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As The Wealthy Flock To The Major Cities On Both Coasts, Poverty And Suicide Soar In Rural Areas

evilgenius wrote:
How do resort towns do it? Most of them operate as seasonal operations, and, as such, have large populations of transient workers coming through them? True locals do well by both offering those workers things, and offering things to those amongst themselves who have separated themselves from that directly due to some level of success, as well as toward the rich vacationer.

Tanada wrote: As a result these corporate farm entities no matter what they are called produce excess cheap calories that hold down food prices even in places like Panama and South Africa where world market food imports set the prices.

Ibon wrote:

Tanada wrote: As a result these corporate farm entities no matter what they are called produce excess cheap calories that hold down food prices even in places like Panama and South Africa where world market food imports set the prices.

That is exactly right. Two weeks ago a national strike happened here in Panama for two days as farmers blocked major roads in protest imported agricultural products like beef from Nicaragua and rice from the USA that is putting the local farmers out of business.

You guys may recall a famous case when Clinton pushed through free trade policies in Haiti forcing the Haitian government to drop their tarifs on rice imports. Cheap california rice flooded the Haitian market afterwards and almost all small rice producers in Haiti afterwards went out of business. This basically completely destroyed an entire local production of a major food staple. Clinton years later made a trip to Haiti apologizing for this. Check out this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtTeDv5FbNw

KaiserJeep wrote:The onset of rural collapse is very visible in the MidWest, was what I observed in my recent house hunt in Wisconsin. I mean there are beautiful lakeside properties for sale at depreciating, cheap prices. But if you buy one of those places, you could be one to two hours from nearly everything, such as medical/dental professionals, big box retail like Costco/Sam's Club, or Target and WalMart, or a real supermarket. The corporate farms are huge fields that stretch forever, and abandonned family farms sit, a very few farm homes still occupied by old people. The younger folks went to the cities and suburbs.

I wanted to live in the boonies, but realisticly speaking, I am 67 and I'm not building a Doomstead at my age. Likewise the wife is 64. We ended up buying a nice 2750 sq ft custom ranch home, very well built, with a walkout basement door and a wooded back yard. Down the street is a large lake in case I feel the need to recreate by boating or fishing. We are in the Village of McFarland, WI. Population about 8500, and seperated from Madison (Capital of WI) by rural areas. By selling a house half as large in Silicon Valley, we spent half the profit on this place, bought a new high end SUV (2019 Jeep Grand Cherokee), and are settling in comfortably, debt-free. We are a 20 minute drive from the grandkids, who will turn 4 next week.

Meanwhile I sold the 1967 Kaiser Jeep Commando (pickup) and donated the 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee (220,000 miles) to a charity which sold it for $2200. We drove the 2003 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon with large tires and lift from California, stopped to house hunt in Wisconsin, and continued to Nantucket, put it on the ferry, and took it to the island. It sits there in the garage, where it will start a new career as a general purpose vehicle (we live on an unpaved/unofficial road with potholes), and beach cruiser. After a month, we came back via plane and closed on the new house, and moved in. We are slowly getting things together, not in any particular hurry.

I still want that beach property, but I comfort myself by thinking it gets cheaper all the time. The wife wanted to be near the grandkids, and so did I.

BTW, we sold the Silly Valley home for almost a million, in fact $101,000 above our asking price, which I had been in doubt about. The buyers were a nice Hindu couple in their 30's, married about 2 years. He was an EE working at Intel, she was an Accountant like my wife. What they earn to qualify for a mortgage like that as first time home buyers, I have no idea, and would probably be depressed if I found out. Unless I counted wrong at the last homeowners meeting, the neighborhood is now about 20% white, 80% other than.

AdamB wrote:Good luck in Wisconsin. A bit cold for me, I've been through there and the UP a handful of times over the past couple years, a bit chilly. The wife and I are more likely to end up a beach somewhere. Maybe beach in winter, the White Mountains of Arizona in the summer.

KaiserJeep wrote:Unless I counted wrong at the last homeowners meeting, the neighborhood is now about 20% white, 80% other than.

Outside the coastal cities, scenes like this are everywhere. Shuttered car dealerships, next to defunct restaurants, across the street from thrift stores and methadone clinics. Community after community, desiccated. Empty husks, with nothing left. Huge swaths of the United States look like this now. What happened?
 
…….Instead the model is ruthless economic efficiency: buy a distressed company, outsource the jobs, liquidate the valuable assets, fire middle management, and once the smoke has cleared, dump what remains to the highest bidder, often in Asia. It has happened around the country. It has made a small number of people phenomenally rich.