I'll bet you thought that cable TV show, "Portlandia" was a parody...
In it, one character declares that Portland is the place "where young people go to retire."
Well, it turns out that the city once filled with lumberjacks and hard-working people...the city that turned out more than a thousand Liberty and Victory ships in four years to fight the second world war...is now filled with slackers and deadbeats.
A study making news in Oregon says average wages of the college educated workers in Portland have fallen ten percent below the national average...with wages trailing almost three billion dollars behind the rest of the country.
And, it's not due to lack of opportunity. Four times as many college grads here chose the humanities over engineering, for example. And when those grads seek work, they take lower paying jobs working fewer hours than folks elsewhere around America.
And why not? Pot's effectively legal and government subsidies are plentiful...and soon, free health care from President Hope and Change. Worst case, you can stand on a corner and beg.
Like "Portlandia" co-creator, co-writer and co-star Fred Armisen says, the dream of the 90's is alive in Portland.