Pacific Northwest Thread

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FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Beowulfs_Ghost posted:

should we try blocking up a bridge with bicycles?

This is the farthest north I have ever lived and the suicidal ~~courage~~ belligerence of bicyclists here is astounding.

I remember biking around/through traffic (its been a while) and I always felt like it was up to me to not jump in front of multi-ton objects that were moving fast.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2014 19:30

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 11:57

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Cultural Imperial posted:

Remember when the rear end in a top hat who owns papa John's said obamacare would force him to lay off workers? Rich rear end in a top hat are apparently rear end in a top hat.

Hey man he has struggles too...

It takes a stern hand to keep those peasants in their place.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2014 07:52

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

glowing-fish posted:

More prosaically, it could just be that the federal minimum wage is less inadequate in the south, where prices tend to be pretty low. A federal minimum wage that makes sense in LA or NY doesn't necessarily make sense in Arkansas.

Up to a point...

]

# ¿ Apr 2, 2014 09:15

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Why not have some kind of monorail parallel (give or take) the 99?

# ¿ Apr 3, 2014 08:35

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Thanatosian posted:

I'm sorry, I'm from Seattle; urban what?

Someone told me that one reason some neighborhoods are so difficult/disconnected was that back in Ye Olden Dayes some powerful rich people went to battle via city planners and tried to keep "those people" (the other group) from being able to get in easily. (Queen Anne was the example.)

Confirm/deny urban myth?

# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 07:59

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Tigntink posted:

Either that wording is hosed up or it really is incredibly tragic.

As a veteran of the CotB threads, I can tell you that was probably not a mis-print. At least it was not: "Seattle police say a robbery detective shot Spafford because the man may have had something in his pockets".

Oh CotB, how we miss thee.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2014 06:00

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

effectual posted:

Seattle's worse.

Seattle drivers are worse, but I found the actual city/streets to be more frustrating in Portland. :shrug:

# ¿ Apr 6, 2014 12:35

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Tigntink posted:

So yesterday at the market a guy asked me to sign a petition for the state of Washington to say that corporations aren't people. I can't figure out how the legal mechanism would work for this but the guy claimed that if enough states got together they could push for a constitutional amendment. That doesn't totally sound logical to me so I took a flyer and told him I would read up on it and seek out a petition to sign when I was ready. Any clue guys?

This fight will continue until we are literally living in some kind of (fully complete) dystopian cyberpunk corporate surveillance state (and everyone gives up).

The corporations and their purchased politicians have gone from "corporations are people *" to "corporations have Constitutional rights" to "that means free speech" to "money is speech" to "unlimited bribe money is just like talking a lot!".

* At this point its like arguing with a Catholic about Natural Law. All you can do is attack the faulty premise.

One way to shortcut this is to "assign" a physical person as legally culpable for every act a corporation takes. So we would see a constant death-row cycling of patsy CEOs for various war crimes, environmental crime/mass poisonings, economic/political crimes/treasons etc... Suddenly there is no longer a body-less fear-less agent of destruction siphoning money out of the economy with no real repercussions.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2014 00:13

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

mod sassinator posted:

Am I a weird Seattlite that fills up gas before entering and after leaving Oregon so I don't have to deal with the full service silliness down there? I know you're not supposed to tip but it just feels so weird.

Not just you.

Thanatosian posted:

Fair point. That brings us back to the tolling option.

Not at all. You cant just throw a toll onto an Interstate (yet). (Even if that ongoing legal battle switches directions, it would be pretty sad to throw another regressive fee onto the pile.)

Also remember that that particular freeway stretches all the way to San Diego. Its not just a local tourist bridge.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2014 09:21

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Maybe they could stop encouraging tax dodgers : http://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/index.ssf/2014/01/tax_abatements_in_hillsboro_wa.html

... or giant political tax handouts: http://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/index.ssf/2014/01/tax_abatements_in_hillsboro_wa.html

Same old...:
http://thesockeye.org/2012/11/30/governors-budget-ignores-out-of-control-tax-breaks/

quote:

The State of Oregon currently gives away $32 billion in tax breaks every two years�an increase of $3.4 billion (12%) in just the past few years.

... same old:
http://thesockeye.org/2012/12/04/guess-where-oregon-spends-more-money-than-anywhere-else-hint-its-not-k-12-schools/

quote:

During troubling economic times, Oregon has slashed budgets to our schools, human services, public safety, and other vital programs, all the while allowing tax expenditures to grow unchecked. In 2009, during a country-wide recession, Oregon�s budget was primarily balanced through budget cuts, furlough days, and layoffs, even while adding new tax breaks and allowing old tax breaks to grow

Not like Oregon is alone in these things of course, but "we have no choice but taxing the poor!" is (as usual) not true.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2014 10:37

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Ratoslov posted:

I'd also add the California Correctional Peace Officers Association to the list of bad unions, given that they're involved in a lot of the lobbying for 'tough on crime' measures in California to drum up more business.

They are beyond bad. Theyre the strongest political force native to CA (or they were), and used their power to chose "dystopian police state" as their preferred outcome.

http://www.economist.com/node/15580530

quote:

As president of California's prison-guards' association from 1982 to 2002, Mr Novey turned that union into the most powerful in the state. On his watch, California built 21 new prisons. Mr Novey's organisation also sponsored or supported tough laws that helped to fill those prisons to almost twice their capacity at times. It helped elect two Republican governors and one Democratic one, besides countless state legislators. �We sent candidates 13 questions,� he happily recalls, ranging from their stance on the death penalty to labour issues.

He is especially proud that he won his members by far the most generous wages and benefits that prison officers get anywhere in the country. Under the last deal he negotiated, which expired in 2006, the average member of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) earned around $70,000 a year and more than $100,000 with overtime. (Since then, wages have gone up again.) Mr Novey negotiated pensions of up to 90% of salary starting at as early as 50�more than teachers, nurses or firefighters get, and matched only by the state's highway patrol.

This is the legacy that many people now blame for a good part of California's fiscal crisis.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2014 10:22

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Raymn posted:

the tools in the Seattle subreddit have it all figured out. ... If only they would run leaner we wouldn't have this problem!!!!11

Libertards in reddit? Say it isnt so!? (reddit rEVOLution!)

# ¿ Apr 18, 2014 10:24

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Thanatosian posted:

$9 billion ... The legislature could respond to this punitively

People should really make a move on this one. Boeing has a rich history of poisoning and corruption to draw on. Some WA Occupy splinter should take it and run with it.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2014 02:55

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Rent-A-Cop posted:

That and Boeing knows that no matter how bad they gently caress up the government will bail them out, so they may as well go for it.

Yeah. I forget which one/site, but one of the egregious examples was when they created a toxic site to save money, then were paid to clean it up by either the DoD or DoE, didnt do it, and then bid to clean it up 20ish years later and got paid again.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2014 22:39

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

I cant find the article I posted years ago... but it might have been one chapter in the (still ongoing) Santa Susanna fiasco.

The well-crafted silence theyve maintained over this one (over decades) is impressive. Even if you live near it you may not be that familiar with it.

http://www.neontommy.com/news/2011/01/santa-susana-nuclear-site-finally-path-clean-its-toxic-mess

quote:

It�s only a 45-minute drive from downtown Los Angeles to reach one of the most toxic hills in the country - a vivid case study of the chaos that ensues when scientific hubris meets corporate carelessness.

... Unfortunately, Santa Susana never beat anyone but itself. In 1959, the sodium reactor became America�s first partial nuclear meltdown when eager engineers pushed it beyond its power limits. The reactor�s damaged fuel rods spewed radioactive gasses into the atmosphere - hundreds of times more than at Pennsylvania�s Three Mile Island, by some estimates.

In the decades to come, at least three other reactors malfunctioned. Making matters worse, rocket tests that were conducted on another part of the site contaminated the land with millions of gallons of the toxic chemical trichloroethylene, an engine degreaser otherwise known as TCE.

http://unearthme.com/story121011.html

quote:

Explosive waste was loaded into barrels, and then workers would shoot them to blow up the contents. This was leftover waste from liquid propellents used in ballistic missile tests, and was extremely dangerous to handle. Barrels were dumped into sludge ponds, and then detonated with rifle shots, and the ensuing explosions and flames would be spread over the basin area. Most of the time these kind of burn operations took place at night, to reduce the public's knowledge of its occurrence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory#Sodium_burn_pits

quote:

The sodium burn pit, an open-air pit for cleaning sodium-contaminated components, was also contaminated when radioactively and chemically contaminated items were burned in it, in contravention of safety requirements. In an article in the Ventura County Star, James Palmer, a former SSFL worker was interviewed. The article notes that "of the 27 men on Palmer's crew, 22 died of cancers." On some nights Palmer returned home from work and kissed "his wife [hello], only to burn her lips with the chemicals he had breathed at work." The report also noted that "During their breaks, Palmer's crew would fish in one of three ponds ... The men would use a solution that was 90 percent hydrogen peroxide to neutralize the contamination. Sometimes, the water was so polluted it bubbled. The fish died off." Palmer's interview ended on a somber note: "They had seven wells up there, water wells, and every drat one of them was contaminated," Palmer said, "It was a horror story."

...

Regarding cleanup, the site's current owner is Boeing, with NASA and DOE liable for several parcels within that.

http://www.enviroreporter.com/hotzone

quote:

(1959)

What almost nobody in Simi Valley knew that night was this: A primitive nuclear reactor at the lab was in the throes of a meltdown. The accident, which was not acknowledged until five weeks later, would presage the continuing problems the lab was to have handling radioactive and toxic materials.

http://www.presstelegram.com/technology/20091114/boeing-sues-state-over-strict-rocketdyne-cleanup-law
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/BOEING+SEEKS+EASIER+LAB+CLEANUP+SUIT+AIMS+TO+TOPPLE+LAW,+SET+ASIDE...-a0216926107

quote:

The majority owner of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory filed suit Friday in the U.S. district court in Sacramento to scuttle a state law requiring the highest cleanup standards at one of the nation's most polluted sites.

The Boeing Co. asked a federal court to overturn a 2007 state law, Senate Bill 990, regulating cleanup of the Rocketdyne testing facility in the hills between Chatsworth and Simi Valley.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Judge-Sides-With-Boeing-in-Rocket-Site-Cleanup-120867799.html

quote:

(2011)

A federal judge ruled this week that a California law that laid out strict cleanup standards at a former rocket engine and atomic test site is unconstitutional.

http://www.enviroreporter.com/2012/12/greenwashing-rocketdyne/all/1/

quote:

(2012)

Secret plan to �greenwash� contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory exposed after secret document posted online

Aerospace giant Boeing plans to declare the former Rocketdyne site in the Simi Hills clean enough for public open space even with recent findings of high radiation in the soil and continued chemical releases headed toward the Los Angeles River.

Local press has followed this 50 year long technopunk crime drama for years:

http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/greenwashing_rocketdyne/10524/
http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/rocketdyne_still_hot/9658/
http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/simi_we_have_a_problem/6700/
http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/rocketdyne_nightmares/6106/

# ¿ Apr 19, 2014 23:02

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

So yeah.

If you cant trust Boeing who can you trust?

:suicide:

# ¿ Apr 19, 2014 23:03

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Kaal posted:

edit: If I were an urban legislator, I might start tagging a Tax Shield rider onto every prospective anti-tax bill that would ensure that people's tax dollars weren't constantly floating over over to their "spendthrift" county neighbors. That kind of rank disparity in tax spending is outrageous - there ought to be a limit on how unbalanced spending can get. Taxpayers deserve to know that their money is being spent responsibly within their own community, not propping up far-off country homeowners that aren't willing to pay their own way.

Absolutely.

Gerund posted:

When a mostly-progressive county rejects a regressive-as-poo poo tax package, blame the badly-written bill, not the voters.

Word on the street is that the bill was only a stalking horse to show the Metro budget crunch's effects, and the next avenue for funding busses is another chunk of property taxes levied overly on home-owners and rental properties- condos are naturally less affected by this, so woo go property developers yay.

If they are planning with actual staged strategies that would be relieving.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2014 08:17

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Cicero posted:

Last part is probably true. (Most) Doctors work pretty crazy hours, at least for their first several years.

Like frat rapists once they get accepted they figure they can do what they want and you should beg to kiss their rear end. Anyone that blindly trusts a doctor in America is as smart as someone blindly trusting a mechanic or a dentist. They all make money by creating 'problems'.

Mini quote-rant incoming.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113571111

quote:

"We needed to know what was going on in home health agencies, what was going on in nursing homes, hospitals, doctors offices," Wennberg says. "And for each patient, what their diagnosis was, what their treatment was, how much money was spent, and what the outcomes were in as far as we could measure them."

...

Sitting at a table with most of the medical transactions in the state of Vermont listed before him, Wennberg was able to see just how bizarre the distribution of care was. People in one town would get their hemorrhoids removed five times more often than people in another town only 30 miles away. Ditto with mastectomies, prostate operations, back surgery.

...

His insight: It was doctors, not patients, who drove medical consumption, and all kinds of things influenced the decisions a doctor makes when a patient enters his office. Sickness and patient preference play an important role, but a much smaller role than patients and the health care community had originally thought.

...

For instance, it turns out that if you increase the number of doctors in an area, chances are that the use of medical services will rise. If there's one doctor in a town with 100 patients, then he'll schedule your heart checkups for once every six months, but if another doctor comes to town � and now the first doctor has 50 patients � the doctor will just schedule your heart checkups for once every three months. There's a very simple reason why, says Frank Read, an eye specialist who participated in the doctor groups.

"I don't want to be sitting on my thumbs all the time � I want to be busy. And that may unconsciously loosen my criteria for doing a procedure."

Money

Which brings us finally to the subject that incredibly was never directly discussed during the nearly 20 years the doctors met: money. Specifically, the way money affects medical decision-making.

Keller explained that this subject was completely verboten.

"It would have been a show stopper. It would have gone right to the question of greed, and you're not going to keep a doctor at the table if you say that he's greedy."

Talking to doctors about money is difficult. It's uncomfortable both for patients and for doctors to think that this most important and intimate service could be contaminated. But the truth is the decisions made by your physician when you enter his office are profoundly influenced by the way that doctors get paid in this country. "That's just common sense. That's human nature," says Smith of the Maine Medical Association. "The payment system is an important influence."

Most of the doctors in this country are not on a salary but are paid basically like pieceworkers in a clothing factory. This is called "fee for service," and the way it affects doctor behavior is clear.

"If you pay people more, the more things they do, they're going to do more things," says Smith.

...

"The patients in the high-spending regions were getting about 60 percent more care; 60 percent more days in the hospital; twice as many specialist visits," Fisher says. "And yet when we followed patients for up to five years, if you lived in one of these higher-intensity communities, your survival [rate] was certainly no better, and in many cases a little bit worse."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/09/20/224507654/how-many-die-from-medical-mistakes-in-u-s-hospitals

quote:

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published the famous "To Err Is Human" report, which dropped a bombshell on the medical community by reporting that up to 98,000 people a year die because of mistakes in hospitals. The number was initially disputed, but is now widely accepted by doctors and hospital officials

...

In 2010, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services said that bad hospital care contributed to the deaths of 180,000 patients in Medicare alone in a given year.

...

Now comes a of the Journal of Patient Safety that says the numbers may be much higher � between each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death.

That would make medical errors the third leading cause of death, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second.

http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm

quote:

According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatments:

� 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery

� 7000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals

� 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals

� 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals

� 106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs

Thus, America's healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of the death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer.

Or to put it another way: "Doctors Kill More People Than Guns and Traffic Accidents Combined"

</rant>

# ¿ Apr 30, 2014 01:59

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Pathfinding in Seattle is much more difficult, but at least when youre lost you know the name of the street youre on. Portlands sign situation is comically bad.

# ¿ May 4, 2014 22:44

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Accretionist posted:

Probably Last-Place Aversion bias.

Ive explained this so many times the last couple years that I keep this on hand: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/occupy-wall-street-psychology/

Its probably tied with explaining how marginal tax rates work for things I have repeated the most times.

# ¿ May 5, 2014 05:48

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Solkanar512 posted:

WA and OR both suck on the vaccination front, while at least WA has fluoridation.

As long as you rub it on your teeth (toothpaste), the entire topic is pointless.

# ¿ May 5, 2014 14:03

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Solkanar512 posted:

fluoride

When the CDC is referring to fluoridated water being an "inexpensive" solution they are not referring to the lack of affordable (to literally anyone) toothpaste in Portland. (Unless Portland is an anomaly, you will have an easier time getting toothpaste than food even if you are literally homeless.) Theres a bunch of politics behind their chosen tone but its boring and not worth arguing about.

The CDC also publishes warnings that the levels of fluoride in most US water is sufficient to cause dental fluorosis if it is used as the exclusive source of water for children under 8 years old.
http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/faqs/dental_fluorosis/index.htm

Harvard also advised caution regarding neurodevelopment:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22820538

quote:

Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health

...

RESULTS:

The standardized weighted mean difference in IQ score between exposed and reference populations was -0.45 (95% confidence interval: -0.56, -0.35) using a random-effects model. Thus, children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses also indicated inverse associations, although the substantial heterogeneity did not appear to decrease.
CONCLUSIONS:

The results support the possibility of an adverse effect of high fluoride exposure on children's neurodevelopment. Future research should include detailed individual-level information on prenatal exposure, neurobehavioral performance, and covariates for adjustment.

... and the levels the EPA allows have been argued over within the last decade:

http://thyroid.about.com/od/newscontroversies/a/fluoride2006.htm

quote:

On average, approximately 10 percent of children in communities with water fluoride concentrations at or near 4 mg/L develop severe tooth enamel fluorosis, the new report says. Previous assessments have considered all cases of enamel fluorosis, including serious ones, to be aesthetically displeasing because of the yellow and brown staining of teeth that occurs, but not adverse to health. However, the committee said that severe cases of enamel loss constitute an adverse health effect because one function of enamel is to protect the teeth and underlying dental tissue from decay and infection. "The damage to teeth caused by severe enamel fluorosis is a toxic effect that is consistent with prevailing risk assessment definitions of adverse health effects," the committee reported. Two of the 12 committee members did not agree that enamel defects alone are sufficient to consider severe enamel fluorosis an adverse health effect as opposed to a cosmetic one, but they did agree that EPA's maximum contaminant level goal should be lowered to prevent the occurrence of this unwanted condition.

There are also more studies coming out regarding bad outcomes with lifelong overexposure to fluoride and its effects on thyroid function.

Regarding poor people, it turns out that malnutrition is a terrible thing to mix with fluoride supplementation.
http://repository.ias.ac.in/61439/
http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/11512573/reload=0;jsessionid=afC6Xda6xqMRiO9krrGT.24
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02761130

quote:

Metabolically active and vascular bones of children accumulate fluoride at faster and greater rate than adults (at the sites of active growth). In calcium deficient children the toxic effects of fluoride manifest even at marginally high (> 2.5 mg/d) exposures to fluoride. Fluoride toxicity also exaggerates the metabolic effects of calcium deficiency on bone. The findings strongly suggest that children with calcium deficiency rickets reported in the literature should be re-investigated for possible fluoride interactions. Deep bore drinking water supply with fluoride <0.5 ppm and improvement of calcium nutrition provide 100% protection against the toxic effects of fluoride and are recommended as the cost effective and practical public health measures for the prevention and control of endemic fluorosis.

When you yell FLUORIDE FLUORIDE FLUORIDE you are part of the reason people fight against it. You dont know what youre talking about and no one wants to risk someone like you making decisions about what (or how much) is in the public water sources.

Basically this is a dumb issue to cling to as a hobby.

Hooters Etailer posted:

Do you have any examples of anti-fluoride material that isn't total bullshit?

Above.

This topic is dumb. Sawant and wages are more interesting.

FRINGE fucked around with this message at 04:31 on May 6, 2014

# ¿ May 6, 2014 04:27

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Solkanar512 posted:

bullshit

edit: Nevermind.

Go start a new thread for your pointless hobby.

FRINGE fucked around with this message at 06:51 on May 6, 2014

# ¿ May 6, 2014 06:47

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Accretionist posted:

_Paraphrased

I'm pretty sure US tap's median fluoride level's sub 1 mg/L (which compromises your pre-edit reasoning). I'd post a source but I know you don't care about that kind of thing.

The CDC placed the warning specifically because some areas are >2mg/L, which does happen to bring the issue into the range of the Harvard study. When someone is lying about their concern for "public health" as a front for a political hobby horse they should be forced to clearly state that poisoning some people is ok in their opinion, as long as there is a potential minor benefit to the majority. Instead they pretend that the actual concerns do not exist at all, and lump the legitimate concerns in with whatever they copy from a blog as dismissal-stew of the week. You're a liar-misreader-correlater-poopyhead!

I actually dont care about the issue much, but the copy-pasted adhoms from the religious "skeptic" blogs combined with persistent mis-readings are irritating. I just dont have patience to pretend that all posts are equal (even less than years ago), and we still dont have permission to cut loose, so :shrug:

I do care about wealth disparity and wages, and will spend old-timey effort on that when I can.

# ¿ May 6, 2014 07:11

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

CaptainSarcastic posted:

Wait - I can't be arsed to check, but does Washington allow a different wage to be paid for positions that receive tips? I didn't realize that other states did that, until I lived in Arizona for a while and my girlfriend made like $2.50/hour because she got tips (bartending and waitressing).

Here in Oregon the minimum wage is the minimum wage, regardless of whether you get tips or not.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2023423265_minimumwagerestaurantsxml.html

quote:

Washington is one of seven states that does not allow a lower minimum wage for tipped workers.

... By comparison, the federal sub-minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13 an hour, versus $7.25 for non-tipped employees.

If the fight comes to a breaking point on that, I think they should take the $15 as a minimum and abolish tips.

FRINGE fucked around with this message at 07:23 on May 6, 2014

# ¿ May 6, 2014 07:21

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Chantilly Say posted:

Answering "here's how you're misusing/misrepresenting the data you've quoted" with "I don't actually care about the issue much" is, strangely, not the most solid retort.

This topic is not going anywhere, which is why I edit-deleted my post. If I am going to effortpost its not going to be to yell at that guy again. Saying someone misread something only seems true if the rest of the audience isnt reading the stuff. Go read the stuff.

Senor P. posted:

So is Seattle or Portland doing anything about the elephant in the room of skyrocketing rent and real estate prices?

I could literally buy a new house for 200-300k or pay rent from 400-700 dollars for a decent 1bedroom anywhere outside of Portland or Seattle.

Guess I'll have to wait for the baby boomers to die off before I buy a house.

Amazon seems to be the master of housing costs, and arbiter of development. (In Seattle.)

So not anytime soon?

(Also that is not accounting for the bigger game ... see the end of the post.)

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2019996116_amazonrealestate27.html

quote:

Amazon's influence also extends beyond the office sector. Owners and developers of apartment buildings, condo towers, hotels and retail space are cashing in on the company's growth as well.

...

Amazon won't say how many people it employs in Seattle. But the Downtown Seattle Association's Joncas estimates the count tops 10,000 now, and could reach 30,000.

While there's no data, the conventional wisdom is that the typical Amazonian is young and well-paid. Many come from out of state.

Amazon buys thousands of downtown hotel rooms every year to house those recruits, Joncas says. A California developer recently proposed a 15-story hotel right in the middle of the company's South Lake Union campus.

Once they're hired, Amazon's employees seem inclined to city living.

"Amazon uses their urban campus and the in-city lifestyle as an effective recruiting tool," says Dean Jones of brokerage Realogics Sotheby's International Realty, "and that's good for downtown housing."

"They're driving urbanization," Sperling adds. "These kids are all urban dwellers."

...

Developer Harbor Urban leased all 184 apartments in its 17-story Alto complex in Belltown in just three months after the tower opened this spring. Marketing director Emi McKittrick says more than 70 percent of Alto's tenants work in South Lake Union, where Amazon is by far the largest employer.

Pillar Properties estimates 15 to 20 percent of the tenants moving into its brand-new Lyric complex on Capitol Hill work for Amazon.

Smaller landlords are benefiting, too: Amazon employees account for 25 to 30 percent of the condo and house leases Seattle Rental Group has negotiated in close-in neighborhoods over the past five or six months, broker Ashley Hayes says.

http://www.costar.com/News/Article/Amazon-Remaking-Seattle-in-Its-Own-Image/158886

quote:

Amazon has been at the center of the region�s tech boom and its growth has drawn migration to the urban core. From 2000 to 2012, the population of downtown Seattle grew by more than 26%(1), compared to 17% for all of Seattle and only 14% nationally.

http://www.geekwire.com/2013/amazoncom-continues-expand-office-footprint-seattle/

quote:

Amazon.com continues to gobble up office space in its hometown, expanding with a new 10-year lease for about 140,000 square feet at the Metropolitan Park North building.

The lease, which was signed last month, was reported today by The Seattle Times.

The new space is located at 1220 Howell Street, and brokers tell the Times that Amazon has taken over about 2.7 million square feet in the South Lake Union and Denny Triangle neighborhoods in the past two years.

The deal also comes a few months after Amazon.com purchased its South Lake Union headquarters from Paul Allen�s Vulcan Inc. for more than $1.1 billion.

The company also is moving forward with plans for 3.3 million square feet of space in the Denny Triangle area of Seattle, part of a plan for a new campus that borders downtown.

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2023296419_homesalesxml.html

quote:

Home price rising more slowly, but for-sale signs remain scarce

The median price of single-family homes in King County rose in March to $414,950, an increase of 6 percent from a year ago, while prices climbed even more in Snohomish and Pierce counties.

...

The Eastside, the most expensive market in King County, saw the median price of homes sold jump 9 percent to $599,950. There were 529 homes sold in March, down 14 percent from a year ago.

Meanwhile in Seattle, the median price dipped 3 percent to $450,000. There were 576 homes sold last month, about 12 percent more than a year ago.

In Southwest King County, the county�s lowest priced market, the median jumped 16 percent to $255,500.

... and of course:

quote:

Wall Street investors have been scooping up single-family homes at the lower end of the market and turning them into rentals, particularly in South King County and Pierce County.

This is part of a big national story though. (Wall street stripping homes off the market to create a more permanent renter-class, then packaging the rental profits into some kind of new derivatives. Have we heard this before?)

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2023084679_institutionalinvestorsxml.html

quote:

Wall Street buyers snap up thousands of local homes for rentals

...

Last April, amid the region�s tightest housing supply in a decade, a Wall Street-backed company stormed into the Seattle metro area and bought, on average, 10 homes a day.

Invitation Homes, a subsidiary of investment giant The Blackstone Group, purchased the homes from banks, foreclosure auctions or individual sellers, and turned them into rentals. Often buying entry-level homes under $300,000, it almost always paid cash.

�Cash is king,� said Bob Papke, a RE/MAX real-estate agent in Sammamish. �Your first-time buyer who�s scrambling to get their down payment together is going to get trumped by the investor.�

By year�s end, Blackstone�s Invitation Homes had hoovered up at least 1,585 single-family homes here, according to market researcher RealtyTrac . Nationwide, Blackstone says it has spent $8 billion amassing a portfolio of 43,000 single-family homes.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/blackstone-rental-homes-bundled-derivatives

quote:

Wall Street's Hot New Financial Product: Your Rent Check

...

Over the last two years, private equity firms and hedge funds have amassed an unprecedented real estate empire, snapping up Spanish revivals in Phoenix, adobes in Los Angeles, Queen Anne Victorians in Atlanta, and brick-faced bungalows in Chicago. In total, Wall Street investors have bought more than 200,000 cheap, mostly foreclosed houses in some of the cities hardest hit by the economic meltdown. But they're not simply flipping these houses. Instead, they've started bundling some of them into a new kind of financial product that could blow up the housing market all over again.

...

# ¿ May 7, 2014 05:04

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Gerund posted:

Thankfully this literal rent-seeking is a few strong legislators away from being sucked dry as tax revenue. Just a minority of two of solid, well-vetted wonks would wield power to alter the landscape!

I know more about CA than WA, and I am no where near knowing all the names, connections, favors, and bribes yet. (It will take a while!)

It definitely seems more hopeful here though. The only thing I can say about (S)CA is ... its all the OC in the end. :suicide:

# ¿ May 7, 2014 06:57

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

When people start in on the "ALL THE PRICES WILL DOUBLE!" fears, theres a few short videos that get the general point across without taking too much time:

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

# ¿ May 8, 2014 06:59

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Thanatosian posted:

nobody has turned them 90 degrees so they're facing the wrong direction.

I hated that in Portland.

# ¿ May 9, 2014 05:40

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

SedanChair posted:

When it's overcast, sustain yourself by plunging into the rainforest and smelling the damp earth and moss

I here its "the best idea" to smack every mushroom you see and inhale all the spores. Confirm/deny?

Dont do this!

# ¿ May 12, 2014 00:37

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

oxbrain posted:

Any business owner who can't figure out how to deal with increased labor costs deserves to go out of business.

Gerund posted:

So yeah, welcome to the free world, sorry about your drat luck in choosing a lovely product to hock.

If the landscape is slowly scoured clean of bottom feeding chains that peddle barely-food as real-food ... good.

Somehow I doubt McDonalds and Taco Bell will go away though. :/

# ¿ May 15, 2014 08:50

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Gerund posted:

Rumor has it she'll be interested in installing shoulder-cameras

This is a good idea, as long as they are "always on" and include audio. (And they make it an outright crime with a mandated criminal case everytime they "malfunction" and somehow "lose all footage".)

Gerund posted:

coordinating with the DOJ to get the SPD out from under that little "you're a terrible police force, we are beginning the process to fire everyone involved" thingy.

This should happen to every police force every X number of years.

# ¿ May 21, 2014 07:25

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Thaledan posted:

Why is this the prevailing thought? Why is it that the Feds are going to fix everything?

Theyve cleaned up police forces before. (At least compared to where they started out.)

LA is a famous example. Its still the LAPD, but it is no longer the "kill the niggers and sprinkle the crack" Rampart squad stuff from the 90s.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/18/local/me-consent-decree18

Oakland probably needed a leash on dogs:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_22134081/oakland-police-department-avoids-federal-takeover-agrees-unprecedented

The currently watched and civilized (from what I could tell?) Portland PD is trying to escape oversight:
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2014/03/federal_judge_wants_to_maintai.html

Etc ... signs are that it has an effect. Its harder for a local thug to shake the feds than it is for him to lean on the locals Arpaio-style.

Unless its "The South" then murder is their GOD GIVEN RIGHT or whatever.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/13/doj-and-nopd.html

quote:

�A lot of the � bad old officers are passing it on to the young guys. If they are training the recruits to do wrong things, then they are just repeating a cycle,�

# ¿ May 22, 2014 03:42

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

glowing-fish posted:

I will also try to do one of these for Washington.

Please do. Its good to have a matching set floating around.

# ¿ May 25, 2014 09:46

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

If police cant beat and murder people pretty soon no one will be able to beat and murder people!

:qq:

(The fact that they used "evidence" that they write less jay-walking tickets now as "proof" that they are "afraid" to do their "jobs" ... lol.)

# ¿ May 30, 2014 01:28

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

etalian posted:

It also makes the argument that the DOJ change to use of force rules put helpless citizens at risk

Whenever the cops start talking about "officer safety" you know theres a stream of lies on the way in order to create a roadway for murder.

"We need safety in our extremely safe job and we can only get it by killing you!"

I want to see ranchers, farmers, and fisherman petition for the right to kill people since they have actually dangerous jobs.

# ¿ May 30, 2014 02:05