Grim Meathook Present

[substitute]

I've been to the pharmacy twice in the last two days, once to leave off a prescription and once to pick one up. Both days the line has been at least 15 people long to pick up and about half that to drop off. This is maybe 3 times as long as usual.

The employees said "sorry, our hours are cut." When I came in today I turned around and walked out because I didn't have an hour free to wait. Fortunately I didn't need the prescription right away.

If upper middle class people with good benefits in a resort town in Southern California are now waiting an hour to get their prescriptions, because the drugstore chain has cut hours way down, what's it like right now in Wal-Mart land? My guess: not so great.

I've also noticed discounters like Target carrying less inventory and less variety. If I don't get to Target before noon on a Saturday the chance of finding the lightbulb I need is halved.

Something went down at the bank in the same shopping center the other day and they have an armed security guard now. That's new.

It's not the end of the world, especially here. But if I can notice the quality of everyday life slipping here? It must be getting really special in poorer bits.

Comments

[brianenigma.livejournal.com]

They say the same thing about Portland, but the reality is that we're in a time-delay bubble. Recessions and [housing/dot-com] bubble-pops hit the rest of the country, then they eventually hit Portland. The same goes for the recovery of the downturns and for full-fledged economic booms. Then they get better in the rest of the country, then they eventually get better in Portland.

Lots of people in California are moving to PDX because they see the downturn on the horizon--but this is probably the worst time to be doing that. By the time they get up here and settled in, they'll see the same (but time-delayed) downturn on the horizon that they were trying to escape. Double the displeasure!

Also: we have a bunch of trustifarians masquerading as hippies and hipsters. They don't care about the economy until their trust funds deplete.

[loose-joints.livejournal.com]

Also, the economic growth here has never been that staggering. Oregon consistently has one of the worst rates of unemployment and underemployment (although a lot of that is voluntary), in the nation. So things do get here slower, but when its bad, its not like we had that far to go, you know?