Economics & Investing For Preppers

One of the unintended consequences of tax migration is the people migrating to new areas quickly try to make their new home like their old home. Personally, I have seen people from CA, NY, and IL move into my area and start trying to remake my hometown. The Communist/Democrat party has grown in the area. And they are demanding services and nanny state polices that have caused property taxes to go up. Land that has been passed down in generations is being sold to developers because the owners can’t afford to pay the property taxes and developers and buying them and building subdivisions for more people to come in. Roads are packed (good luck around the town square on a Saturday) and the quality of life has gone down.

Ned, do you mind me asking what state you live in? Urban areas in North Carolina are seeing an influx of people from Democratic states many ( not all) do not assimilate well, and try to change the culture and laws to what they are used of.

Amen, that is SO true. I have seen it happen here in Ohio. Areas that were once rural and relatively free, in terms of less government, get built up by developers. The yuppies (we used to call them city slickers) want the services they had in the city, taxes go up, they demand restrictive land use/zoning/code enforcement policies (to keep up their precious property values), and what used to be a good place to live becomes miserable.

Amen. The formerly western conservstive ststes hsve become Californicated to become mini me Californias.

I don’t always think voting with your feet is viable plan, but I would guess that it often makes sense. Trouble is, running off away from trouble is seldom a good plan for defeating it, the same way that running from evil is never a successful plan for defeating evil. You can do it as a temporary way of gaining needed time and space, in order to return to the fight. I understand peoples points of view about not being able to tolerate whatever is wrong where they live, and being unable to achieve change for the better, migrating. And often those migrants bring their own set of learned problems with them, per what Ned said. The time approaches that the music will stop, and so will Musical Chairs.

What Ned and Sean said, yep. Here in North Idaho people from all over have driven property prices so high they are not affordable to most locals, the politics have changed, but are still dominantly Christian conservative, and the traffic in the Coeur D’Alene area is bad. Boundary and Bonner counties, or further south (or east to Montana) will soon be the retreats for those already in the redoubt. Another 500,000 or 1M people from around the country or elsewhere and the Inland Northwest is a totally different place. It would then be overcrowded and no longer rural with low population density. Still better here than most other locations, but high influx of out of staters is changing the region. $.02.

One thing I have noticed is that every time a piece of property resells it is taxed at the new sale price regardless of any increase in real value or additional improvements. Sprawl is certainly a problem, there is no doubt, but I see the biggest problem as being collusion between lenders, appraisers and local tax authorities to increase their revenues.

This old lady has seen this happen again and again. Growing up in a used to be somewhat conservative state (Connecticut, NO personal income tax, a manufacturing power house for generations, and people pleased to live in modest homes) I have seen us turn solidly BLUE. We even had a Blue Law – NO stores open on Sunday. People went to church or spent time at home. Well, as most states do, we were “infected” by liberals spreading out from the greater NYC area. Fairfield County, now the 2nd or 3rd richest county in America with mansions by the mile peopled by those commuting to Wall Street, etc. in NYC. brought their left leaning political views with them. People begin to “want” more and more and more, and various folks moving in with low or no skills, requiring more welfare. Instead of job training and working at whatever job required, we gave them welfare. The Federal Government told states we must! I was born in 1942 and remember quite well how it slowly changed CT. This is occurring over most of America. LBJ’s “Great Society” was the final death knell. Seems as though only by going to the most rural/isolated areas can one find, hopefully, long term peace and quiet and LOW cost of living. The downside is living far from a Level 1 or Level 2 hospital and good medical care. Sometimes, the downside is a high risk of severe weather of various kinds. Growing older brings more downside in dealing with living a rural life.

One thing that we all should have done, and some people used to, is reinstate the “Welcome Wagon”. New neighbors being welcomed into their subdivision, apartment, whatever. Get to know folks, and then gradually, perhaps some of them will be open to revealing why they moved to your smaller town. Tell them about the benefits of living in your town or county and how the Town Officials function. INVITE THEM TO A TOWN MEETING. Talk up why you moved or being born there stayed. Instead, with all the electronic devices starting with TV, we have isolated ourselves. There never used to be HOA’s, but I believe that they were instituted – and many have been dictatorial – because people did NOT want to “meet” those other people. I have lived in CT, WV and MO, and nowhere is perfect. Getting to know the folks around you, sometimes is pleasant, sometimes not. However, that is just “life”. Those of us who are truly conservative are also up against the generations long deterioration in education and our philosophy has become “Government Knows Best”. We are at the point where we are on the downside of the “Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire”. It IS happening in America. My relatives in their 60’s, 40’s and 20’s know little to nothing about our Founding Fathers, and our history, let alone about the Federal Reserve, Austrian School of Economics, etc. Most are college educated, but not in what they really should know and they are NOT curious. I have tried to have a polite conversation with them, but they shy away from it. I feel sorry for them, because they know not what is coming and actually they are afraid, though they will not admit it. Reality is tough, but it has to be faced. Guess the old saying “Too soon, OLD, too late SMART” is very true. I am living proof! P.S. To see the stark difference between two contiguous states, just look at Vermont & New Hampshire. Vermont was very conservative, but in the 60’s the Hippies from southern New England migrated there to be with nature and in a rural state. They changed the politics! Hence Bernie Sanders, etc. and now even their liberal gun laws. NH on the other hand, NO personal income tax, NO state income tax, they deal with expenses via property taxes, and are still a reasonably conservative state. However, in the 70’s and 80’s some small business folks moved from “Taxachusetts” to southern NH and have made some inroads on the politics. History, old and new can reveal so much about our lives and where we are going.

I do not know if someone else mentioned that you may vote with your feet but govt. bailouts play a neg. role in this sometimes also.