Comments

1

Amazon just realized that people are willing to quit if they can't work form home, just like lots of other companies. Not everyone wants to come into the office. It's the "new normal" (if you're a white collar office employee who can do one's job at home).

3

My partner's company is currently trying to force people back into a physical office in Seattle. The leadership making the decisions?All scattered across the country working full-time from home. This same brain trust is also spending thousands on consultants to figure out why they have employee retention problems.

4

"Labor issues aside, I love the fair and am stoked for its return."

Nice convictions. And progressives wonder why nothing ever changes.

5

now we shall see if Peru's wildest dreams come true.

6

Definitely a little extra salty Rich tonight...

So when the unions don't support Kshama their members don't live in the city and/or agree with their leadership. Yet the unions/organizations that do support Kshama are 100% behind her? Not sure that makes much sense but it does make it much harder to continue with the bullshit claim this is some rich right wing conspiracy embedded in racism. The recall campaign is going to be wild.
The loud thud you heard when Amazon made that announcement was the downtown recovery and Metro's budget taking a hit to the kidney. If all employees work from home 2 days per week that is a 40% drop in foot traffic/transit on those days. Ultimately this is great for the traffic and the environment and is long overdue but the city budget is going to have a reckoning. Is it any coincidence they dropped this little bombshell less than a week after the Jump Start tax was upheld? Things that make you go hmmmm.

8

I worked on a Union Job around 2005 and while there were a few Dems we were outnumbered by at least 2-1. all those giant pickups paid for with Union Wages not to mention Homes & toys and the odd trips to Vegas, and who do they Vote for? Union-busters. Cheney/bush, Raygun, the Depended waddling trumpfsterfire Fake 'prez.'

"we don't need no Stinkin' unions."
but our Kids DO
'cept they're
all* Gone

*so's Education
Health Care
Family Care
etc

9

I applaud trying to re-capture the summer drive-in, Listen, kiddies....you don't know what you missed. But why Burien? Must have changed since I was in Seattle. I worked at Highline Community Hospital when it was that for two l-o-n-g years and the hour-and-a-half bus ride down there was like the bus to nowhere. Everything just kept getting darker and darker and more and more closed the farther south you'd go.

And for the real drive-in experience you don't load up the car with a bunch of people (including in the trunk). That's freshmen stuff. For the real drive-in experience you take your girlfriend or boyfriend and climb into the backseat as soon as the movies start to smooch, finger, and fuck like shit.

10

RE: Peru elects "socialist" president.

Calling yourself socialist and actually being socialist are two different things. Let's see if he actually follows any socialist doctrine, or if this is simply another two-bit dictator who slaps some positivity label on himself to detract from reality.

Is the "Democratic Republic of North Korea" a democracy? Is it a Republic? Is it a Democratic-Republic? PROTIP: It's none of the above, it's a dictatorship.

Judge a country by what it ACTUALLY is, not what it SAYS it is.

A great example, by the way, is the United States. The US says it's a democracy, but it's really a plutocracy, and has been for... well... maybe since its founding. But at least for the last 75-ish years the US has firmly been a plutocracy.

11

@10: OK, socialism is to dictatorship as democracy is to plutocracy. I'll take the latter. Beggars can't be choosers.

12

@11,

No, it's "don't judge a book by its cover."

Words do not equal behavior. Calling yourself a "democracy" doesn't mean shit unless you're actually a democracy. Same exact thing with every other form of leadership that's been tried.

13

@11,

A great example of my post @12 is communism.

Communism has never been tried. Ever.

Some country should actually try it someday. Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised? Who knows? Maybe it'll suck? Maybe it'll be awesome? But for now, it's a mystery, because no country has ever attempted communism ever.

14

If Biden wants to give a boost to electric vehicles and get people to stop driving monster trucks and SUV's, he really should support a significant increase to the gas tax.

15

I think the last country to try socialism in modern times was Romania. Did not go well for them. It all fall apart in the 80s. Huge crisis of unwanted, uncared for children languishing in government care because their solution to bolstering the economy was to fuck a ton and create a huge workforce. Turns out they didn't have jobs to fill, nor could the families afford said children. Brilliant. Thousands of children had to be adopted out to other countries. Thousands of children were basically like wild animals having had zero socialization and no development, nothing was taught to them.
Good luck, Peru.

16

@13 communism has never truly been attempted because it’s impossible. Humans are driven by self fulfillment and when inevitably the high producers stop/slow down because they aren’t seeing the benefits it falls apart. Anyone who has worked a group project in school knows exactly why communism doesn’t work. It can only survive with an authoritarian state forcing its mandate which inevitably leads to widespread misery and suffering until it collapses.

17

@6 "The loud thud you heard when Amazon made that announcement was the downtown recovery and Metro's budget taking a hit to the kidney. If all employees work from home 2 days per week that is a 40% drop in foot traffic/transit on those days."

Metro has about 30% fare recovery (in a normal year). Express buses to downtown are especially expensive. A lot less than half of trips are for rush hour commutes to downtown. The overall cost for fewer people commuting downtown will be relatively minor.

For Seattle riders, the big cut is due to the city council's decision to reduce funding in the levy package that was passed recently. This will ultimately have a bigger impact on service levels than anything else in the near future (unless we slip into another recession).

18

Jesus Rich. You discount the 34th's endorsement of Dow by pointing out that he lives there, but ignore the fact that the person he beat is the 34th's own State Senator (so, ya know, lives there also).

19

@16,

You MIGHT have a broader point about the potential of communist systems at large, but the analogy of a group project in school is straight terrible and probably contradicts your thesis. To wit, I've worked plenty of successful school projects that functioned as collaborative endeavors without an authoritarian presence.

20

@13: Knowing what you know about communism, would you be happy living under an ideal implementation of it?

21

@9 "But why Burien? Must have changed since I was in Seattle. I worked at Highline Community Hospital when it was that for two l-o-n-g years and the hour-and-a-half bus ride down there was like the bus to nowhere."

What's changed is that the bus ride now takes 2+ hours due to the increased congestion resulting from the West Seattle Bridge closure.

22

@10

North Korea is actually a monarchy.

23

@19 every system will have success stories. My point on school work is simple to be sure but I use it because everyone has been in a group at one time or another with "that guy". The one that puts in the bare minimum but everyone puts up with his bullshit because its short term and you need the grade. It's relatable to most people. If you don't like it fine but that doesn't change the underlying point that people need self reward to continue to stay motivated. We just aren't hard wired to provide maximum effort for minimal reward over the long run. That is why communism is a non starter and can't even be attempted much less succeed.

25

@20,

Yes. If humans were an evolved species, I'd gladly live in a communist society.

Unfortunately, we humans are only barely past the monkey stage of evolution and are therefore too greedy and self-centered to live in a paradise. Almost all humans today are still firmly in the serf and warlord stage of societal functioning. Nowhere near where we need to be to successfully cooperate to create an ideal society.

26

@24 OK, I guess more a communist dictatorship heavily influenced by Marxism. Not sure what else you are getting on about, I never mentioned Universal health care and I don't think I ever have on this blog. Also never said 'merica was perfect, or Capitalism for that matter. But you'll probably comb through my posts looking for that one mention because you always have to be right. Hahahahahaha.

27

@25 -- if only there were some
Katastrophe that might thin the
herd of all Reptilikans and their
Dominionism Kum Kleptocracy.

aand if wishes were horsies
we'd all be shoveling shite

28

@16: "Humans are driven by self fulfillment...."

Yep. Consider the typical discussion/thought process around career choice in the context of a middle/upper middle class person in the US. "Follow your passion." "Do what makes you happy and fulfilled" "Choose a path that resonates emotionally". It's all you...you...you...you and your feels. Very individualistic. One cannot expect people raised like this to suddenly think in a selfless, collective fashion. We push and cultivate the goal of self fulfillment. To then try a 180 degree turn to acting for the whole, choosing for the whole....good luck!

29

@25: Sounds awfully boring without human conflict. No drama, no comedy. Sounds like you just want to evolve into just like worker bees. Only who's the queen?

I'll take all the baggage of the human condition instead of a sterile "paradise".

31

@28,

Yep, that's part of the problem.

Too much emphasize and idolization on individuals who have elevated themselves high above society and too little emphasis celebrating areas where everyone has benefitted by working together. Those who genuinely need, take what they need, those who have more to give, give selflessly. We're a loooooong way away from that. Human civilization really needs to move past the belief that one's worth is defined by the number of dollars in their bank account.

32

@29,

"Sounds like you just want to evolve into just like worker bees. Only who's the queen?"

I don't think you understand communism or socialism as ideologies. There are no "worker bees" or "queens." Everyone contributes what they can and takes what they need. Some do more and some do less. Some take more and some take less. Nobody is a "drone" that is forced to mindlessly collect hive products. It's a collective aspiration towards higher goals.

There's still conflict in socialism/communism, it's just not the petty conflict over accumulation of material goods that you apparently seem to prefer. Rather it's more like intellectual disagreements over loftier aspirations. How best to elevate all of us together. If you'd rather have warlords' slave armies battling each other to see which lord can amass the most gold, oil, and harem of women, then I pity you.

34

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JYjcwW9MmM

35

@30. I was barely alive in the 80s so excuse me for not being an expert on fucking 1980s Romania. But, if you insist on being a miserable fuck about it... the Party for Socialism and Liberation sure seem to think Romania were a socialist country. https://www.liberationnews.org/romania-30-years/

You fucking insufferable narcissist. Always thinking you are the smartest one in the room. It's Friday, you can take a day off from being a dick.

37

Jesus Jeebus
you Forgot to Mention
these are a Nation chock-
Full of Rugged Individualists
Armies (of just One!) and totally
UN-Regulated overly-well-Armed
'Militias' -- how can one NOT turn to
one's Feelies at a time like this for Chrissakes?

peeps tryin' to Force others
to wear breathing Masks for fs!

& round-a-bouts!
fuck we can't even
Turn on a Fucking Blinker

Jeebus.

our 'fellow man'?
yeah. Right.

38

@32: Well, a gilded life is better than a dreary one.


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