portland business

New Ideas Same Problems

Let us be honest, for most of us in the cities of the world how we buy things is changing. Portland is one of the locations and the biggest problem is how to make something secure to prevent looting. Nothing will ever be one hundred percent proof, but there have been some store models that have caught my attention, for better or for worse so I would like to share that with you today. Big chains and small have been feeling the sting and those who have been claiming everything is right as rain is once again wrong.

One more for me.

Anywho, big chains and small shops feeling the heat and with the issues especially in America there are just a lot of problems, and it is to the point where Walmart is closed down in my city, Walgreens is closing stores, small stores are getting railed by the past decisions of the city, state, and country and it seems that the turnaround is a mirage. One problem at the heart of all of this and something that people need to remember is thievery and destruction of property. A lot of people who support those actions, will say it is the insurance that will pick it up. The problem is the insurance also has a right to see that the business is too risky and stop backing the premium.

I did some research calling for a business location next to Portland state where things like school supplies and some nerd stuff could be sold. I have to get insurance mind you to start a brick and mortar business in the city is because the city will fine me otherwise because it is necessary. Six companies, and full note I did explain after about halfway through I was researching to write on the cost of opportunity in the city and at large, and no one wanted to be quoted and named.

Something that I am not happy with, but I will respect and in doing so I got some very honest tidbits. Insurance looks at the crime rate in the area and in multiple ways for the formulas that determines their risk and if the risk is too high like in some companies idea of the city of Portland or in some areas of it, there will not be a premium offered. In the case of my idea that would mean it could not open and now the store is dead in the water. What was state by three separate agents had been that cities that cannot keep order will have a premium multiple times higher then a similar city who has a better crime rate or a stronger penalty for thievery. After that it would depend how much money is coming in in and if debt is accrued, how easy can it be paid, all simple things that should be no brainers. Something that the majority of them had said throughout my calls had been there is something to be said for things not being reported because the police are already past their limit trying to handle things. Things that had gotten so bad that Fred Meyer has had to have a special alliance with police just to stop thievery that as been plaguing the stores.

Now, business still needs to be done so some stores around the country had been trying to figure out this very important challenge, because in all of these areas there is too much thieving and not enough police. Walgreens is heading to something of a model, currently in Chicago that would only have two aisles of items open to the public. With everything of major value behind a desk in an area that only employees can get to, with some people saying how it is not showing trust to the customers and it is racial profiling.

At New Chicago Walgreens, You Can Only Browse 2 Aisles — The Rest Of The Store Is Locked Away

First of all no it is not. Chicago is not a race first of all, and second of all, if the people have shown on the whole they cannot be trusted then do not be shocked when things change to give better security. On top of all of this when employees take video of the thieves, they are fired, when they try to stop the thieves they are fired, when they stop an effort in anyway they are, you guessed it fired. I can understand that because if an employee does something for the store that can open them up for lawsuits. It is also the paradox of starting a business in these areas that are staying empty, one cannot often file a report or will be able to because police cannot help them, and then people who claim its all political, you all need to get your head examined.

When businesses cannot do business, they will fail, I know I am bringing in my experience and training for some Einstein level formulas here, but it is true. All of this means businesses cannot do business, they cannot earn money, they cannot survive, and it shows in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago Detroit, Portland, Seattle, New York. No money from business means business cannot open places, means less jobs, means less money those workers can get. What honestly shocks me is that his is very easy to grasp and a lot of people cannot figure out why after shoplifting at a place for months on end, that it would close down. Those losses from shoplifting means that prices will often have to be increased.

Security and keeping everything safe means that moving forward we will have more stores falter and without a way to fight back consider seeing more models of stores adopt the Walgreens setup. It is something that the next generation of business able to handle it well will be able to make money moving forward, but until then it is still a rough ride.

Stay Strong.

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What Is The Problem…

When I was out there was a lot. A lot of things that make no sense in the city of Portland. I was going to do two whole posts but I will change that plan, a little bit. Portland is my home, it has been my family when there was no family for me and seeing it go the way it has been has been painful. No one is doing well in the city it seems. It all hurts.

This post, the plan is to go over some of the bigger things and then the next one should be about why is all this happening. First problem is with the crime. Simple enough problem, looking up some people may go to the point and blame the cops, but in this case they do not seem to be the bearers of the lion’s share of the blame. Remember in the past few years the police have had item after item taken away because they were used in the riots and they stopped the riots. They had their budget cut after those riots were filled with people who threw everything from eggs, rocks and fireworks at them. All that right there would be enough to have the police station completely lose their heart.

Also, I know people will bring it up. Yes, not all police are good, but the inverse is true as well, and I have met both. When the police screw up there will be nobody faster then me to call it, but to do that we have to keep track of some laurels, and to my experience, there has been a lot of things that police could have left for and they are staying despite what feels the leadership in the county prosecutors office and in city hall trying to stop them. Those are the sources of leadership for the police as well as the office in charge with charging for crimes. When those two do not do their jobs, when they abdicate their duty for the sake of feelings of the smooth brained then, like a lot of officers have, you will wonder why you are doing it and either walk away from the city, from your badge or both.

When shoplifting gets so bad that businesses run out closing everything including some of the biggest in the country closing down locations, we have a problem. No one feels safe and a good portion of Portlanders, have been clueless to this until it directly hits them. When those people open the business to have everything jacked in the day and the police cannot come, because they are taking care of over doses, murder attempts and shootings then you feel powerless. The police cannot multiply themselves and because of how have been treated you need to pay them a kings ransom for anyone to come in.

Look up “Portland is” on Google, leave it blank, this is what was my results. A pun on the county prosecutor who failed to such a level, that now his name is a slang term for badly run event or time frame. There have been times where I have tried to screw up in my specialties, and it would not have sniffed that level of excellence in failure. Wait, I can hear it now.

“Um, that was clearly taken from a page with your profile signed in, of course it will be anti leadership, it won’t do that on a private page.” sounding like someone trying to breathe through an ocarina.

Unfortunate for that point that this is here too.

For those who still want to complain, take your L, back of the line.

This is not good. If this does not change, we are going to see it get a lot worse, right now with how bad the rest of the country has been and the money of those thinking they can hold their breath before profits plummet on things like land. All of this will be the best it looks for quite a while. Money problems from management and how the markets are trying to sit through it, that is not the sign of a healthy market. It is the sign of a market who need to get enough to cover there needs and they would not get it now otherwise they would have sold already. All of the squalor has gotten so bad that police need to escort firefighters, in some areas to fight a fire because of homeless camps.

Willamette Week reports here https://twitter.com/wweek/status/1677342515031322633

I will say twitter is the prime website for watching dumpster fires. Things have gotten so bad firefighters need to weak Kevlar. Before you ask if that is part of natural kit, no it is not. Kevlar is not great for fighting fires but it handles bullets fairly well. https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2021/09/portland-firefighters-to-get-bulletproof-vests-as-risks-increase.html

How it feels dealing with the top echelon of failures.

We don’t need a change, we need a lot of them.

Stay strong. Next part is why.

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…..

Is there a need to say it?

Might as well at this point.

So, today’s contribution for me being the next oracle of delphi is fresh from the Oregonian. Mind you, this is the biggest paper in the region, and when I was beating the drums that we have problems back when we could have fixed it without major issue a few years ago, there had been some who had called me out for being pessimistic because the Oregonian didn’t talk about it. Go. Read the Opinion from the paper that people said they will come around when this paper does. While you do that please be aware of all the things in the past tense. The tense that things already occurred, the tense that actions have been committed.

The only reason I bring it up that I was right, was because I do not want to hear ow so many people could not have seen it.

https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2023/04/editorial-oregon-is-dealt-a-blow.html

Look at it all, read the article and let it echo especially if you were the kind thinking I as pessimist, because those people with high end college degrees? I was right. The city commissioners who said they know better? I was right. The people who lived in the pearl or in the expensive towers who thought they had a better grasp? I was right. People who thought measure 110 was going to happen and make the city perfect when I thought it would make it right? The only right was me, and all the others who could read to a third grade level and could see what was going on, and not be given nice words or pretty pictures when all of it is fake.

Between blog posts, less then seven days, no less then a business has shuddered a day. A day brings the death toll for a business some with thirty, forty, fifty years and all of them are now shells. Considering there are not enough to replace them means a bit of a problem. No longer helping the community, no longer making it better. Some may think I am being a bit crass, but when you are right, time and time again, and people do not listen, because I am not the only one, this is not some rocket science we are calculating on our fingers here.

I want Portland to be better, I want it to be the city I love again. However, the people who are so lost seem to put their hands up just saying an oops and then walking off like they did the right thing anyway. Well things have been a bit of a riddle, because I do not have the supplies to make any store or anywhere in Portland right now, not enough anyway to make more of a difference. Because one has to remember there is not a lot of help from the police, insurance is going to be higher, and often times one has to defend themselves, their has to be a way, but their needs to be a way to bring about ideas for business that bring back some of the safety of before.

Until the next time.

Stay Strong.

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Choppy Waters

Welp, it’s been a couple of weeks again. Sorry about that. Unfortunately, some numbers have come out based on the city where it has to be said. Portland is now in a position where the problems they have constructed for themselves will be fixed slowly, which is unfortunate. This was brought up by KOIN 6 news and reported on by the News for Reasonable People channel( A name I get a giggle from whenever I watch their videos). Also, they are a channel with a view on more of the business and property lens. However, human issues make enough appearances to be counted on being shown.

So, what am I talking about? Currently, the violence in Portland has been growing, and the cost of living has been rising throughout the country, even more so in Portland. More drugs, less quality public education, and less business have been happening. Now we have a business vacancy rate getting close to a third. That means that about 73% of spaces are filled. Which would be good, except most people need to learn that cities account for something like 95% to be filled on a bad year for tax reasons. If businesses are not in buildings, they aren’t making money, no money, no tax, and the budget is reduced, and while a lot of places have had to deal with many of these things, Portland has been ranked third last in recovering from the pandemic. We are ranked 60 out of 62, with a wild guess being able to figure out the two below us.

This has now reached a point that, save for a miracle of high-class thought and action from our city commissioners, this will not be good for a while. Five years, maybe ten, maybe thirty. The time frame depends on how shit others are after this. What will be something is that now we are in a position where it will most likely be this way for quite a while, and a lot of Portlanders are okay with that.

Not because there is a wealth of ideas or thoughts. Actually, it’s because most Portlanders only know or care to know once they have to. As a result, portlanders generally boil down into two groups.

  1. They are in a position to ignore everything until something happens, as they get robbed, their children are in danger, or their life’s work is destroyed.
  2. They are so poor and just trying to hold it together; unfortunately, they just had to get used to it.

This is sad because what comes next is not going to be fun for a lot of people. It will not be able to be fixed quickly because people do not want to see it. It won’t be the end of the world, but for those who think Portland is going back to the 2000’s era dominance, this will be bad news.

Good times will come at some point, but we have some choppy waters.

Stay Strong and Carry On.

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Hyper Plans

Welcome all to a running tally of my madness. No, not really, but still I bet some of you have felt the same things working on your stuff for so long, and with some writers finding some peace after NanoWrimo. When it feels like there is always more to do and the body cannot handle all of it sometimes makes you think you never should have tried. I happen to fall in the trap of thinking as one thing cannot be done as fast as I would like that it would be worthless for me to do it at all.

On top of everything else I am going back to college and I could be getting some medical help for something that has been bothering me for a long time now. For those who do not know, between the fights, the diet, the issues of my body not absorbing well had made my teeth that more of a hockey smile versus regular smile and it has been something that people have been made nervous seeing it, and I had just finished the paperwork to get some help.

I could be going to college, and while some may some it has less value then ever there are certain holes in my game it could help cover and I will love to learn about how to do that especially if I do not need to be the one to pay in ( That is the trick after all.) This is more of a future bet on myself to use the training for something that could get me back on my feet despite all the damage this body has carried over the years.

Finally, the big thing of what is going on and that is the food company is coming together there are more things being filled out in the business plan and soon there will be a need to start getting the word out. Costing has gone well I felt and even with the containers at the worst profit margin one could it had been something that came out where I wanted which may be bad or good but it provides the best price point without being so cheap that people find something wrong with it, people had done that before from what I sold and it was a painful lesson. Sell at the point where people feel comfortable, because that is a thing, and if you did not know that, now you do. I would say find it just high enough that it invites faith in the product through their price point but not so high where people are needlessly taken out of potentially buying it, because that is not what we want, we ant people to enjoy the thing we make at the base value.

I say it all here because I have a habit of going too low and suddenly think there is something wrong with it. This is more for me and look back to go, ‘hey, ya you talked about it, take your own advice.’ Sometimes we need to give ourselves such advice I have pushed myself far, but it has been something that we can make a lot of progress on things and while I still need to balance some things it is times like these I wish I would get my old batteries back.

Wishes are like ifs and buts, candies and nuts, Toronto still gets no cup, or however the line went, in any case there is still some energy going through me and that means there is still stuff to be done so please take the time and peruse some of the things you may find on the books page, right now everything on there is for free, but I am also editing my own original works and those will have a price after some people who write more for a living, and learning how I can use each place I post as something different.

This post is going to sound like a kid hopped up on sugar and I do not care, we are looking at things for the indiegogo plan so if there is something you want to see , please let me know, follow me in the spots I wark at and I hope the stuff I can do makes your day brighter in some aspect.

Seasons Greetings and Stay Strong

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