Unbiased Sisters Citizen Explains Away Affordability Problem.

In the May 16 CBN, we find an opinion piece penned by one Eric Dolson of Sisters. The title, "Affordability: Does It Exist?" The title should be enough to warn you that something strange is happening. And you'd be right.

"Hey now! This is just a concerned and unbiased citizen trying to clarify a murky issue!". Well, OK. If you consider the fact that Dolson is editor of The Nugget, the Sisters newspaper, and he is published without reference to this fact in CBN.

I debated whether to go with "Whithering Attack On Sisters Moron", or a kinder and gentler, "Logic Errors, How You Can Avoid Them And Not Look Like An Idiot". I've decided to go with the latter, just because sometimes you have to mix it up a little.

First, Dolson states:

I am not sure how to address the "affordability" problem. It may not exist as such. It may be a problem we have defined into existence.... My point is by naming something, we sometimes think we have explained it, when actually all we have done is give it a name, or defined it into existence.

I know. Even cursory brain cells unneeded for day to day life can be used to skewer this little piece of nuttiness. We have somehow OBSERVED high home prices into existence. Funny that despite much observation in previous decades, Bend didn't suffer from this problem. It gets worse.

Let's pretend for a moment that instead of addressing the "affordability" issue, we should turn it inside out, like a reversible jacket. Let's say we are addressing the "wealth" issue.
So now you say that too many people in Central Oregon have too much money. Because of this, they are bidding up the price of land and houses, which makes it too difficult for too many of the rest of us to live here in the way we would like to, or the way that we used to before all these wealthy people moved here from San Francisco or Seattle and started spending all this money. We need to make sure that no one who moves here will spend more than $150,000 for a home.
See how easy it is to define a problem into existence?

It really is comical! I have a first grader who I think could see the almost idiotic logic errors that abound in these few short sentences. First, "too many people in Central Oregon have too much money", then all of a sudden nobody has any money, except people from San Fran & Seattle. That's how to really discredit an argument, make up assumptions that you immediately violate. Moving on:


Or perhaps instead of an "affordability" issue, we have a "wage" issue. perhaps we need to pay more for each job category. So instead of charging us $2.25 for a latte, Starbucks needs to charge $2.75 and put the other $.50 into wages so their employees can afford to live here.
By claiming they can't do that, that we have an affordability issue here in Central Oregon, you are actually asking me to subsidize Starbucks. Frankly, they can afford it more than I can.

See! Right when you're expecting yet another Straw Man attack, he mixes it up with an almost incomprehensible Red Herring. I just saw a Simpsons, where Homer just goes on a mindless bender, much like Dolson:

Homer: Look Marge, you don't know what it's like - I'm the one out there every day putting his ass on the line. And I'm not out of order! You're out of order! The whole freaking system is out of order! You want the truth? You want the truth? You can't handle the truth! 'Cause when you reach over and put your hand into a pile of goo that was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do!! Forget it Marge, it's Chinatown!!!


Welp, there's more, but let's end the Dolson whomping, where he basically digs his own grave with every person from Topeka or St Louis. He basically starts out saying that comparing a Chevy & a BMW, is like comparing Topeka and Bend. Then he says that if both autos were similarly priced, we'd all be destroyed, so obviously the same is true for the towns:


The demand would always outstrip the supply, which will also remove a constraint to growth. That's when solutions to "affordability" become an agenda for uncontrolled growth, an agenda that will result in a host of other problems that are related, such as building schools, roads, finding adequate water supply, pollution, and eventually we all should have stayed in Topeka.

I looked in my book, The Art And Science of Logic, but found no entry for Just Plain Dumb. I actually had to re-read this paragraph several times. The words don't make sense. Solving the affordability.... (Ooops.... almost forgot the quotes! Otherwise it could be REAL!), I mean "affordability" issue means you have an AGENDA. And only people like Hitler, Moussolini, and George Bush have an AGENDA. Dolson seems to equate building schools and roads with genocide and racial cleansing.

This is just a plain weird diatribe, by someone who has more than a little interest in the subject. Pamela Hulse Andrews isn't exactly bound by law to disclose that Dolson runs the only paper in Sisters, but it seems like she should have. It sounds like a "civvy" is saying All Is Well there. When really Dolson's main revenue stream is Realtor advertising, something that cannot be all that healthy given the fact that aggregate dollar volume sold in Sisters has almost been cut in half from last year.

This is just another variation on the Bend Media Sleeze-O-Thon. Hulse Andrews runs a paper, Dolson runs a paper, so how's about "we team up, and shovel more crap down readers throats?". And so we must endure Dolson's weak-ass attempts to cram bullshit down our throats. His final thoughts?


In fact, a lack of "affordability" might actually just be a symptom, not the disease. Just like a runny nose can be hay fever or the flu, you have to be careful in how you treat it. Or recognize that the body is taking care of itself, and there is really nothing to do.

So "Affordability" is the sympom, not The Disease? OK, so what's the disease?

Is it AIDS?
Is the disease AIDS?
Is it fuckin' AIDS!
Oh shit, it's AIDS!

Oh shit, I moved to Bend, bought a house, and got the FUCKIN' AIDS!

OK, I'm better now.

Well, I just know if I got the freakin AIDS, that I ain't gonna do nothin'. I'm glad Dolson ain't my Doctor. Or Realtor. Or gay lover in charge of giving me my Gat Dang AIDS medicine. I will so give him The AIDS if he doesn't watch his mouth....

So, there we have it: Publisher subterfuge as yet another method for reporting on the RE bubble.

Our Media Heads Conclusions on "Affordability"?

• We only have it, because we've observed & acknowledged it.
• We all have too much money, wait... we don't have any money.
• Stop committing hate crimes Hitler, you have an AGENDA.
• Do nothing.
• If you don't shut the hell up about the affordability problem Central Oregon, I will be forced to give Eric Dolson The AIDS.