Comments

1
Sweet. Shut it down.
5
I wonder how many of these people will work on what they see as Injustice next week, week after that, month after that. And so on. Most likely it'd be in the single digits percentage wise of those out there today. How many protested yesterday? Last Week? Last month?

To a lot of people they'll be seen as just like the May Day "Anarchist" protesters. They only come out for "Events". They aren't Anarchist year round. As it doesn't matter year round. Only a few days a year when they can get a good photo op.
6
@3 and @4, what WOULD it take to get you to shut up about that? So far you just sound like a scary, stalkery, asshole. No matter what she did I'm pretty sure she is not a worse person than you, ya psycho!

8
From the Times:

“Everyone out here is getting their consumerism on and not paying attention to the things that matter. They’re out here buying trinkets and things, when there’s more important things like racism.”

- Jessica Smart, member of Socialist Alternative

So Jessica Smart never shops because racism? Or is she morally superior cause she decided not to shop today and will buy her useless shit at a later date?

I get BLM, but seems that quite a few have attached themselves to soak up some smug self-satisfaction.
9
OT, but possible terrorist attack on Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, at least 11 injured, including five cops. A gunman who has been captured and says he was acting alone had hostages at the clinic. It's not clear yet if he targeted the clinic or if it's where he happened to end up.
10
@3 4 & 7: Hey Stalker McStalkerson. You and all your comments? Reported.
11
@9, scroll down the page a bit.
12
Thanks for the reporting, guys. Glad you're on the street doing some actual journalism instead of masturbating to Adele like the rest of the staff back at the office.
13
#blacklivesmatter is achieving their goal of interrupting families trying to celebrate Christmas, but I wonder when they will do more movement building, the strategic but vitally important work of political power building like electing people of color, building a narrative that wins hearts and minds rather than turns them off like some of the shoppers today, and perhaps recruiting people from within their movement to be police officers so the change can come from within. Protest is only one part of social change, but to achieve the change you believe in there needs to be so much more.
14
@11

Thanks. Never even saw that post, but I saw some that came later.
15
Yeah, maybe Black Lives Matter will go away if we concern troll them hard enough. Oh, you're aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalienting families! I'm so wooooooooooorrried about you.

Gosh I wonder if BLM even knows we just had an election! They could have tried to elect some people of color! What a missed opportunity. They need some help, maybe I'll give them MY advice!
16
More liberals, creating the economic conditions that cause the working class to suffer first & most

Ahhhh.. History...
17
@16: Hey, remember what happened to the economy in late 2008? Nice attempt at making shit up.
18
@16:

What are you talking about? Most of the shit people are out buying today is manufactured by sweatshop labor, political prisoners, and children, for corporations who outsourced hundreds of thousands of jobs the working class depended on to countries where there IS no working class, at least not as we know it. Now, who is it again causing the working class to suffer?
20
Nice job disrupting/interrupting an event that benefits foster kids. And who is over-represented in the foster care system? Black lives. Why not Snowflake Lane next year, if they really want to make a point?
21
@16 What I'm talking about is the many service sector, hospitality and manufacturing jobs at risk when you mess with a urban/metro retail economy. Go ahead and lock down the city. White, affluent consumers (the object of your ire, natch) -- whose sales taxes fuel your pet social projects -- just found another reason to shop Amazon.
22
Whew, good thing I saw that [non-black person / person sneering at an old lady or child / someone who used bad language / someone who looked to me like they might not have a job / college student / muslim / person with a dumb sign / person who isn't oppressed enough to protest / person who is too uneducated to protest / liberal / communist / anarchist / communist] at the protest this year! Another narrow escape from that sticky-icky moral-obligation feeling that comes with the knowledge that millions of people MIGHT JUST BE upset about something that's real and really bad. Try again next year protesters - I'm sure SOME DAY you'll be able to protest about something in a way that isn't fundamentally undermined by myopic nit-picking critiques!

Sincerely,
Seattle Interurban Legitimacy Council
23
Yes.... This is all sooooooo meaningful.

Like "Occupy"

(yawn)
24
Awesome, well done Seattle! Great to see such a turn out (except for that white black bloc asshat). Great reporting!
25
Here's the thing: Given our region's political views as expressed by the electorate, I would guess that most of the people at Westlake today would agree that black lives do indeed matter. Some of them even grasp the concept of white privilege and institutionalized racism. Even most of those who insist that "all lives matter" are not rejecting black lives - they are just missing the point that when it comes to black lives, we as a society don't seem to care all that much.

And I'd argue that the Black Lives Matter protesters are also missing the point. If you were downtown today shopping or working or attending the tree lighting or just getting away from the house after yesterday's family togetherness, you are not by doing that rejecting the fact that black lives matter. By being downtown on Black Friday you are not some dumb racist who lives to buy cheap crap because you have no meaning to you life. You are just a person who is doing a thing. It's OK as a protester to be present at that thing to tell people about your thing, but if you just bitch and scold or make it confrontational and insist that by being downtown a person is stupid and/or racist, no one is going to listen to you, and folks are going to get defensive.

26
"As expressed by the electorate"...
You mean the record-low turnout in November?

Typical of the Seattle liberal to think -- over COURSE everyone agrees with us.

Rather, vast shares of Seattle realize that city gov. is irrelevant to their everyday lives, inconsequential to the real challenges of a city -- and so are punting on civic participation. Atlas indeed shrugs.

This indulgent millennial temper tantrum -- BLM -- will be declared 'important' by the unimportant, result in nothing for those in need, and fizzle until another sense of aggrievement emerges on Twotter from the coddled class.

Ho Ho Hum...
28
@21:

I'll assume for the moment you aren't in fact commenting back to your own comment - but that wouldn't surprise me terribly, either.

Would these be the same jobs the Right so vehemently insists do not benefit from Minimum Wage laws, or paid sick leave or parental leave laws? Who don't deserve affordable health care or child care? So, NOW you're all of a sudden the "friend of the worker", but tomorrow you'll be back to your usual denigrating them and feeling smug that YOU weren't the one being required to work on Thanksgiving Day for $9 an hour in order to facilitate you and your ilk literally falling all over yourselves in a mad rush to rip out of each others hands all that cheap crap made overseas and sold by companies so rapacious they have to ask you to drop food donations in boxes for their own employees.

Yeah, I'll just bet you're the best friend of the Worker since Eugene Fucking Debbs...
30
@28 you seem pretty confident for someone whose economic theories have been wildly disproven in every place tried. In fact, wages and hours aren't set by employers. They are determined by the people that accept the work in voluntary association with employers. Nobody is FORCED to work. If someone doesn't want to work for $9 hour on a holiday -- do something else. Now: That may require acquiring skills, education, physical labor or working outdoors. But that's what we call 'choices' But you're not doing anyone a favor pretending that higher minimum wages will solve a problem. It just creates new ones.

31
Oh Zok, It's probably best that people like you don't get involved in government - city or otherwise - because you apparently have such a hard time dealing with "everyday life" to fill out a form and mail in an envelope every year or so. God only knows what sort of retrograde candidates you'd vote for.

In the meantime, the people that vote - those dreaded "Seattle Liberals" - own your ass, no matter what ever Randian fantasy you enjoy. Everything from the water you drink to the garbage you put out, to the power you use. Even the people you employ - if, God help them - it ever comes to that.
33
Its not healthy for people to be so angry as we enter a holiday season. Its not good for Seattle.
34
The water I drink is processes nd delivered by private water system (one of dozens of private water & sewage systems in King Co), my garbage is collected by a for-profit company (Waste Management), and much of the electricity in King Co is generated and delivered by PSE -- owned by Maquarie Consortium Australia. So please pause before you think how much government really does for you.

You don't own anything. Once upon a time the resources of commerce were fixed: Land & factories. Now the work is about people, ideas, information and financial capital -- which can pack up and move wherever it pleases. It's shown you it can, and economics tells it that it will.

No, it is your ass that is owned, as the worlds economy chooses to move away from you.

Enjoy your lower wages, erratic hours and government healthcare. (Just don't get sick)
35
@21: ...are you saying that our economic woes are the result of protesters messing up traffic? Way to ignore the elephant in the room.

@30: "someone whose economic theories have been wildly disproven in every place tried"
That's real cute. Hey, how much wealth has trickled down again? How's austerity working out for Yurop? MAKING SHIT UP AS USUAL.
"In fact, wages and hours aren't set by employers. They are determined by the people that accept the work in voluntary association with employers."
Aaand way to ignore the fact that without unionization, workers have negligible say in determining what hours they work and what wages they're offered. Say, are you for or against the union shop?

Gish Gallop, Zok, Gish Gallop.
36
@34: As it turns out, local water and sewage utilities in King County are only feasible because the county sells them water and maintains central sewage processing plants. This is a prime example of government getting shit done; they amass the capital and manpower needed to build the communal infrastructure, and then everyone benefits from it.

And for all your prattling about how the powerless workers should bow before their corporate masters, you would do well to consider the need for actual production facilities and labor, a need which will not go away until after humanity achieves post-scarcity status. Today's economy revolves around ideas, but it still takes workers and infrastructure to turn ideas into things.
38
@27, 29, 37 huh ? WTF ?

@16, 21, 26, 30, 34 way to show your Ayn Rand fetish.

Catalina, Comte, venom: thanks !
39
"If all lives really mattered, there wouldn't be a need for BlackLivesMatter."

The only important thing said, and it was on a hand-lettered sign.
41
BLM, from Birmingham to Bellingham.

"So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists…

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?"

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Ge…
42
well, this thread certainly was edifying.
43
@35 venomdouche
Typical of a socialist to look at how much wealth hasn't trickle down instead of how much wealth they have. -- relative to other models. Capitalism has been kind to you. It's your envy of the relative economic value of others that has you in a funk.

Speaking of myths: European austerity.

Marginal cuts to planned spending in economies bloated by government does not make for "austerity". What was the austerity. 30% cuts in actual spending, or 3% in planned (deficit) spending? Europe is the equivalent of cutting up 2 of 16 maxed out credit cards and announcing you thriftiness. A political stunt you rubes fell for as truth.

As for unions? How have they turned-out for places they were most prominent? Detroit? St Louis? Camden? The DMV? California -- where despite the benefit of land, location, climate and infrastructure, still has 1/4 of its people in poverty trying to service Union pension obligations?

44
Oh Zok, still, as ever, placing the blame squarely where it doesn't belong. People are poor because THEY have to service union pension obligations? Your ass must be as clean as a surgical theatre, what with all the shit you constantly pull out of it with your own hands.
45
Sorry, but who do you think PAYS for the pension? You think it was the worker who covered his/her costs? (Please tell me your not that naive.)

No Union pensions are leveraged off the backs of subsequent generations of workers (like social security and its insolvency) who -- because of the cost burden of their labor -- make them economically unattractive to hire, and so find themselves without jobs. (Witness the auto plants heading south, and Boeing shifting to Carolina.)

And you can unionize them there, and they will just shift elsewhere. Economics finds a way.

Want to know who is a primary source of funding all those expensive developments in Seattle and risky derivative schemes that wobble Wall Street?

Union pension funds chasing exorbitant returns to stay afloat.

Look at Hillarys top donors (all of them Wall Street megafinance firms) because they and the unions need to keep the top spinning.

While you and your rube friends are sitting around wondering what happened to your state guaranteed security, the rest of us have gone postnational...
47
Zok dear, how old are you? You sound like one of those dreadful old men who call into radio programs.
48
I'm glad it was peaceful with only minor problems. Though until there is a real life revolution on the streets nothing will change. But it sure does make for compelling news reporting.
49
@45:

No, pensions were and always have been a burden of the employer, THAT'S why they're called "employer" or "defined" contribution plans. The fact that in the 1970's and '80's companies started to raid their pension funds to meet shareholder expectations (i.e. to increase profit and boost stock value - which, unsurprisingly, generated HUGE benefits for stockholders AND upper management), underfunded them for decades for the same reason, and invested them in the financial crap shoot we commonly refer to as "the stock market" are the reason why they went to hell in a handbasket, NOT because workers got greedy or there were too many of them to cover under traditional DC's. Shifting costs onto workers ,as has occurred with literally every other traditionally negotiated employer derived benefit (e.g. health insurance and 401(K)'s), has simply become the new paradigm in a world where the company maximizes profit by screwing the very people - workers - who create that profit in the first place.

Same with Social Security. If the Republicans in Congress would stop raiding from the Social Security Trust Fund every few years, and start paying back the nearly 3 TRILLION DOLLARS they've already "borrowed" to fund foreign wars of aggression and tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy (about one quarter of which is directly attributable to a single U.S. Presidential administration - and no, it's not Obama, in case you need a hint), the Surplus Fund would remain solvent for the next 75 years or so without any adjustments required. As it is, when the Treasury is legally mandated to start repaying the bonds issued to the Social Security Administration starting in 2020, the money squandered on these boondoggles will eventually be returned where it belongs, and the workers who begin retiring at around that same time won't have anything to worry about; assuming of course the GOP doesn't start shoving their hand back into the cookie jar once there's a little more there for the taking.
50
Do you believe that?

The UAW and Teamster funds are localized and co-managed by the unions. Calpers is managed by the executive branch, using Union employees.

If your suppositions re social security are true, why did Clinton nor Obama correct when the Dems held the executive and congress? Hmmmmmm...
51
@43: Ah, the deflection of Zok frantically trying to do damage control. I attack trickle-down economics (the idea that the best way to boost the economy is to give money to the rich) and he mounts a spirited (if lazy and indistinct) defense of capitalism.
Zok, what makes you think I'm against capitalism? I'm against a purely capitalist society, certainly, but I'm also against a purely socialist society. Both capitalism and socialism are inherently flawed models, but judicious application of elements of both can be successful, each complementing the shortcomings of the other.

I think it says a lot about you that rather than defend your previous statements or attack my claims, your immediate reaction is to attack what you vaguely think I said.

As for austerity, I direct your attention to this little overview.
52
Of course, the arbiter of "the right amount of socialism" to inject into a free market model is: The people who would benefit from tinkering with the system (tyrants, the uncompetitive and the bureaucrats.)

What your dime store critique of austerity fails to point out is that budget cuts to planned spending were offset by massive increases in taxation, causing capital flight, and do government spending as a percent of total actually INCREASED, and so not austere at all.

http://www.cato.org/publications/comment…

Not until Europe reduces its tax rates AND is expenditures will it become a growing economy. When you start importing refugees (consumers and cheap labor) not out of compassion but as a hedge against your own demogrpahic stagnation, you know Europe has been fucked over by its nanny state ambitions.
53
@50:

Look, if you're just going to spout off whatever drivel you've absorbed from Free State or The Cato Institute or The Heritage Foundation or wherever, then nobody is going to take you seriously.

Oh, wait. Nevermind...

But be that as it may, you can blame management squarely for the demise of UAW & Teamster pension funds in the auto industry; or perhaps you weren't aware of how, in 2007, right before the world-wide economic melt-down, GM, for example, raided the UAW pension monies set aside for retirees in order to use the money for "severance payouts" to downsized workers, which of course not only decimated the funds, but simultaneously reduced their workforce, and combined it with a system whereby new-hires wouldn't even be eligible for pension going forward - a status forced on the union in order to avoid even more draconian cuts to the future benefits of still-working members. Strangely, none of this had to come out of GM's pocket - or profit-margin - it ALL came out of the pension trust. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that GM hasn't MADE contributions to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (which is supposed to be a bulwark against companies that gut their promised benefit packages to employees) since 2003, which means WE will eventually have to make up any shortfall, instead of GM, so they get off Scott-free on that as well.

But yeah, you just keep right on blaming those lazy, greedy, shiftless union workers, because they're the ones doing all the damage, not the beneficent company for whom those workers generate profit.
55
@53

Thank you for making my point. The early pension buyout and two-tier wage plan were Union-negotiated and UAW-approved plans to pay people today, who know the system isn't susrtainable in future.

Basically Union "brothers" fucking each other over in their own Ponzi scheme.

Again, tell us where these strong unions are doing such a great job at creating sustained market opportunities?
56
I'm impressed Zok your ignorance of economics, markets, history, politics and the relationships between labor and management (union or nonunion) truly knows no bounds. Yet fearless you rant on spouting half truths, misconstructions of cause and effect, flawed historical analysis, and out right falsehoods in an attempt to assert some sort of moral and intellectual superiority.

Way fly that "I'm a blind ignorant Randian fool" flag high. You go girl, preach it.
58
Um, no @55, it was either take the package management held over their heads like the proverbial Sword of Damocles, or GM would have closed up shop altogether, sending some 200,000 employees out the door, not to mention the ripple-effect this would have had on suppliers, dealers, and other related businesses, thus pounding the final nail into an economy teetering on the brink of recession, and plunging the nation, and probably a large part of the world into an economic death-spiral that would have taken far longer to recover from than the recession we did end up with.

And before you go on with your expected rant about how the Big, Bad Unions were the source of G.M.'s malaise, let's consider all the other bone-headed moves made by management prior to this: failure to declare bankruptcy some four years earlier when it would have had far less detrimental impact on both the company and the economy; an endless stream of post-9/11 buyer incentives that squeezed an overly bloated dealer-franchise network and forced them to keep sticker prices high to compensate; scrapping its early Electric Vehicle program, into which the company had invested billions of dollars, and which in turn allowed Toyota to gain a significant market-share with their Prius line; selling controlling interest in GMAC, which was actually a money-maker for the company; failing to heed the advice of its own board of directors, who ironically as far back as 2006 were pushing for precisely the sorts of changes that were forced on G.M. as part of the subsequent federal bail-out package; and not to mention the complete and utter bollixing of its purchase of a 20% stake in Fiat. Troubles with the UAW fall far down below these transgressions, ALL of which were perpetrated by management (and most especially by then-CEO Rick Wagoner, who received a $10 mm Golden Parachute, including a $75,000 per year guaranteed-for-life pension for his incompetence); neither the workers nor their bargaining representatives had any say in this cascading series of self-inflicted catastrophes, but they were certainly forced to make sacrifices as a result of them, or else risk losing their livelihoods.

The simple, irreducible fact is that the pension buyout and tiered wage plan agreed to by the UAW bargaining team and ratified by its members was the perhaps ONLY thing that allowed the company to remain solvent long enough to benefit from the federal bailout; had it not been for that, we'd all still be digging ourselves out of the resulting economic Depression, and many of those hundreds of thousands of displaced workers would mostly still be looking for non-existent jobs.

I guess you can call that "fucking" if that's how you like to take it, but from the perspective of pretty much everyone else, it was more akin to avoiding a potentially fatal bullet, and we should be grateful, not disparaging, of the UAW and its members for taking the hit for our collective benefit.
59
@57:

Which only demonstrates how little you cared about their cause in the first place...
60
@58
Ahahahahahahahaaaaaa...
Everything you learned about economics was learned on a placard (or Huffpo). Jesus do some critical thinking for once.

Tell us -- you negotiating wizard -- how much more than they were willing to accept was GM supposed to offer? Or, at a personal level; How much more than a dealer is willing to accept should you offer for a car -- to be fair and such?

The reason the union took the deal is because in the absence of those gigs, there is nobody else willing to pay mostly unskilled labor $58 an hour to work Sundays! And that gap, between what unions demand and the market demands is the opportunity gap, inviting employers to leave, competitors to rise offshore, and for companies to make it back up when the tables turn.

Of companies were going to go belly up... FINE! It's necessary part of the market that risk takers accept the outcome. Enjoy your moral hazards!
61
Let your kids remain kids, don't rope them into your political rallies. I know one day these issues will be affecting them (and likely, their turn to attempt solving), but if your kid is too young to even spell the word "oppression," they're much too young to be there.
62
Oh Zok, it's not that I expect much from you - really nobody here does - but if you're going to just make shit up, please attempt to have it sound at least a little bit credible. For example, I suppose it's theoretically possible a small number of assembly line workers with 20 years seniority might earn $58 an hour working on a Sunday at, say double-overtime, but given that the average hourly rate for the industry is about $15 an hour, that's going to be a very small number indeed.

As for the work being "unskilled", well sure, it's not rocket surgery, and doesn't require an advanced degree, but it's still a highly complex, technically-demanding position. Assembly line workers need to be able to read and correctly interpret engineering schematics; operate advanced computer, mechanical and robotic systems; safely handle hazardous materials; and maintain rigorous quality control specifications - all this above-and-beyond the demanding physical labor required. So, no it's definitely not the equivalent of flipping burgers or scrubbing toilets - jobs that, in many instances and in many locations pay more than the industry average of $32,000 per year. That said, I'll bet it would be possible to find any number of slightly-above-average junior high school students who could do your job with a few days training, but that shouldn't be the standard we uphold to determine its relative value to the overall economy, right?

Nevertheless, you seem to count yourself among those who would have jumped for joy to see the U.S. Auto Industry go belly up, throwing hundreds of thousands out of work, ruining the domestic economy in the process, and leaving many of your fellow citizens standing in breadlines or selling the 21st Century equivalent of Apples on street corners, while you presumably sat safe, happy, and fat in your makeshift Galt's Gulch somewhere in Latin America, but fortunately for the rest of us, people like you don't get to decide these things.

So, just keep right on spewing your Libertarian bullshit; but don't look now, you're standing in it up to your eyeballs.
63
@61:

That's a nice thought - except for the very sobering, very depressing fact that those same kids are being gunned down by cops at nearly the same rate as their parents. So, I guess one could counter argue that: if they're old enough to BE oppressed, they're old enough to fight against it.
64
@61 I was 6 and lived a block way when the tanks rolled down the streets in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland Ohio. Was I old enough? Or how about Tamir Rice's friends are they old enough? Sometimes we don't get to choose how old we are when we experience stuff.

65
@62 Comrade Comte

You have a silly, watery-eyed view of what it takes to build cars. In fact, the GM contract paid 58 on Sundays for only 8 years experience, ( and padded with other no competitive splurges)

And despite all your hyperbole about the skills and rigors of the job, please understand that the machines and processes are now designed to avoid union labor costs -- that can be accomplished by workers anywhere in the world. Witness:

http://youtu.be/447sSED91v0

What you don't seem to understand in your tiny aliberal mind is that these things aren't decided by me or a "group of people" -- as you've imagined your oppressors. I am but one of millions of people with ideas, capital and ambition, increasingly able and willing to move around the world to find financial, physical and social circumstances that meet my preferences. And the consequences of those decisions, -- whether ANYTHING gets built on the terms you desire -- will be a function of the economic and political ecology we decide to participate in. Some of us will be amazingly philanthropic. Some of us will be amazingly selfish. But ultimately, despite you anti-libertarian protests, individuals will make their choices.

How odd that you sit in the middle of Seattle, a city booming with capital escaping the costs of SF, tech talent escaping the oppressions of Asia, serving companies that could locate in any other area -- and deny that market economies will now move where it finds opportunity.

So go ahead and raise min wages, assess penalties on developers, make more demands....

The same forces (a constellation of productive individuals) will continue to find alternatives to you. And the future will kick your ass.

68
@65: In other words, you don't care about any of the points COMTE made. You don't have to take shit from anybody, economists or otherwise? Why is this? Because apparently you're simply the mild-mannered alter ego of the Invisible Hand.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that, buddy.
70
That's it Zog keep impressing us with your sophomoric high school level analysis, we are all very impressed.

@69 Just because you are unaware of it doesn't mean education issues are not being addressed as part BLM. It just doesn't grab the headlines like police brutality. Nice attempt to deflect by victim blaming though.
73
@68

Yes, please tell us how great Chicago is...
75
@71&72 Nope and nope.

76
@69: It's easy to tell kids to study harder when they don't have access to books.
@71: Maybe if you'd held down a job tutoring underserved students in an underfunded school on the South Side of Chicago, like I've done, you'd know better than to say that last bit.
@73: Chicago's one hell of a city. Vibrant, cultured, and diverse, with a sort of industrial down-to-earth culture that stops it from getting too froofy. Before you talk shit about it, try living there. Sure, taxes are high there, whatever; I say you get what you pay for.

You guys can bitch about Democratic governance all you want, but it's Bruce Rauner who wants to make cuts to those who can least afford it, even when the same constituents who voted him in also voted overwhelmingly to tax the rich and raise the minimum wage, not to mention the Democratic supermajority they installed in the state legislature.
78
@71......You left out parents committed to their children's education.
79
@76 a lot of the reasons the schools are underfunded in Chicago are the result of Democratic administrations in the both the city, Cook Cty, and state of illinois. I'm a life-long democrat who grew up in ILL and lived several years in Chicago, and even I recognize a lot of the ills of that city have their roots in Democrat policies and the machine that was Chicago and Illinois politics.

Discrimination and racism were hallmarks of the Democrat machine for years. Insane property taxes and real estate values make the idea of living a middle class life a stretch for a lot of folks in the city, and it is in many ways a 2-tiered city. I would not use Chicago as a poster-child for successful applications of Democrat or Progressive ideas and policies.
80
Here's all you need to know about how fucked up Chicago & Illinois are:

The state is undertaking a reduction in government program, as they have come to realize there are over 7,000 (SEVEN THOUSAND) different government units in the state.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/71/11…

And the State of Washington – 1,831.

That's how fucked Chicago is: With 3.5x the number of agencies, bureaus, committees and programs to steal from people and bog-down progress.

Chicago is only "great" if you're from Sandusky. And it won't survive the next downturn. It's Greece without the nice weather.

81
@zok: You seem to think that nobody is worth anything, so is your proposal for people to just get paid shit and the economy to implode as wealth accumulates in fewer and fewer hands?
82
@80: Illinois also has nearly twice as many people as Washington and twice the population density. And you're surprised that there are more government agencies out there?
Go ahead and predict doom all you want, you piss-ant. Look at murder rate, poverty rate, whatever; Chicago doesn't even make it into the top ten worst. It's still recovering from what President Bush 43 did to the economy, but it'll endure.
83
@82
Hahahahahaha... What Bush 43 did to Chicago?

Chicago has an unbroken streak of Democratic mayors since Anton Cermak in 1931, and including one Daley family dynasty of 43 years. The labyrinthine governmental structure was built to create patronage, and there isn't a serious person alive that doesn't know that its fucked up and unsustainable. Don't try and pawn off the sleaze of that state on some president that served for less than 10% of this continuous run of graft and foolishness by Cook Co. Democrats: (Blagojevich and other imprisoned governors ( Ryan,Walker,Kerner Jr.), Rostenkowski, Jackson Jr).

And here comes Rahm Emanuel -- who settled for $5 million but hid a tape of a kid being shot for 13 months.

Okay, Illinois has more people: Ever heard of "economies of scale?"

Chicago may not be in the top 10 for murder rate, but look at those who are – they are just junior versions of Chicago politics, governance and – increasingly – culture.

15 East Chicago, IN
14 Compton, CA
13 Baltimore, MD
12 St. Louis, MO
11 Harvey, IL
10 Newark, NJ
9 New Orleans, LA
8 Trenton, NJ
7 Detroit, MI
6 Flint, MI
5 Saginaw, MI
4 Chester, PA
3 Gary, IN
2 Camden, NJ
1 East St. Louis, IL

"We're Not In the Worst 10 Murder Cities" is a pretty backhanded compliment for a place. Its kinda' like saying, "He's okay...because he's not the worst Nazi I've met." 

Dimwit...
84
@83: I see you neglect to mention all the Republican governors of Illinois, who have had comparable influence to mayors of Chicago when it comes to affecting the city. Did you know that in recent history, Republicans have held the governorship for nearly twice as much time as Democrats? Illinois politics are dominated by the political machine, but the political machine of both parties. It's incredibly dishonest to paint the issues stemming from political patronage as a Democratic (or Republican) issue.
And do you really need to ask what President George W. Bush did to Chicago? I dunno, maybe his policies crashed the economy across the entire nation, and maybe Chicago is a city built on industry. Maybe when the guy at the top shits the bed, it hurts the country.
For that matter, they call Chicago "the city that works". Why? Because the Chicago tradition of political corruption has historically been the sort where some is skimmed off the top, but not enough to seriously impair the operation of the city. You might give lucrative contracts to your buddies, but they'd get the job done. It's not perfect, but far worse things have happened to cities.

On that note, where the hell are you getting your information from? They're either inaccurate or woefully out of date, to judge from the FBI's UCRs. Secondly, you think Chester PA is remotely like Chicago, and you call ME the dimwit?
So your argument is that Chicago has a big crime problem because, according to you, the cities that have big crime problems are kind of like Chicago. Do you actually expect anyone to buy that hand-waving bullshit?

You all like to talk about Chicago as if it's the murder capital of the nation, because when you hear "Chicago", all your feeble minds can come up with is Al Capone. And big cities have big crime problems, right? Well, even just looking at cities of 250,000 people or more (and ignoring entirely all smaller municipalities such as Camden and Gary), a whopping EIGHTEEN are worse; those at the very nadir have literally THREE TIMES the murder rate of the Windy City. But you, selective in your outrage, insist that Chicago has got to be The Worst! And if it's not actually The Worst, well by golly it's got to be responsible for other cities being The Worst! What a pathetically contrived worldview.
85

You keep saying Chicago is a World Class city. So let's look at the murder rate of world class cities, in murders per 100,000. Chicago's murder rate is worse than 3rd world megaplexes like Sao Paulo. And approaching 2.5x Mexico City's criminal death rate.

Singapore 0.4
Tokyo 0.5
Hong Kong 0.6
Berlin 1.0
Sydney 1.0
London 1.4
Toronto 1.7
Amsterdam 1.8
Paris 4.4
New York 6.0
Los Angeles 7.5
Mexico City 8.0
Moscow 9.6
Sao Paulo 15.6
Chicago 19.4

So, congratulations on not being as shitty as many other US cities dominated by New Deal urban economics. It's still, by any measure of World Class cities, a crime-infested dump for most of its citizens. You're just such a booster boy of hometown heroes like Obama and Rahm, that you've lost perspective on what quality cities look like.

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-roo…
86
@85: Nice outdated and cherry-picked stats. The murder rate in Chicago is 15.1 per 100k per year as of 2014, and that little list conveniently leaves out all those enormous cities such as Juarez and Caracas and Fortaleza and Kingston and Durban. And seriously? Do I need to tell you a story about Levaine Tanksley et al. once more?
Note as well that in actual shitty 3rd-world countries, crime is chronically underreported due to inefficacy and corruption of police forces.

One note aside: I don't like Rahm. I think he makes a decent mayor because he plays hardball and therefore can get shit done, but I don't like him. First you think I'm a socialist, then you think I'm a Rahm fan. Where will your errant imagination lead you next?
87
WHEW !!! What a relief that Chicagos slaughter rate is only 2.5x nyc, and 10x Londons. That clarification REALLY helped.

What a fucking amazing city to ONLY kill twice the number as LA.

They call it the Windy City just like the expression "blow job" -- because in actuality, it sucks.
88
@87: First your argument is that Chicago sucks because it has a higher murder rate than some other cities of comparable size. Then your argument is that it doesn't matter how many comparable cities have it worse than Chicago. Then you flip-flop back to the first one, all within two days' time. You've got no ideological consistency besides not liking Chicago.

Also, you don't understand the distinction between counts and rates. Take a basic statistics class if you want to sit at the grown-ups' table.

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