Comments

1

"Two out of three Seattle voters have had enough with the city and have considered moving elsewhere. "

Considered is a meaningless word. I've considered telling my boss to get fucked and spending the rest of my life whittling wood in a remote cabin in Alaska instead of working. I've considered sleeping with Scarlett Johansson.

100% of people everywhere should consider living somewhere else. Expand your mind.

2

Nice take on that Gumbo!

3

“Earth on track to be unlivable.”

it’s simply the
Nature of
Things

and Nothing to get
Hung [up] About!

get Over it

oh and please Pass the
Windfall Profiteerings Tax

them Oil Barons got
Too Damn Much of
Our Money already

5

"Beware of polls which are seeking a particular result"---Mary Chestnuttt

Boring nerdly objections to the seattle_chamber poll follows: "3.9 margin of error": this is a super common violation of statistics in polling, it states that if the sample was *truly random" then an estimate of the margin of error by the reciprocal of the square root of the sample size (in this case: 1/sqrt(700)). So they call folks until 700 answered an unrecognized number and agreed to take a phone poll and then called that an accurate sampling of the entire target populace. Next up: though it's hard to get a grip on the exact wording of the question, it's quite likely a "push poll": "Given the growing (scary! creeping! hide your daughters!) homeless problem, have you considered going elsewhere?" ...well, I now, etc. In short, want to make some money? Get into contract political polling.

6

Assuming the questions are in the order given in the CoC report, they asked If the city was on track or off on the wrong track, then asked if the respondent was optimistic about the future of Seattle*, then if the respondent had actively considered moving out. I wouldn't consider that a push poll, though there is a little bit of priming with the "is the city off on the wrong track" question.

I've actively considered moving out of Seattle several times. For about 15 seconds, while I think about where I would be moving to and what services are there. Then I realize I have it pretty good here.

Sure to be unreported by the SeAtTlE iS dYiNg! crowd, 50% of the respondents were optimistic about the future.

8

A driverless car having a little fun with the San Francisco police? It sounds like Herbie rides again!

9

That reporter for the SBJ needs to flush out his headgear (Charles didn't bother to check out the story himself). The old Seattle Times building is still a hole in the ground, with its Art Deco facade propped up by structural scaffolding. The Onni development occupies what used to be a parking lot.

10

"Washington's rich are once again spending big bucks to avoid paying their fair share."

Considering the tax in question has already been struck down by a court, with Washington State's AG now begging the courts to reinstate it, and thus the entire repeal effort is waaaaaaaaay premature, I'm going to speculate someone has noted the entire career Tim Eyman has made from fleecing gullible anti-tax crowds, and is eagerly grabbing a piece of that sweet, sweet action. (No sympathy for gullible rich people here!)

I'm also guessing neither Charles, nor anyone else using the phrase, "paying their fare share," will ever define what it means. I suspect it always applies to every dollar ever made by anyone the user happens not to like (e.g. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Jeff Bezos, Microsoft or Amazon engineers, etc.) but never, ever to any of the trust-fund dollars Charles most definitely did not earn, but with which he pays his many staggering bar tabs.

@1: Considering I've never considered taking you seriously, I consider "considered" to have plenty of meaning.

11

I'm surprised by the number of comments (and Charles himself) dismissing the results of the CoC poll.

Despite throwing billions of dollars at homelessness response over the past decade, we've been unable to make meaningful progress. Why wouldn't this lead to a large percentage of the population stating they are "frustrated or concerned" about homelessness?

If you aren't frustrated or concerned, how can you possibly be satisfied with the status quo?

15

Well there it is:

The silent majority is finally saying they have had enough of the Far Left Agenda... remarkably even the Democrats are waking up...

From Pelosi to hoping Jayapal would shut up our new Mayor who has called out the idiots on the silly council. . Hope is kindled... now if the democrats can move to the center and not get too many penalty points... they might make it. Otherwise... you are looking at a back lash by the republicans.

Meanwhile, the house is looking to divert attention from bad news Biden and the economy being hammered by inflation... by doing witch hunts with the oil companies... Golly.

Why did gas prices go up. Ummm? The war perhaps...cutting of oil in a global market? Duh?

It was a total clown show watching them grill oil executive on supply, inventory and pricing as if they new the first thing about the industry or how it works.

16

@13 I guess if you just focus on that one question and ignore the rest of the poll, it might be hard to understand the results. Why would you do that though?

86% of respondents agreed with the statement "We need to invest more in behavioral health programs and services to address the issues underlying homelessness."

61% agreed with the statement "The City of Seattle needs to spend more money to address homelessness."

I don't see how those responses could lead you to believe a substantial percentage of respondents "concerned" about homelessness believed too much funding was devote to homelessness. Instead, it's clear the vast majority of respondents believe the city needs to do more.

17

@manlyltoes

do ya
think they
Knew how
to spell knew?

the K is silent
unlike me

18

re Homelessness

Housing as Commodity
is where we're Fucking up

oh and Allowing
Foreign Investment's
gonna Price EVERY-one o.u.t.

are Y0U
ready to be
Homeless yet?

20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw

21

I don't see how the Fed can do anything else but raise the Prime. I am glad we had the government we had at the time - one that saw and understood the need to help people financially through the Pandemic, but you can't pour that kind of money into the system without prices starting to go ape shit. And maybe some of the programs were a bit too excessive? The payroll relief programs were rife with fraud to the tune of tens of billions of dollars (also an oversight issue), for instance, and sending poor and middle-class parents $1200 a month for each kid is arguably too generous? Yeah, I know, food, clothing, childcare - they all run a hefty price tag. But Daddy was down at Best Buy blowing a lot of that money on things like big screen TVs as well.

The fear, of course, after hyper-inflation is recession.. The big money people don't borrow when the interest rates go up, and supposedly, if they aren't borrowing, they aren't hiring. But you know what? Most of us still paid 14-24% on our loans and credit cards when the Prime was near zero. And I kind of miss getting 5% on my savings account (it's not even financially advantageous having a savings account these days other than just having that liquidity - what is the rate now? 0.25%?). I've heard some sat that's intentional so as to get us all to put our money on Wall Street, and as you can see, it has worked. Compare the 34,000 Dow today with the Dow in 2010 and with the Dow ten years before that. The last decade has been meteoric.

I don't see raising interest rates as more of a danger to the economy than letting prices skyrocket.

22

@11 I'm not saying that I'm not concerned about homelessness and the quality of the City's response thereto, I'm saying that the response to the question is being misread.

The reading being promoted by KOMO and CoC is that people are so fed up that [some large percentage] wants to move.
The actual question was "Have you thought seriously about moving?", which is very different. Maybe it was a huff of frustration about seeing a tent on your parking strip. Maybe it's dreaming about selling out for seven figures and moving to a mansion in Aberdeen. Maybe it's something else. But just thinking about it doesn't mean that you're planning to move or even seriously considering it.

24

"Earth on track to be unlivable."

Perhaps eventually so I'll triage the concern.

25

The writing is on the wall. What a peach!

26

@24 -- well-played dewey

do NOT let the unprecedented and massive
Rains, Floods nor Fires nor Melting Ice
CAPs & shifting Polar Vortices
get You down. no Sirree.
no sir! no how no Way.

it's all going according to God's Plan

and Accelerated
by those who claim to
Love Jesus so much they're
wiling to Sacrifice this Planet
and its Life -- the ONLY Habitable
World in the Known Universe -- to speed
His Coming. rebirth. recoming. rehoming. whatever.

better Hope
they're right
and that you
Measure up.

27

well we Could go back to previous tax rates
where if you make over a billion/year, every-
thing Over said Billion is taxed at a 90% rate

aggressive taxation on Humongous amounts of Money is what brought this World the largest Middle Class the Planet's ever seen right here in the usofa. "republican" tax Cuts have brought us the worst Epidemic of Homelessness we've ever seen. and all those excellent Jobs just Flew Overseas to be (barely) replaced by Service workers making sub-minimal 'wages.'

instead of, like in the 50s & 60s, One Person with a Good Job being able to Support a Family send kids off to College and maybe a second Home -- plus Vacations! -- now we have one person working Three Jobs and hoping their Spouse can bring home some bacon too (who's minding the Kids these days?). but in the long run, the way this Economy's set up to favor the Few over the Hundreds of Millions, may as well Practice now to get your Homelessy skills up to snuff.

it Ain't gonna be Pretty
should the trumfptser
somehow manage to
weasel his way back
into Power.

29

If a robot car breaks the law, is it not subject to the same laws as human drivers? Do robot cars require the same licensing and liability as human drivers? And if a robot car is negligent, how do you prove the robot's intent? So many ways for robots to bypass the responsibility required from their human counterparts. Perhaps the next right wing insurrection will involve robots beating police officers and threatening to hang disloyal politicians. Or maybe someday there will be a robot on the Supreme Court whose bias can never be determined and can only interpret the law by whatever standard the GOP finds most beneficial.

30

@27 if you think anyone was actually paying those rates I have a bridge in West Seattle I can sell you cheap. Every time this debate comes up people fail to separate wealth from income. Wealth is not real. It only exists on paper and can disappear as fast as it arrived. Just ask any crypto trader or better yet look at one of the poster children of excess wealth, mark Zuckerberg. On Feb 4th when Facebook stock crashed he lost $29.4B dollars. Did anything actually happen though? No, because it was artificial. The fact some of these new age titans
Are worth so much is the same issue from the last gilded age. They have stifled competition and have made their companies invaluable. Only this time it’s not a physical product like steel or oil, it’s an intangible one, data and information and the product is you the consumer. Restrict the use of consumer data and you eliminate their business model and that wealth evaporates. You’re never going to confiscate it and continuing to piss and moan is loserthink.

31

Quite natural to question why we endure living in this gloomy cloud pit from time to time.

33

Fuck the Chamber Pot of Commerce.

34

@30: I don't have the energy today to lookup tax loopholes during the Eisenhower administration, but I do recall a radio interview in the very late 50s with Elvis bemoaning that the government took 90 cents of every dollar he made.

@31: Hey, 'Drop, I can tell you why I endured Seattle's near year-round rainy season. I'd get off a plane at Sea-Tac after time in southern California or Texas, and the air was sweet like candy. The summers were gloriously Technicolor. The evenings smelled of ocean and night-blooming flowers. The wet winters made everything glisten in the afternoon's blue light and made everything green in the spring, I don't expect everyone to love it, but no matter where I go, it'll always be home.

35

You wouldn't know what a 'fair share' is if it lept up and bit you on the ass.

36

@34 you know that’s not possible right? Even back then it was a progressive tax so the 90% wouldn’t have kicked in until he was above the threshold and his effective tax rate would have been much lower say 60%. I won’t spend my evening looking up things either but I would guess Elvis was bemoaning management and rights to his music and saying they were taking the lions share. The same is still true today. Ask Taylor Swift about that. In any case there was massive cheating back then much as there is today.

A quick Google search produced this from the LA Times in 2019 indicating wealthy Americans paid around 42% much as they do today.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nocera-tax-avoidance-20190129-story.html

37

Everybody thinks about leaving Seattle when the weather sucks this bad

38

@8 Tmpleknght: Cruise does look like he's (she's?) automotively chuckling at the expense of the SFPD.

@26 & @27 kristofarian: Agreed. You nailed it, kris. I have nothing more to add.

@37 schmacky: I just wish Jack Frost would finally go back to the North Pole already.
Spring officially started in the PNW three weeks ago, and I blame Alaska for sneezing an unwelcome Arctic cold snap on us.
Channelling Matthew Broderick in his title role of Ferris Bueller after the classic John Hughes film's closing credits, to a particularly stubborn Jack Frost:
"You're still here?!? It's...OVER!........go HOME! (waves hand in a shooing gesture while heading into the kitchen for a late night snack)......GO!!"

SCHEIK-SCHEIK-SCHEIK-AHHHHHHhhhhhhh......


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