Market Watch

[2manyrocks]

Friend got elected mayor of small town city. Gasoline costs for the city looked really high. Turns out the city employees were filling up their personal vehicles. Mayor put stop to it. Employees made mayor's term in office miserable. I think there have been three people to take that major job since then.

 

[rScotty]

Friend got elected mayor of small town city. Gasoline costs for the city looked really high. Turns out the city employees were filling up their personal vehicles. Mayor put stop to it. Employees made mayor's term in office miserable. I think there have been three people to take that major job since then.

Knowing your neighbors can make dealing with corruption difficult.

2/3 of the people in the USA live in a municipality, and 75% of those are in towns of less than 5000 people.
almost half of those are towns less than 500.
Source: Latest City and Town Population Estimates of the Decade Show Three-Fourths of the Nation's Incorporated Places Have Fewer Than 5,000 People

Knowing your neighbors can make dealing with corruption difficult - but at least it makes it possible.

Local newspapers were a powerful force in a lot of communities. We've lost the newspapers, and so far haven't found anything to replace them. I wonder what it will be?

 

[ultrarunner]

Friend got elected mayor of small town city. Gasoline costs for the city looked really high. Turns out the city employees were filling up their personal vehicles. Mayor put stop to it. Employees made mayor's term in office miserable. I think there have been three people to take that major job since then.

Oakland made every single payroll person in the school district come in to get their paychecks and lots of misspent funds uncovered and the again with district cell phones as the district was paying for some long retired and some deceased.

Didn't win a popularity contest as the State was now running the district due to district mismanagement..

Saw a city hauler hauling trash at a nearby home and thought another program... turns out it was city resources for personal use...

 

[Hay Dude]

Knowing your neighbors can make dealing with corruption difficult.

2/3 of the people in the USA live in a municipality, and 75% of those are in towns of less than 5000 people.
almost half of those are towns less than 500.
Source: Latest City and Town Population Estimates of the Decade Show Three-Fourths of the Nation's Incorporated Places Have Fewer Than 5,000 People

Knowing your neighbors can make dealing with corruption difficult - but at least it makes it possible.

Local newspapers were a powerful force in a lot of communities. We've lost the newspapers, and so far haven't found anything to replace them. I wonder what it will be?

It won’t be the current mainstream news media, that’s for sure. They‘re just as corrupt as a large urban city government.

 

[two_bit_score]

People gripe like heck about public corruption. And the further away it is the louder they complain. Yet they never show up to their local city council, county commissioner's court or school board and ask questions or complain about outrageous spending. Hardly any news media is active any more to investigate the local corruption. There is all kinds of graft and grifting at the local level but to do anything about it would take some real fortitude and most 'citizens' just don't have it.

It's sickening.

 

[ultrarunner]

People gripe like heck about public corruption. And the further away it is the louder they complain. Yet they never show up to their local city council, county commissioner's court or school board and ask questions or complain about outrageous spending. Hardly any news media is active any more to investigate the local corruption. There is all kinds of graft and grifting at the local level but to do anything about it would take some real fortitude and most 'citizens' just don't have it.

It's sickening.

We had a great reporter who was at every council meeting… even offered me bottle water in the wee hours of the morning when council meeting went into overtime.

He was killed for his investigative reporting.

 

[ultrarunner]

Tracking prices and seeing big local declines…

850k now 550k so down about 1/3… or 35%

I think this is what many miss when taking a snapshot of the market and it’s cyclic nature of real estate at least in the SF Bay Area.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

No big reductions around here… then again housing here has always been a little more sane

 

[ultrarunner]

The old adage… location, location, location…

 

[jyoutz]

In our area for the past 20 years I’ve noticed periods of appreciation and periods where valuations stay flat, but not declining value.