Comments

1
Warrantless searches. This will end well.
3
Since when does the government need to get a warrant to check your compliance with laws and regulations in accordance with doing business in the public marketplace?
4
@3:

That's what happens when you live in Right-Wing Fantasyland, where the horrible, terrible, very much no-good government is drowned like a baby in a bathtub allowing invisible hands to direct unregulated free markets that trickle-down largesse from the beneficent super-rich "job creators" at the top to the lazy, shiftless masses below. You know, like what you see on FOX News every day.
5
@4 thanks for clearing that up, it all makes sense now.
6
The City Council is really helpful unless: you provide jobs, provide housing,protect and serve, or ask them to be accountable for their decisions and all the money we give them.
7
Pfttt! Like any kind of bureaucracy is going to do any good for the workers of Seattle - all of a sudden. That’s like saying taxpayer-funded contraception is going to make women happy.
8
The fact that passing a new law like this also requires that we create a new law enforcement agency tells you all you need to know about who the Seattle Police Department works for. Ask the to find out if a worker was paid for all the hours they worked, and the SPD says, "Dammit, I'm a detective, not a... person who interviews witnesses and collects evidence related to a suspected violation of the law! Er, not wage law, anyway." Nope, not a police matter.

The SPD doesn't recognize the authority of the city council to make the law, or the supremacy of the voters who elected the council. They cash the checks paid for with your taxes, but they SPD doesn't trust you to make the laws. They are a law unto themselves.

This is good though. The law enforcement we want is going to have to come from agencies other than the police. So be it. Start de-funding the SPD and shift the money into agencies that will serve the people of Seattle. We can accomplish the our public safety and social needs goals with people who don't have a badge and a gun and the baggage of paranoid, violent police culture and police training.

This is the first step down a slippery slope that leads to the SPD shrinking down to a handful of SWAT officers who rarely leave the barracks. See ya.
9
@8, it is disturbing to find myself agreeing with you.
10
@8- wow. That was some mind-numbingly stupid shit right there. Do you also think the police department are responsible for inspecting restaurants for health code violations?
11
@10

Do you think the police are responsible for going around the entire city to see how long cars have been parked?
14
Government wont do shit to help you, just start stealing from your employer. Your boss thinks you do it anyhow.
15
@12 police do patrol the street BEFORE witnessing criminal activity. It's called deterrence, and it is commonly used in high crime areas. You may have heard of it.
17
Sure, how would Seattle like it if the Trump Administration began proactively investigating the Seattle Office of Civil Rights, just in case there are violations of federal law?
18
Well you know, now that you bring it up, SDOT could see which cars have been parked too long and mail the car owner a bill. You don't really need to be trained in hand to hand combat to keep parking too long adequately under control. Just like you don't need a gun to inspect a restaurant or read a gas meter. You don't even need a gun to tell a driver "go over there in that lane, not this lane".

Cops are way too expensive for most of the things they spend their days doing. All the inapplicable combat preparation and training they bring into every situation is expensive. Expensive to train, expensive to equip, expensive to clean up the violent consequences. And yet at the same time, they're under-qualified to deal with each of these specific situations. They're not traffic engineers or social workers or accountants. They specialize in the one thing that is least wanted in most public safety and social services situations.

It's good that we have a labor agency to deal with labor and wage law. It's good that health inspectors inspect restaurants. They are the right people for the job. Now follow that logic to its conclusion.

I was about to say that the one time when cops are the right person for the job is when you have an active shooter or a maniac on the loose stabbing everyone. But -- ha! ha! -- Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty…. It's actually totally fine for cops to stand around http://gothamist.com/2013/07/26/subway_s…">watching you get stabbed. So there's that. You'd totally like to think that at least when shit gets real, the cops are the right people for the job. But technically, no. During the Columbine shooting, there were two cops right there, aware of what was going on, standing around outside. Doing nothing. Nothing. And that's considered A-OK.

If Seattle did decide the city government would have someone who would step up up and help your ass when a lunatic is coming at you with a knife, we'd have to create *another* new department for that job. SPD doesn't do that shit. No cops do that shit. It's not a cop thing.
19
@16

Yeah, you guys predicted they'd take their risk, capital and entrepreneurship elsewhere when we raised the minimum wage. You guys predict that basically every time Seattle does anything. When do you expect that to start to actually happen? Do you have any theories as to why you were all wrong about that last year? Or five years ago? Or ten? Does it not bother you even a little that the economy in Seattle doesn't ever do what you said it was going to do?

Have you guys ever wondered if maybe economics isn't your strong suit? Maybe you suck at that and should leave it alone? Just saying I'd be embarrassed if I'd been trying to kick the same football year after year and landed flat on my ass every single time. But not you guys?

We *are* enjoying our socialist paradise, in so far as it is socialist. Our booming economy, our low unemployment, rising wages, our fast growing small businesses, our filled up office space and skyline full of cranes. Ten years ago when you guys said, "enjoy socialism!", we, well... we did. Here we are. Enjoying it. We do enjoy it and we're probably going to do more of it if it keeps making our city more prosperous.

Enjoy being wrong again.
21
Seattle: Love it or leave it.
24
Glad to read Seattle will proactively investigate and enforce laws to protect wages workers have legally earned. While almost every business owner will obey the law, it's good we're not granting an unfair short-term competitive advantage to any who might not.

Well at some point, not in the too distant future, I suspect many business owners will simply decide the easiest course of action is to take one's at risk capital, energy, creativity, entrepreneurship open a business elsewhere.

Per #19, do you have a time limit on that, a point beyond which you'll admit it didn't happen?

I suspect not. The Washington Restaurant Association warned us that we had to vote no on raising Washington State's minimum wage, to "keep prices from rising out of control." That was in 1998, and the Washington Restaurant Association still has not explained our curious lack of hyperinflation -- although they have since campaigned against raising minimum wages in Seatac and Seattle.

Blather, lose, repeat...
26
Wait and see.

Again, for how long? When the sun burns out in 5 billion years, or maybe a bit before then?

Putting it another way, what data would cause you to admit your hypothesis is not valid?

Prices at restaurants have indeed risen and far faster than the rate of inflation.

So have rents. Is that because apartment owners and construction workers earn minimum wage?

Amazon has decided to NOT to expand in Seattle,

Actually, they are building more of their HQ in Seattle right now -- there's a big hole getting filled in over on Seventh Avenue, if you'd like to go see what you're talking about. Like many large companies, they're building corporate offices elsewhere, too. (And, how many minimum-wage jobs are in corporate HQs, do you think?)

Boeing is shifting manufacturing out of Seattle,

Which was due to decisions made about a decade ago. How many minimum wage jobs are there at Boeing? (Don't be scared to guess: even you can count that high...)

Costco is not opening any more stores in Seattle...

That's because they've already built as many as they need. (Also, how many minimum wage jobs are there at Costco? See question about Boeing, above.)

There will be a down turn in the economy...say like a drop of 45% in housing and construction starts,

There will always be economic cycles. Give us a date by which "a drop of 45% in housing and construction starts" will happen.

Or is name-calling all you've got now?
28
The study that claimed that hours worked had decreased was only adding up hours worked at chains that had to raise wages faster than smaller joints. If one chain store closed and two independent restaurants opened. the study subtracted all the hours not worked at the chain store as lost, but didn't add back in the hours gained by the two new places. No wonder they could make it look like hours were down.

"Boeing is shifting manufacturing out of Seattle"? Dude, the last dregs of production in Seattle ended in 1967! Do you not understand where Museum of Flight building came from? I think I can understand why the Seattle economy is baffling you, if you blame what happens at plants in Everett and Renton on what Seattle does.

As far as asking me to imagine all this hypothetical prosperity that low wages bring, no. Why should I? If you have evidence that low wages are so great, then show it. I can see with my eyes that anyplace racing to the bottom to attract the worst cheapskate employers is a shit hole. That's almost the very definition of a shit hole.

This is the same silly nonsense Trump uses to pretend irresponsible tax cuts won't send us into a debt spiral. Because they're so good at imagining all the glorious prosperity that will make it all pencil out. Gold star for having a lively imagination there. It's no accident that the "proof" of these dumbshit ideas is found in a pile of fictional Any Rand romance novels and goofy Heinlein sci fi. The real world is right here in front of our eyes, and it says no, you're bullshit.

@22
Parking what? Who cares?

"So you wouldn't bother to call SPD if you were being attacked huh?" What other choices do I have? Instead of offering any evidence that the police will take a risk to save anyone, you tout the fact that we're stuck with these assholes? Are you trying to give me a reason to want to keep these guys around? The only way we will ever have an armed response from someone willing to put their ass on the line to protect civilian lives is to create a new agency with no connection to police training or police culture.

Until then, the biggest thing keeping us safe is our booming economy and willingness to provide social services to people in crisis. If we are able to have our own progressive income tax, we can even start offering comprehensive mental health care and fully medicalize drug treatment, instead of leaving addicts out mugging people to get high. No role for cops in any of that.
30
Yeah, I bet you don't know.

Your nanny state is up in every woman's womb, and kicking in people's bedroom doors to tell them who they're allowed to have sex with. And where the can and can't stick it when they are allowed. Your serial adulterer, serial divorcing nanny state wants to "defend marriage". Your nanny state is hanging around public bathrooms to check to see what everybody got down between their legs. Your draft-dodging nanny state wants to force children to pray, and mouth out the words of a loyalty oath. To a piece of brightly colored cloth. Your nanny state thinks it's the government's job to tell us if we can stand up or sit down while a song plays before a sportsball game. Your nanny state is worried there won't be enough mall santas, and thinks saying black lives matter means white lives don't matter, but saying merry Christmas doesn't mean have a shitty New Year. Your nanny state censors scientific research into deaths caused by guns because it might make the guns feel bad. Your nanny state posts federal agents at the bedsides of sick children because their papers aren't in order.

You guys are pathetic. You don't hesitate to suck the cock of a state that is omnipresent in everyone's personal life as long as some grifter has promised you a tax cut, and promised you won't be sued for much if your undercooked meat gives somebody's kid e coli.

Seattle's economy is booming and every time you make a prediction about what it's going to do next, you fall flat on your face. The more wrong you are the more special pleading you pull out of your ass to avoid the embarrassing failure that's staring back at you.

Can you please stop repeating that the location of Boeing's manufacturing plants has anything to do with Seattle's minimum wage or Seattle's sick leave or any other Seattle policy? Boeing hasn't manufactured a piece of a plane in Seattle since 1967. That's FIFTY YEARS, you dumb motherfucker.
31
@27: Sorry you typed all of those, um, interesting "facts" about our local economy, without bothering to provide a single source citation. Assertions made without evidence may be dismissed without evidence, after all.

Thank you for validating my guess @21. You won't quantify when "...one will be able to pick and choose between empty apartments..." in Seattle, because, as noted elsewhere in this comment thread, every one of your doomsaying economic predictions has failed thus far, and even you may know this one will too. Care to give us a date when apartment rents in Seattle will stop rising, en route to us having a surfeit of vacancies? I'm guessing "no," again. Go ahead, prove me wrong this time.

If you'd like to do something other than just prove me right again, you can tell us about where you got your belief that Costco has just one Seattle store because of labor policies, not that, say, a "big box" chain might need to look outside the most densely populated city in the region for building sites. Specifically, you can inform us as to the quantity, strain, and potency of the cannabis required to type such a claim.
33
Go to the internet....type in the relevant matter ...

You failed to understand what I already told you: your assertions, made entirely without evidence, were promptly dismissed without evidence. By the time you finally got around to lazily telling someone else to do what you'd needed to do yourself, it was too late.

We will add tardy to the other attributes already established with respect to your retorts.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.