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I had exactly the same thing happen when I was trying to leave the SF bay area and move to SoCal finally after an unbearable 5 years in freezing Hippie Hell. It was in 2001 during the dotcom bust. In Bay Area fashion, any opportunity to gouge is a way to strike back at those damn successful people.

The joyous trip south on the freeway was peppered with empty billboards and For Lease signs on almost every commercial building along the way.

I remembered that during the dot-com boom, my own venture-funded dotcom with 45 employees could not find office space - anywhere. The gouging was so severe, we had to pay $50K to meet with a commercial broker who would do a search for us.

To lease a 9,000 sq ft space in a class B center by SFO, we paid $800K upfront. Yes, I'm serious. There was no alternative because the market is so tightly price-fixed there, with supply kept to almost zero at the time to inflate rents.

When the SF Chronicle decided to go negative on the dot-com boom, they changed overnight to a full-blown campaign to bring down the dotcommers. This was the first hint of a downturn in 2000. Overnight the headlines turned to the bursting bubble theme, with VC's out on the street with hot dog carts, etc.

Immediately companies stopped transacting with other. The incestuous Silicon Valley economy - where I sell a billion to you and you sell a billion to me, and we both show it on our books - closed up tight and pulled up the drawbridge.
Unemployment in the tech sector was over 40% in the Bay Area afterwards.

It tought me that liberal enclaves are barely more than criminal enterprises, where every rule can be broken to do a smash-and-grab into somebody else's bank account.

Just how bad is the exodus from Detroit or the state of Michigan for that matter? I keep heard that a lot of folks are leaving but do they have numers?

A2a - I am also a refugee of the infamous Bay Area. I lived there 18 years and finally became so depressed it was worth it to pay the exorbitant cost to flee. It turned out to be a major coup. Not only did I sell at the peak of the housing market (it took 2 days to sell my house for about 3X today’s value) I fled to Austin where I had every intent on leaving my company; but they decided that my skills were worth retaining so they gave me a 10% salary increase on top of my Bay Area wages. I do have to travel a lot now – I’m currently on a ‘rough’ assignment in Honolulu – but Austin and central Texas remain my home.

God (and a free market) can make life good for someone who works hard. (Something liberals know little about.) Unfortunately, Obama considers me wealthy and will begin penalizing me and my family for my hard work. I expect he eventually will penalize me to the point it will no longer be worth it to be productive – at which time I’ll start flipping meat at the ‘Burger Barn’ and collect food stamps and free cheese. (Yes, the “socialism creates apathy” mantra is very real.)

Good luck getting those numbers, Redneckrick. The last thing the liberal MSM and the ultra-liberal Detroit ruling machine want anyone to know is the number of people fleeing their liberal utopia. It might make it look like they are a failure.

Jimbo - that's just what it is. Depressing.

Doesn't it seem like a strange gloom or darkness just hangs over the area? Even when it's sunny it still feels like a polarizing filter is hanging overhead. And no matter how happy the cky looks, you just look down and smell the condescension and superiority.

You got that right A2a; absolute cold gloom. San Francisco is always cold, gray, and smells of raw sewage. And if you don't toe the homo-liberal line and celebrate pervertedness, you are spat upon (or worse) by the "masters of tolerance".

God (and a free market) can make life good for someone who works hard.

I hear you. When my company announced layoffs in January, I put my resume on the street. As I sit now, not only do I have two offers for 20% more than my current salary, my present employer is offering me 30% to stay on.

I guess I'm supposed to feel guilty about this. I have compassion for people who are out of work, but they made choices and so did I. I put myself through college and graduate school. I moved to a location I don't especially like, but where I can find jobs in my field. I bought an affordable home, and I didn't max out my home equity buying plasma screen TVs. Also, I have faith in God. God guided me to the choices I made to be where I am.

I'm also looking into buying a piece of my family's farm in Michigan. It'll be nice to have a few acres to grow food on if Obama succeeds in destroying the economy.

Who uses a moving truck to flee Detroitistan? Don't people just abandon their homes and drive away with whatever they can cram into the car?

I live in mid-Michigan (Lansing area) and every day I go to work and come home there is a business or building shut down along the way. Two Penny Jenny has taxed businesses right out of the state. But not one lay off or cut back of our state government! She is the female version of BHO! The only thing that keeps me laughing is the antics of the Detroit City Council with John Conyers (D) wife at the helm. It is the most comical thing you have seen and heard! Monica Conyers had her convict brother hired by the City of Detroit, then when the news got a hold of it denied that he was her brother!!! Priceless!!! Now today we find out that she also got jobs for her son and her niece! And you wonder why Michigan is in the shape it is in!

I am a loyal American car buyer because I live in Michigan but now that Obama is running Government Motors (GM) I guess I'll have to find another form of transportation. Always owned a GM car but now it looks like I will be looking at Ford. If Ford takes one cent from BHO I WILL buy a foreign made auto!!!

Nanny, I grew up in Michigan, and everyone I went to school with either left the state to find a private sector job or is working for the state; the only good jobs most people can get.

Also, Monica Conyers denies being mentally ill.

That is too funny made me spew beer all over my monitor. Who in their right mind would WANT to move to Detroit.

Shout out to Jimbo.

Air3air, Jimbo and V the K.

Ditto. Still in the Sf Gay Bay area, but by choice. I don't like it here for any number of reasons that you already know if you've seen my posts.

Traffic is really light on 101 now. Its great when on the one of the bikes; the up side.

Bottom line is, my wife an I did everything correct in being fiscally responsible and we are also in a situation where our companies are rewarding us for staying as they let others go. That is only because we work our asses off and re-invent ourselves (sometimes ahead of time) when the game changes-up.

All of the Liberals I know here are gloomy, loosing jobs, still bitching constantly about BusHitler (chuckle and wink) but are slowly becoming aware that they are so screwed by this administration's vision of 'Change'.

We just keep our mouths shut and enjoy our very upward (slow progress against the progressivly unbearable taxes) mobility both economically and with life's little satisfactions that god provides.

Semper Fi.

Detroit is a harbinger for BO's America ca 2012

Liberals in CA and MI need to be required to stay in those states. They need to clean up the mess they made by electing liberals. If they go to other states they will just make the same mess over again. My state is getting CA refugees, and it's becoming more liberal.

Who in their right mind would WANT to move to Detroit.

But haven't you heard? Detroit is a "Cool City."

Alan - Case in point.

Jackson WY. The entire state is very conserative except for the liberals that invaded Jackson (Dick Cheney aside - though I hear he is moving away). The population base of Jackson is screwing the entire state of WY on politics.

The exodus is bad enough. Our son and his wife just moved back to Minnesota, because they lost their jobs, the job market in Ann Arbor is pretty much non existent now. They will stay with us for a bit until they find new jobs and an apt. Both say Michigan is a hell hole, and they are glad to be out of there...and being unashamedly conservative, they were NOT very welcome by anyone in that area. His wife is a native, and she was glad to say goodbye to Michigan!

We once said in the North that the cold weather and bad winters kept the riff raff out. Well, maybe there is something to be happy about. It looks like we may have progressively colder and more vicious winters for the rest of our lives unless you happen to be a toddler. If it gets a great deal colder with a lot more snow and wind and winter lasts from mid September to late April in the states North of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kentucky, the riff raff should be huddled within a few hundred miles of the southern border across the continent. They can fight the Mexican Cartels in a violent drug war that should go on for a generation.

Posted by: Oiao at April 4, 2009 8:18 PM

I hear that! Silly California liberals have completely RUINED the states of Oregon & Washington: they moved there in droves to escape the landslides of shit ehy themselves created; took their stupid socialist policies with them, and ruined everything. Now they're working on Arizona & Nevada which are proving to be harder kills.

Liberals are a cancer - the painful death of productive and moral societies occur where and whenever liberal socialist pieces of useless fecal matter propogate.

This disparity happens all the time with UHaul and other companies. The trucks need to be returned and cost them some 50 cents per mile, etc.

You can find this same thing happening:
at the end of the month, when everyone's rental agreement ends,
at the end of the semester in college towns,
at a big drop in employment (as mentioned here).

It's not particularly meaningful, though. It's temporary and simply indicates that everyone had the same thought at the same time - go somewhere with a job or where there's sun.

The moving trend will reverse. At a different time of the year, the prices will swap, depending solely on keeping the balance of trucks.

The Detroit economy will pick up as soon as those northern states start producing something that people want to buy. The Ford Taurus is not it. SUVs, in general, are not it. Maybe if they brought in a few Toyota and Honda plants like they did in Tennessee ....

Curmudgeon

As long as Detroit is run the way it currently is being run by the people running it with the philosophy they have, there is no product or investment that will change the city or its prosperity.

If somebody working in an upper management position for Toyota or Honda were to suggest moving to Detroit to manufacture cars, they would be fired--immediately. In fact, after they were fired a cleanup crew might take their office furniture out and burn it and fire people in the adjacent offices and the secretaries and receptionists just to be sure.

Detroit is no longer a city--it is a disease.

Maybe if they brought in a few Toyota and Honda plants like they did in Tennessee

The reason these plants locate in the South is they don't want to be in states like Michigan or Ohio where the UAW is little more than a state-sanctioned arm of the mafia.

Make Michigan a right-to-work state, then you might see some progress.

Wanna have a little fun with Google Street View? Just do a random lookaround at anything anywhere near downtown Detroit. I used to believe Mogadishu was the saddest city on the planet. Detroit is not as bad in absolute terms, but relative to what it once was, and could potentially be, Detroit is now the most devastated and pathetic place there is.

Bruce Hall has a suggestion on his blog today. He thinks Detroit should be broken up into several smaller cities. There is a map and some text. If that doesn't work, it should be liquidated. I am not sure how you would liquidate Detroit--but it sounds like a good idea.

http://hallofrecord.blogspot.com/