its because we refused to wait for something to happen. We made shit happen. Lansing was still under Jenny's rule and her plan for saving the state was the Obama Stimulus (its in her State of the State speech) and we weren't going to rely on that. We actively brought in new businesses with *gasp* tax breaks and incentives that our kids wouldn't be paying for down the road. We gave *gasp* tax breaks to developers to get downtown going again and now the place is crawling with new businesses and housing.

Meanwhile Detroit and Flint are still relying on state handouts to survive and dreaming that the UAW would give them more money.

You post made me LOL because what you said is all so damned true! It's not like the formula for growth is some deep dark secret. It's that it's totally counter-intuitive to some people that consider themselves to be the brightest among us.

Here's how screwed up they are in Flint. Their next mayor could very well be a pig. Yes, a pig as in swine. The dumb asses screwed up and gave the wrong filing date to candidates so the only way people can vote in the upcoming election is to write in a candidate. Giggles the pig might just get the job.

http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2015/05/giggles_the_pig_flint_mayor_ca.html

 

[purbeast0]

i never feel like it went down. back in early 2010 or whatever i landed a new job that was a 20% raise from what i had made previously. and now 5 years later i'm making double what i was making then.

i'm in the DMV area though so jobs are always a plenty around here for the most part.

 

[FeuerFrei]

Things have been good here the last 8 years, all kinds of new hotels, restaurants, health care facilities, 6 new-from-the-ground-up schools to replace older buildings. Expecting a downturn though with the advent of cheap gas. Lots of oil industry in Texas. May be too soon to proclaim things are worse.
My town's unemployment has recently hovered around 4.2%

 

[inachu]

So between these two options, you choose option B?

A) A transparent set of formulas that are debated to death, agreed upon years in advance, and old formula results are still reported so that if you want to use the old formulas, you can. Based on data that is publically available, so you can calculate it yourself. And that is confirmed independently by things such as tax periodic tax withholdings, annual tax returns, and public polls by both the government and by 3rd party businesses.

B) An unscientific poll of strangers on the internet.

Option A Is used because the false psychological effect it will have on the 1% to hire more H1B then this translate to a false narrative that the American economy is getting better when in fact any and and all employment gains were only from H1B and L1 transfers since the year 2000. No gains at all for citizen of the United States of America. BEcause we know the true unemployment numbers that still uses the old style computations is at over 29% that was used by the Dept. Of Labor and not by what you say some group of unemployed nerds.

How do I know that? I used to date the #2 who handed those reports in to the big wigs at DOL.gov

 

[TeeJay1952]

More and more folks trying the "Entrepreneur" thing. Without manufacturing jobs these attempts are mostly doomed to failure. Applebee employees cannot afford to eat at Applebee's. Walmart employees can't afford anything else.

 

[Imp]

The only thing that's keeping the economy afloat here is real estate and housing starts. That's largely due to record low interest rates. Every international bank and economic organization has said real estate is overvaluved by 20% on average. So the inevitable correction is going to hurt.

A lot of companies have been laying people off for the past few months. Cost of living has gone up quite a bit as well. Toronto's economy is stable but stagnating.

Same city...

Every house in my neighborhood, not remotely upscale, is somehow worth around $1 million while the median family income in the city is ~$75k. A shitty part of town where I used to work is now filled with $600k+ houses. Meanwhile, companies continue to dump employees. Just waiting for Alberta's oil issues to filter down to other sectors. Lot of out of province people went there for work.

The US of A is supposedly going to bump up their central bank interest rate. If we follow, mortgage payers will have fun. If we don't, everything we buy from abroad gets more expensive?

But don't worry. The federal government's statistics agency tells us that the employment rate isn't rising.

 

[cyclohexane]

crazy building boom over here in Boston.

 

[lxskllr]

False improvement. We got a lot of government jobs which doesn't do much for the national economy. That's like paying off your Discover card with your Visa.

 

[Imp]

False improvement. We got a lot of government jobs which doesn't do much for the national economy. That's like paying off your Discover card with your Visa.

It's okay if you nationalize your economy... Did you nationalize your economy?

 

[lxskllr]

It's okay if you nationalize your economy... Did you nationalize your economy?

We have a lot of military and government projects here, and got a local windfall with BRAC.

I'd like to have the government job of "executioner". My base pay would be $0, but I'd get .5% of the salary from every worthless position, or office I cut. I'd start with the local tax offices. They were as helpful and useful as Windows help. Near as I can tell, the only service they provided was reducing the unemployment rate by one or two people, and boosting the economy of a landlord for the space they took up.

 

[HeXen]

Yes. Lots of places hiring and lots of construction going on including new sidewalks, roundabouts...etc. Plenty of jobs available thanks to my area having one of the highest amounts of meth heads and heroin addicts that can't pass a drug test.

 

[Engineer]

Seems like we have had a slight uptick. Budget cuts are keeping things toned down (i.e. university cuts, schools cuts, local project cuts).

 

[OverVolt]

Things are better but it won't last. Its not sustainable thats the problem.

The way I see it in the job market and such, is that big corporations have really slashed investing in the future. They don't develop their employees and turnover is high. Employees are not valued. In the corporate world I actually think the center cannot hold. In that the focus is on cutting expenses instead of growing revenues.

I think the lower end of the spectrum is going to have trouble affording their rent soon. At work someone was asking for a raise/overtime because they can't afford their apartment without 18 hours of overtime per pay and this person had been holding it together pretty decent on their own their whole life (age 30 or so).

 

[Engineer]

Things are better but it won't last. Its not sustainable thats the problem.

The way I see it in the job market and such, is that big corporations have really slashed investing in the future. They don't develop their employees and turnover is high. Employees are not valued. In the corporate world I actually think the center cannot hold. In that the focus is on cutting expenses instead of growing revenues.

I think the lower end of the spectrum is going to have trouble affording their rent soon. At work someone was asking for a raise/overtime because they can't afford their apartment without 18 hours of overtime per pay and this person had been holding it together pretty decent on their own their whole life (age 30 or so).

All leads back to that giant sucking sound........

 

[OverVolt]

Same city...

Every house in my neighborhood, not remotely upscale, is somehow worth around $1 million while the median family income in the city is ~$75k. A shitty part of town where I used to work is now filled with $600k+ houses. Meanwhile, companies continue to dump employees. Just waiting for Alberta's oil issues to filter down to other sectors. Lot of out of province people went there for work.

The US of A is supposedly going to bump up their central bank interest rate. If we follow, mortgage payers will have fun. If we don't, everything we buy from abroad gets more expensive?

But don't worry. The federal government's statistics agency tells us that the employment rate isn't rising.

Yea this pretty much.

Age will not serve the current economy well.