Siyonara Brucey (and Cessna), We Hardly Knew Ye

Well, I have Good News and Bad News:

The Good News is, if you can survive in Bend, you can survive anywhere.

The Bad News is, You Can't Survive In Bend.

Yes, yes. Brucey, like Cessna, most homebuilders, graphic artists, PR freelancers, RE brokers & mortgage bankers and a raft of other amenity business owners cannot survive in Bend.

And, I guess I could say I share tim's sentiment with respect to the passing of Olde Brucey:

tim said...

Bruce, If you were tempted here by the PR, that is indeed a good reason to be mad. I didn't even know Bend was supposed to be special when I moved here.

Of course, I didn't know the paper was lousy, the Realtors were in control, or the local gov't was silly. But my expectations were clearly lower than yours. Good luck to you.

I do like to see people make fun of you, but only because your reactions are so priceless.

Having said that, I like you a lot.

I agree Bruce, you and thousands of others were sold a Bill of Goods. A load of Shit. You were suckered in by the Bend Grifting Machine. And Bend takes no prisoners.

But rest assured Bruce, you're doing the Right Thing. This place is all smoke & mirrors. On a Good Day. On a Bad Day, it's suicides, mob hits, and losing your house & job.

You're catching flak Brucey, cuz I think you walked in like a lot of people declaring, "I'm going to run this shithole in 90 days!"

And then you slowly found out that living in Bend is like living on the Moon. The middle of nowhere, and precious little time left to Get Out after your blood starts to boil...

So I have to give the bad with the good:

tim said...

>>Some of you have to man up.

I hope you're joking when you say that. You, after all, are the poster boy for how much energy can be expended while effecting so little change.

I guess this is more of a life lesson than anything.

1) You talk about Anonymouses, and I understand what you're saying. But this is Bend, dude. Look what all the publicly ID'd commenters got: Bile & Loathing. Even Dunc, who is fairly highly regarded, got his share of ass beatings.

2) Combine #1 with the aforementioned "megolamania" about changing the World, and you're going to get roundly assailed. Anywhere. But on this blog, it will be relentless.

My own philosophy is to NEVER say I'm going to do something publicly, UNLESS it is for precisely the reason of motivating myself to do it knowing I will be lambasted if I do not succeed.

That's what happened here.

But, Dear Brucey, take solace in the fact that you are leaving for a better place. A lot of the cat calls are veiled shrieks of envy. Really. A lot of people are angry that you, someone they have beat on mercilessly, actually has the good sense to leave this imploding shithole.

All these cries of "Good Riddance", are tainted with envy. You can't survive in Bend. And neither can they, and they know it.

It's gotten so bad, Buster has regressed into a fetal ball in La Pine, fantasizing over Malay sex slaves.

No Brucey, you are leaving to a better place. Bend will implode into a firey ball of shit, taking most of us with it.

Bend IS exceptional: Highest 1% unemployment in the land. But we are actually The Top for how fast we got there. Bend has the single largest INCREASE in unemployment in the USA over the past year. Blew away Flint MI, that's for damn sure.

I salute you, Brucey. And wish you well. You WILL have the last laugh. Check in occasionally, while you watch Rome Burn from afar. And believe me, it will burn. Your own example of futilely trying to effect change from outside the Good Old Boy Beltway ensures that. You can't change Bend, and that will be it's downfall.

Really, do check in. Especially when unemployment hits 20%+. And laugh your ass off. This place is tearing itself to pieces, and will catastrophically explode.

Lot of people staying based on the idea that you can rise a souflette twice. Can't. Bend is 100% doomed.

And your example will lead the way Brucey. There is going to be a mass exodus the likes of which has never been seen. This Summer. 1 in 6 unemployed, and getting worse. That can't stand. People yank their kids and move ASAP in places like that.

Come back Brucey, when this place has hit rock-ass bottom, and medians are under $100K, and you can buy you a nice little shit-shack downtown for 100% cash, and live off your royalties. You'll be the last one laughing.

Everyone who decides to stay will be destitute.

You are doing the right thing Brucey, if only a little late. You drank the Kool-Aid, and then saw the Emperor wears no clothes. This place is a 100% grift scam. Nothing is real. How could it be 200 miles from anywhere? Again, it's a moonbase.

Good luck to you Brucey.

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Cessna Closes

OK, it's hard not to gloat a little on this one. I called this before Cessna even bought the remains of Columbia Air. It seemed clear that Bend Oregon as an assembly point was catatonicly stupid. Moon FUCKING Base. Gat Damn.

We got the obligatory "We knew it was coming" bullshit from every corner, including the founder. Seems EVERYONE KNEW it was coming. No biggie. Uh huh.

That's how EVERY SURPRISE CLOSING is unveiled.

"Yeah, we knew it was coming."

What is left out, as usual, is the Reverse Synergy Angle.

Right? Yeah, the Bully, and every single interviewee (typically Roger Lee), categorically states that when these businesses are on the upswing (like CESSNA WAS IN 2007), that the synergies will spread out throughout the land.

For every hire done by Cessna, there will be 10 new hires by other companies.

600 hires at Cessna? 6,000 teritiary hires elsewhere, and $6 billion in new growth throughout Central Oregon.

Standard Op Procedure. Alana Audette does this daily. $600 bazillion in "tourist" economy dollars spent yearly here.

Audette & Lee are the masters of taking something ridiculously small and multiplying it by 7,000,000,000,000 to make themselves look important.

Funny though, that the same MULTIPLICATION is never unwound on the way down.

Now that Cessna is gone, there will not be an UNWINDING of 6,000 jobs, nor an UNWINDING of the $6 bazilion dollars they brought to our doorstep.

This is Bend. Everything is PR'd to 100X it's size on the way up, but never downsized when it explodes.

Rest assured Central Oregon, those 6,000 teritiary jobs Cessna brought here will NEVER GO AWAY.

---

This is the web that caught our Young Brucey, and THOUSANDS of other just like him.

Lies, and More Gat Damn Lies. Audette & Lee. All funded by our dear City Council & local government.

You are here to be bilked of EVERYTHING. Everything you've ever worked for.

Folks, if you arrived here in the past 5 years, it's time RIGHT NOW, to take a hard look at the facts. Many, MANY of you reading this blog are either UNEMPLOYED, horrifically UNDER-EMPLOYED, or about to be UNEMPLOYED. And if you bought a house, you have lost an average of $1,000/week. And that is not going to stop.

And Summer is coming. And the kids are getting out of school. THIS IS IT. THIS IS GO TIME.

Take a serious hard-nosed look at things.

CAN YOU afford to stay in a place that has NO HOPE of getting a Real Economy? This is a MOON BASE, light years form anything REAL.

CAN YOU afford to lose $1,000/week for the next year? Or even $500/week? This is more than many people make here.

CAN YOU afford to bet it all on your employer surviving a complete collapse of this place?

CAN YOU afford NOT to leave this Summer, and find a place that isn't completely falling apart at the seams?

This place is DOOMED. It is deteriorating at a rate FASTER THAN ANYWHERE IN THE USA. Housing WILL NOT GET BETTER. The JOB MARKET WILL NOT GET BETTER.

Don't believe me? Go talk to ANYONE who used to work for Cessna. Go to the Redmond School District, where they are talking about 4 day school weeks. THAT is on it's way here.

Redmond is just like Brucey; They have simply woke up & smelled the coffee before Bend, and are doing something about the problem.

This place will start hemorhagging people and jobs starting in ONE MONTH. Well, the jobs has already got a good start, people will now follow. Before we had RUMORS of exodus. Folks, at 17% unemployment, not even the mightiest PR efforts this place has to offer will be able to put down THE FACTS. People will leave Bend in DROVES.

There will be huge swaths of empty, decaying STD's ALL OVER. My God, Hollern has marked down Yarrow 80%! And still he won't sell anything...

It's time to MAN UP, and follow Brucey's example. LEAVE. Seriously. If you do not have a job, could get fired at anytime, are barely scrapping by, or own a house and aren't making $3K/week to make up for your losses, LEAVE THIS PLACE. You will not survive.