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Re: [OM] OT Tolkein represented on the big screen, & NZ. - LONG

Subject: Re: [OM] OT Tolkein represented on the big screen, & NZ. - LONG
From: Jim Brokaw <jbrokaw@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 01 Jan 2003 16:22:29 -0800
Interesting to me that Jon's thoughts would match very closely with a
prevelant view here in California USA as well... particularly where I am in
Silicon Valley (or is that Silly-Con after all the business hijinks of
late...? but I digress).

While the tech-driven local economy has slowed down, there is a definite
break between the two-high-income-stock-optioned-well-off class and the
'average' worker, especially those 'average workers' not employed in the
high-tech industries. Police officers, teachers, child-care workers, nurses,
fast-food counterworkers and retail checkout clerks can't really afford to
live here. Immigrants perform many needed services at the lowest tier of the
economy, yet many feel they are 'stealing jobs from Americans...' -- as if
many of our teenaged kids, unemployed website gurus, and underemployed
high-school graduates would *take* a job in landscaping, construction, or
manual labor...

Filling these necessary jobs has driven wages somewhat higher, but the
chronic housing shortages soak up 1/3 to 1/2 of the 'average' workers income
for rent -- forget buying a house at a cost 3X the national average (and for
less house by far!).

So why do people (like me) stay around here...? The 'average Joe' (or Jim)
has a hard time admitting that they'll probably never hit the really big
time, and when a few people actually do manage to grab the brass ring on the
high-tech merry-go-round we all think we will be next big winners...

Of course, after Brian's description I'm ready to emigrate to NZ... <g> Note
that my only gang affiliation is with "The OM-ers", AKA "Zuikoholics", who
carry a particularly nasty economic impact (mainly to those *in* the
gang...)
-- 

Jim Brokaw
OM-'s of all sorts, and no OM-oney...


on 1/1/03 2:37 PM, Jon Mitchell at jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> As for politicians, privatisation, and immigration - don't start me on that
> one !  I fear I may start a flame war if I spout forth on that one !!
> (Again, I empathise with you and then some !!).  In the south of UK we have
> a similar "brain drain" problem.  It is just so expensive to live here, with
> all the la-de-das buying up their country homes, etc., for the weekend, that
> key workers (nurses, teachers, etc., basically anyone in public service)
> simply cannot afford to live here.  There is a noticeable and rapidly
> worsening lack of these key workers here, as they all move away to cheaper
> areas of the UK.  If my friends and family weren't around here, I'd be out
> like a shot.  As it is, the price of a small flat here is approx. 6 to 7
> times my own salary - and I'm earning WELL above the average wage.


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