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In Midst of a Tech Boom, Seattle Tries To Keep Its Soul
HughPickens.com writes: Nick Wingfield has an interesting article in the NYT about how Seattle, Austin, Boulder, Portland, and other tech hubs around the country are seeking not to emulate San Francisco where wealth has created a widely envied economy, but housing costs have skyrocketed, and the region's economic divisions have deepened with rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco at more than $3,500 a month, the highest in the country. "Seattle has wanted to be San Francisco for so long," says Knute Berger. "Now it's figuring out maybe that it isn't what we want to be." The core of the debate is over affordable housing and the worry that San Francisco is losing artists, teachers and its once-vibrant counterculture. "It's not that we don't want to be a thriving tech center — we do," says Alan Durning. "It's that the San Francisco and Silicon Valley communities have gotten themselves into a trap where preservationists and local politics have basically guaranteed buying a house will cost at least $1 million. Already in Seattle, it costs half-a-million, so we're well on our way."
Seattle mayor Ed Murray says he wants to keep the working-class roots of Seattle, a city with a major port, fishing fleet and even a steel mill. After taking office last year, Murray made the minimum-wage increase a priority, reassured representatives of the city's manufacturing and maritime industries that Seattle needed them., and has set a goal of creating 50,000 homes — 40 percent of them affordable for low-income residents — over the next decade. "We can hopefully create enough affordable housing so we don't find ourselves as skewed by who lives in the city as San Francisco is," says Murray. "We're at a crossroads," says Roger Valdez. "One path leads to San Francisco, where you have an incredibly regulated and stagnant housing economy that can't keep up with demand. The other path is something different, the Seattle way."
Seattle mayor Ed Murray says he wants to keep the working-class roots of Seattle, a city with a major port, fishing fleet and even a steel mill. After taking office last year, Murray made the minimum-wage increase a priority, reassured representatives of the city's manufacturing and maritime industries that Seattle needed them., and has set a goal of creating 50,000 homes — 40 percent of them affordable for low-income residents — over the next decade. "We can hopefully create enough affordable housing so we don't find ourselves as skewed by who lives in the city as San Francisco is," says Murray. "We're at a crossroads," says Roger Valdez. "One path leads to San Francisco, where you have an incredibly regulated and stagnant housing economy that can't keep up with demand. The other path is something different, the Seattle way."
Seattle is quickly becoming the worst city on the West Coast.
What Seattle really needs is better mass transit. The bus system is decent as far as U.S. cities go, but the traffic is some of the worst in the nation. If they're going to continue growing the metro area, they need some kind of mass transit that makes it possible to get around without adding even more cars to the highway.
Look at Houston for guidance. 25% of our workforce is oil and gas, many of whom are engineers. There's 18000 people at the Space Center. Then there's all the other stuff downtown.
Housing here is quite affordable despite the abundance of high paying jobs. Driving is a necessity (and traffic kinda sucks and things are really spread out), but $3500 would lease you a 5000+ sq ft house here in a really nice area within a reasonable drive to work.
Don't tear down neighborhoods to build commercial zones. In fact, make a concerted effort to keep a sensible ratio of residential to commercial zoning and the housing prices don't shoot through the roof.
In a growing city you can have the original architecture untouched or the original people not displaced. Laws of economics dictate one or the other. Either you keep density and watch the residents there before be priced out or you watch the neighborhood be transformed beyond recognition to accommodate the influx.
"Counterculture"? Is that something that runs counter to your culture? Why would you want to keep that?
By definition, that which is preserved and fostered, or "cultured", IS "culture".
so in other words, how it already is now.
Perhaps rather than making up a conservative position that doesn't exist, you should try actually understanding the conservative position.
$15/hr minimum wage means McDonalds can afford that burger robot to replace half their employees.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
You don't want to be SFO because you see it's not working out so well... BUT...
You want to do EXACTLY the same things as SFO as you build *your* economy because somehow you can mange it better. Are you crazy Mr. Mayor?
What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Yea, you are insane..
Just as insane as the guy from amongst your population that decided to pay everybody the same wage, from the janitor to the CEO. He's insane too and now he's broke to boot... I won't go as far as to say EVERYBODY in Seattle is nuts, but if they keep electing people with these kinds of ideas one can safely assume the majority of the voters are crazy.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
My republican co workers assured me that Obamacare would cause our company to go under because healthcare costs would skyrocket. They're actually saving close to 200 dollars per employee, and whenever I ask them about it they get angry and change the subject to christian hate crimes or syria.
iirc Seattle has the highest male to female ratio in the country. Maybe some single women will move there once they realise how heavily the economics lean in their favour, until then I think I'll give it a miss, thanks.
They recently hiked minimum wage in NYS to 8.75/hr. You should have heard the doomsday and falling skies theories.
Seattle: Huge problems with traffic. Amazingly, amazingly, Seattle residents often mention that there are areas with poor internet service!
Portland: Unlivable. The traffic is 10 times worse than 2 years ago. The slowly, slowly moving cars make the pollution far worse. The Portland city government has been allowing the construction of huge apartment buildings with no parking. The parking problem lowers the value of all the buildings in the area.
There are many other areas of corruption. Here is just one: The Portland law against plastic bags favors a nearby company that makes paper bags. Paper bags are far worse for the environment because someone has to cut trees, trucks then bring the trees to a plant where they are processed with chemicals that also cause pollution. The paper bags cost grocery stores 10 times more than plastic bags and are so weak they often cannot be fully packed. Paper bags become weak when wet in the frequent rain. People who don't want the problems shop outside of Portland; Portland is a small city of 609,456 people (2013).
Often humans are not good at taking care of themselves.
Clean the office buildings at night
Work at shops and restaurants
Take care of your child
Police your city
This list can go on and on. People above can't afford to live the same city they work because of housing prices. I once asked a night janitor, who had his two sons with him at work that day, where he lived. He told me he lived more than an hour out of the city. I don't have any solutions but this isn't a good thing. Think about something catastrophic accident happening in the city and more than half the emergency services personnel are stuck in the massive traffic jam trying to enter the city.
Really? Who's your healthcare provider? What plan are you following? Can you cite more than just some bullshit?
$15/hr minimum wage means McDonalds can afford that burger robot to replace half their employees.
Is that a bad thing? An illegal worker with a leaf blower can clean up a large campus by himself, replacing a crew of 20 American workers with rakes and booms.
If SF removed its height limitations and was full of 60-story apartment buildings, it could at once have cheaper housing, more urban green space, and be seismically safer with new construction.
This is a logical fallacy. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent
...because of multiple government regulations that have choked off supply, namely:
* Rent Control
* Excessive environmental regulations
* Excessive land use regulations
* An institutional hostility to landlords (so bad that many landlords simply refuse to rent at all since renters could tie them up in court for years when they tried to sell the property).
* California's general hostility to development.
And now San Francisco has said they'll try to limit price increases by restricting supply. Looks like someone failed Economics 101.
Bonus: Did you know that the Rev. Jim Jones (yes, that one) once served on San Francisco's Housing Authority?
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
My democrat friends told me that with Obamacare, the costs of healthcare would go down for all, everyone would be insured and the nation would become a wonderfully healthy place. And that I would be able to keep my plan if I liked it.
That didn't happen either, and when confronted they just talk about how those lost plans were bad, naughty plans and give me examples of 2-3 people that have benefited from Obamacare and ignore the examples where it has hurt people.
If I work at a company where healthcare costs went up, I don't give a crap whether the costs went down at YOUR company. Good for you, was Obamacare meant to help you and not me? If there is anything sickening about Obamacare, it's that both sides of the argument use a couple good or bad examples to argue about it. Look at the damn thing in aggregate. Should I spend a billion dollars to help 3 people? Probably not, so don't make your argument using specific examples that just show me a couple people that have been helped/hurt. And don't argue that by telling me, in a nice vague manner "and that story is the same story across the country with thousands of people!". Because it's the same case on the opposite side of the argument. All it tells me is that you're a politician.
"One path leads to San Francisco, where you have an incredibly regulated and stagnant housing economy that can't keep up with demand. The other path is something different, the Seattle way."
Where the linked article points to Seattle's mayor pleading for more regulated housing economy ("25% affordable"), it doesn't seem that different.
The other aspect of focus on transportation seems sound.
If you say you're going to make houses for the lower income people but then they get bid up and bought out by people who'd rather not have to pay 500k for a house when they don't have to.
The biggest difference in how Seattle is handling its tech boom vs. how San Francisco has handled theirs is that in Seattle, old historical neighborhoods are being bulldozed into the ground with no regard to their "soul". For example, along Broadway in the heart of Capitol Hill (historically a funky, diverse, inner-city neighborhood) it's now hard to find a building more than 10 years old. Ten years ago, the majority of the building stock on Broadway was 50-120 years old. The character of the whole area has simply been discarded in favor of bland luxury condos and upscale chain stores. The hippies, gays, artists and black people have been replaced by 23-year-old white male Amazon workers who roam the streets in packs, swilling Jagermeister and assaulting any drag queens they spot.
Assume that tech money will come and go. Use the money coming in now to invest in future Seattle. Build subways, railways, etc. Beef-up the infrastructure of public transport with the money you have now. Whether or not tech stays, people will want to live in place where they can get around fast and will not need a car. Logistics and housing are the answers.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
The same thing is happening in "world class" cities all over the place. Here in Canada, the middle classes are pretty much priced out of Vancouver and Toronto, as the desirable real estate is increasingly acquired by the 1% as a place to park their wealth. Many of these folks don't even live there, or else split their time between properties in other desirable locations. Hence the spectacle of condo towers sitting mostly vacant in the midst of housing shortages. When you're that wealthy, it's not even worth the trouble to rent out your investment properties.
It was kind of weird - I mean, Dick's was ALWAYS advertising for jobs at $12/hour, medical/dental paid, paid vacations, even money towards schooling and charity work. But they couldn't find workers. I wonder what a $15/hour minimum wage will do... I suspect there will still be minimum wage jobs (or over) crying out for people - but you'll still have openings because someone in Government/media will always claim "it's not enough"...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
It's a bad thing if all you are qualified to do is flip burgers.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
What policy did you have, and what did you move to? I don't believe your claim at all... I went from a $110/month catastrophic plan (pre-Obamacare) to $450 "bronze" plan (post-Obamacare) and my out-of-pocket maximums are actually higher. Four times the cost, and less coverage - hurray! Oh, and that was with Lifewise of Washington.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
How many whines about too many tech jobs ruining Seattle for the workin' man do we need to see?
Every town without a tech boom wishes they had your problems.
I was a spaghetti cook and made minimum wage ($5/hr) for three years after college before I got my first tech job that doubled my income ($10/hr). Flipping burgers doesn't have to be a permanent condition.
Development like this is rampant across a lot of major US cities
There's a great blog about vanishing NYC that documents how gentrification is turning the place into a big shiny armpit...
Everything that makes NYC what it is is being removed in favor of bland, high density housing
I don't own a business, but my personal healthcare costs skyrocketed (granted they were rather low prior, so it's less extreme than it might sound) to the extent that I dropped my previous plan and couldn't find any alternatives that were as inexpensive. Should I make snarky comments about how much of a failure Obamacare has been? Picking one instance of where it worked without considering the impact across the board is being as intellectually dishonest as your co-workers.
Personally I think we traded one broken system for another. The Democrats should have pushed for a single-payer solution instead of pussyfooting around. The Republicans are going to disagree with them no matter what they do, so they might as well implement a change that would be a big improvement. I think that in general such a system would be vast improvement to the point where after a decade, it would be hard for anyone to politically oppose it from a practical standpoint.
So you're claiming that immigrant diversity isn't working out for you?
Isn't that, like, racist, dude?
Hipsters who don't want to commute more than 30 minutes from San Francisco. Recruiters are offering higher pay rates for hipsters to work in Silicon Valley that's 45- to 90-minutes away.
Portland isn't a tech hub. Washington county to the West of Portland, across the West hills is.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Mine went from $180 a month $7,500 deductible Major Medical plan to a $950 a month $12,500 deductible Bronze Major Medical plan. I was told that I had crap insurance before and that is why it went up, but it was with the same company and the only change was that they raised the deductible and raised the premium.
After this new premium kicked in with no notice and after my bank started sending me overdraft notices due to the insurance company taking out an unapproved amount from my checking account (a process commonly known as "theft"), I immediately went searching for other insurance and got the plan down to only slightly over double what it used to be for 60% higher deductible.
A few years later, I was let go from my job and redid my application for insurance, hoping for some assistance with the premiums, but unlike the commercials for Obamacare which state "most qualify for assistance", I did NOT qualify for assistance, and did not qualify even for tax rebates. Still paying 100% of the premium, which is infinity percent of my salary. Before Obamacare, insurance was 2.5% of my salary, then it went up to 14% overnight, and now it is up to infinity percent. Still Hoping for Change.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Quit being so disrespectful to others.
A "burger flipper" has some understanding of food safety, how to work well with others including customers, how to resolve workplace conflicts, how to self-manage and complete assigned tasks, etc. Someone with, say, five years of "burger flipping" experience is of significantly higher value to a company than, for example, a 16 year-old with no experience.
I'm tired of hearing people disrespect those who do things as important as HANDLING THE FOOD YOU EAT. Stop disrespecting those below you and turning a blind eye to what is effectively punishment of them.
I have figure out why there is loud classical music coming through my headphones, interfering with what I was listening to. And it's a stupid commercial on the NYT site. I was lucky enough to guess the on one of the first tabs I closed, but jeeze. Fucking annoying!
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
AKA you went from the "I'll declare bankruptcy if I break something" plan to the "I'll declare bankruptcy if I break something but at least the hospital will still get a few bucks from the insurance company" plan.
Obamacare is shit in many, many ways, but the number of people who complain about how the price went up when they switched from imaginary insurance to shitty insurance is honestly staggering to me, and I have a friend who is an obgyn who once told me that she'd get at least one patient a month trying to cover up her pregnancy so they could apply for real insurance after they got pregnant, and how it never worked because the insurance company would just get a copy of the delivery report and none of them are going to believe they delivered a healthy full sized baby 10 weeks premature. Of course the insurance would just deduct the payment for the delivery from the doctor, then the bills to the patient would come back undeliverable because the patient vanished once the insurance notified her she'd owe the whole thing because preexisting condition.
After living in Seattle for 40+ years, I can tell you that this place lost its "soul" a long time ago.
There are still remnants here and there but they're being cleaned up as quickly as possible.
And as bad as it is in many ways, it's still one of the better places to live on the west coast.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
It lost it in the 90's. Now Portland has been destroyed. Austin and Colorado are gone as well. Boston, San Jose and area also were lost long ago. We don't know if it is airborne, blood borne, or due to some weird radiation a space probe returned.
We just don't know.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Typically homosexuals are rich (statistically higher wealth, by a wide margin), and they are in fact often the people replacing the poor natives.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
This should not be an issue. Poor neighborhoods have always had the means to keep rich people out and housing affordable. A city should be able to support a diverse range of people, and will do so unless something prevents it. Sounds to me like this is more of a side-effect of every expanding police power than a tech boom.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
FYI, we went with Ambetter, $151 a month for my wife and I and it covers quite a lot. You might want to see if it's suitable for you.
I had a heart procedure in April and the bill was $85,000...I ended up having to pay about $4K of that and medications (after a $400 cap) are at no cost, no limit. I blew through $400 of meds in about 2 or 3 months so overall I'm happy with it.
Could it be better? Hell yes; I'd have preferred single payer, but after not being insured for ~10 years due to the cost, I really can't complain too much.
The ACA literally saved my life, and I do mean literally. Without Obamacare I'd be dead right now.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
The problem is that the effects of ObamaCare vary greatly from state-to-state, because a lot of things are state-dependent still, and a lot of its success depended on the states increasing their Medicaid rolls. So people in one state may find that overall, it improved things significantly, while in another state the opposite is true, because of the way the state government handled things.
a. don't ask what you wish for.... (as the saying goes)...
b. ok, now that you're getting what you wanted (SF atmosphere, but just as bad SF problems), look to Los Angeles, yes it's a mess down here, but LEARN FROM US, LA, is going to be the largest city in the US by 2022, and it's feels like Detroit, but it's pretty diverse down here and staged for big growth.
On the plus side, I got a new car two weeks ago.
You're doing something wrong. If you don't have any income, you should qualify for Medicaid. ObamaCare is for people who actually have an income.
The irony is that many of the products under development are expected to be used in every corner of the world.
But somehow they can only be developed by bringing people all together in one place.
????
Check the demographics - Seattle is very white.
Uh, no. I had a $10,000 deductible - I was responsible for the first $7,500 (current bronze package is $6,300). After that it covered 100%. So now I "save" $1200 in max out-of-pocket, but I get to pay $3600 more per year. There's some savings for you!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
So why the fuck aren't you burger flipping, given you are a moron that deserves no respect?
No, it means it can afford it a couple years sooner.
Here it is if you like to be depressed, start with a recent post about the Greenwich Village Ghost Town:
http://vanishingnewyork.blogsp...
They are doing all the right things:
1) Raising the Minimum Wage (Raises the cost of everything including taxes).
2) Stupid projects like the light rail (Must be funded with more taxes, is already a huge multi-billion dollar boondoggle)
3) Talking about Rent control and anti-gentrification (Nothing like preventing new development to limit supply and thus raise costs).
My republican co workers assured me that Obamacare would cause our company to go under because healthcare costs would skyrocket. They're actually saving close to 200 dollars per employee.
Oh, so you haven't got your rate increase for 2016 yet then.... I just got mine and it's pretty shocking this year... I think my premiums have gone up nearly $300 over the last three years for my family, ostensibly due to the ACA, and my deductibles and out of pocket went up too. I also hear that a number of areas are seeing 20% rate hikes on the Federal exchanges this time around. So if you really are saving money, you work in a rare place, or everybody got cut back to part time..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Scrum standups...
You have obviously never eaten a $100 hamburger.
Smart money is on detroit. I'm sure they have a counter culture that the hipsters are looking for.
Quit respecting people far beyond the basic amount of respect that is required by common courtesy.
No, they do not. What a "burger flipper" has is a set of rules he or she has to abide by, without ever being told the reason why. They operate a relatively low-skill piece of machinery on an assembly line, and it is quite common to see:
1) Food retained far past its "safe" retention period;
2) Food served far below expected temperatures;
3) "Oops I dropped this, eh, that's okay" behavior;
4) No understanding of basic barrier procedures for hygiene.
Watch the burger flipper next time he comes up to the register, operates the register with his filthy latex gloves on, and then goes back to prepare more food with the same filthy gloves on, and tell me he knows all about proper food safety. It happens, I've seen it happen, and I was a burger flipper for 2 years during high school: I know the level of training involved, and I know the level of knowledge and independent thought and judgment required: virtually zero, for all three criteria.
Uh... what? Many of the burger flippers I've come in contact with are rude, more interested in talking to their co-workers than performing their duties, and completely fail to meet even the most BASIC of requests from customers. Judging from my experience AS a burger flipper, and my experience dealing with them, they overwhelmingly lack customer skills, conflict resolution skills, self-management skills, and a task-orientation. You seem to think that everybody at McDonald's is a motivated self-starter who just can't wait to get on the clock so they can help customers... this leaves me curious what you base this opinion on, because it sure doesn't match with any reality I've ever seen.
No, someone with five years of "burger flipping" experience who has not attained any higher level than burger flipper is probably *LESS* valuable than a brand-new 16 year old with no experience, but a lot of motivation. If you stay a burger flipper for 5 years without achieving anything higher than that, then you are either (choose one):
1) Mentally Handicapped - okay, no foul, if you're at the limit of your capabilities, then bravo for you;
2) Lazy - 5 years of laziness from one person, versus a new 16 year old eager to make some money and get their first job ever year? I'll take the 16 year old.
And I'm tired of hearing the people who do something as important as HANDLING THE FOOD I EAT act as if their work involves curing cancer. It doesn't - if your replacement can be trained in one day of on the job show & tell, you shouldn't expect to be showered with praise for following the fucking rules that are pasted all over your workplace.
Look, life is hard, cupcake. If any one of those people flipping burgers shows an ounce of motivation, drive, and competence, I'll give them mad respect. But when they overwhelmingly show laziness, incompetence, and entitlement, and are literally incapable of remembering and fulfilling simple requests, then they are not deserving of any more respect from me than I would give to any other human being out of the demands of common courtesy. I won't yell at them, I won'
Let's not forget that Obama's party had 100% control of congress for nearly two years when he took office. They could have had ANYTHING they wanted and All the republicans could do is stand yelling on the capital steps and stomp their feet hoping the press would cover it. So what did the party in power do? Not all that much, except for Obamacare, which they sold on a series of lies... Is it no wonder that they've steadily lost seats in the house and senate and Obama's second election win was with a thinner margin than his first? IMHO - I think the trend will continue, though lord knows the republicans are not apt to do much better if they stay on the same old paths that got their clocks cleaned in 2008....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I didn't know Amazon had a hiring policy which excludes hippies, gays, artists and black people.
I live in a very ugly city. It's spread out, there's constant road construction and development. It's ugly, there is very little greenspace and you have to drive everywhere. Mass transit is a horrible joke - I can walk to some places faster than the buses can take me. The Summer is one long smog day.
A drop of rain falls and your commute turns from 30 minutes into 2 hours or more. Ice storms cause 12 hour commutes home.
We have no restrictions on development.
I'm speaking of Atlanta.
I've been around the country a bit and SF is a beautiful city. I cannot blame the residents for wanting to keep it that way and not turn it into an urban shithole. And since the demand for housing is so high, obviously the rents are not a problem.
And when I visit family up there in Berkeley, I find it troubling that the streams all have signs that say "do not drink the water" - it is polluted. If they had those "excessive" environmental regulations in place before industry destroyed the environment, then maybe things would be better.
Frankly, I think it's an interesting experiment on SF's part and I'm interested in the long term consequences. Because the way other cities are doing it, it's wrong.
Above someone made a comment that Houston is doing it right. Houston is a smelly shithole. And although it may be "affordable", I would consider it quite a step down from Atlanta and a slum compared to San Francisco.
Bonus: Did you know that the Rev. Jim Jones (yes, that one) once served on San Francisco's Housing Authority [salon.com]?
This is the first time I have ever seen an Ad Hominem made against a city.
Where does Seattle think the "soul" of a city comes from?
It comes somewhat from architecture, though that is just shape.
The main area where the soul of a place is from, lies in the businesses that are located there - and I'm specifically talking about the smaller local shops that provide maximum "flavor" to an area.
Those are EXACTLY the places driven to close by a minimum wage hike. They can no longer afford to pay workers, many of whom might have been teens - why should TEENS get $20/hour? They don't need to live on what they earn, they just need to earn a bit of money.
Seattle by passing the minimum wage hike has ensured they will become a soulless husk much faster than SF ever did (though one could argue the soul of SF is now embodied in urine, which will persist).
Many small quaint businesses in Seattle will close, replaced by Starbucks (the one place where I guess that is fine).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"These new rich people don't like to shop at the thrift stores I like so much."
Is that what this was about? Crime in Seattle?
The summary was way too long and rambly. Submitters need to GET TO THE POINT.
If you have...you're a retard.
APK has started stalking me, please don't respond, it only makes his posts more visible.
What a psycho. I hope that future generations can dissect and study his brain. Perhaps many of the world's woes can be solved once we identify the weird twist in his brain folds that results in his social awkwardness.
Heh... What color is the sky in your la-la land? It doesn't make money for the lower income people, it just shuffles it around in the broken window fallacy manner.
Where does the money come from to pay the extra increases? YOUR ASS? No? Then it's not fantasy to say it and it actually has been a drag on things. PROVE YOUR POSITION. PROVE IT FULLY. No? Can't? THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP. You're talking out your ass.
A "burger flipper" has some understanding of food safety
Some, yes. How much varies, but from what I saw when I worked in that industry, it ranges from "Absolutely none" to "Barely gives a shit". Sure there are a few examples otherwise, but those people find other jobs or get promoted to management. For most, their food safety knowledge consists of "The burger is done when it starts to smoke", "It's been held too long when the light turns red", and a sign in the bathroom reading "Employees must wash hands."
how to work well with others including customers
Rule #1 of the food industry- do not let the cooks or dishwashers talk to customers. In fact, don't let the customers even see them if at all possible.
how to resolve workplace conflicts, how to self-manage and complete assigned tasks
HAHAHAHAHAHa NO. The vast majority of those workers learn nothing of any of those things. Conflicts are resolved by someone quitting or getting fired. There IS no "self-management", everything is so utterly micro-managed. It's called "building intelligence into the process"- the idea is that the entire process is so extremely detailed and controlled that the worker really needs to know little or nothing.
Someone with, say, five years of "burger flipping" experience is of significantly higher value to a company than, for example, a 16 year-old with no experience.
Nope. The only possible value that person might have is Reliability- if they show up every day, on time, don't take time off, always come in on their days off to cover for no-shows, and are sober enough to not fuck up the job. There's little to nothing a 5 year veteran has over a new hire other than a bigger paycheck and the ability to work well while drunk or high.
Stop disrespecting those below you
First, I'm not disrespecting them.
Second, they are not 'below me', it is the JOB which is 'below me'. Your choice of words shows that YOU are the one who has a problem with respecting others, in that you actually think those people are somehow lesser.
Finally, I've worked those jobs. Fast food, short order, fine dining. They are vastly different environments. Fast food is not about hiring quality people, it's about hiring the cheapest person you can find to bend over a barrel and fuck with a hot fry basket, in order to churn out the largest quantity of cheap-ass low-quality slop as possible. If you are smart and/or skilled, you either move up or you move out, unless you have some kind of personal issue like addiction or a criminal record, or if you're getting paid 'under the table'.
I'll be blunt with you. Raising minimum wage is nothing more than a shell game. It actually hurts the workers at the bottom because they never really get ahead- work for 3 years and watch all your raises vanish when the minimum gets bumped up.
The problem is that many of these places were worse than armpits to start with. Sure you'll get people who claim it was paradise on earth where everyone was friends with everyone else and nobody wanted for anything - and then you find out the truth.
The hippies, gays, artists and black people have been replaced by 23-year-old white male Amazon workers who roam the streets in packs, swilling Jagermeister and assaulting any drag queens they spot.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Horribly, horribly wrong. He got screwed by his employer. Any actual marketplace plan has an out-of-pocket maximum (not deductible) of $6,600 for an individual or $13,200 for a family.
You're a fucking retard if you think someone who has no income at all is making 6 figures.
From the OP's own post:
A few years later, I was let go from my job and redid my application for insurance, hoping for some assistance with the premiums, but unlike the commercials for Obamacare which state "most qualify for assistance", I did NOT qualify for assistance
Please explain to me how someone who is "let go from [his] job" has an income which disqualifies him for assistance. Last time I checked, when someone is "let go" from their job, they stop receiving paychecks, unless they get a deal like Milton's.
Either explain yourself, or go fuck off you piece of trash.
You're doing something wrong. If you don't have any income, you should qualify for Medicaid. ObamaCare is for people who actually have an income.
My kids did qualify for Medicaid. After 27 years of contributing to social programs, Medicaid for my kids and 4 months of unemployment are the only things society deemed fit to give back. Social programs are a way of life for some people, but for many people that pay into them, they are rarely available as a safety net when they are needed most.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
handcuff the cops, take away everyone's guns, put a marijuana store on every street corner, make sure you fly an LGBT flag from the Space Needle, make sure every busy street takes a lane for bicycles, put up another bust of Lenin, and everything will be peachy.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Why would you imagine a corporation "hoards" money? Corporations mostly spend any money they get on growth growth growth GROWTH AT ANY COST. During downturns the smarter companies may keep a little back to help survive, and buy up the ones who don't, but that beats random hire-then-layoff.
Minimum-wage employees almost always work in low-margin businesses, so when wages go up either prices go up, the business goes under, or the business automates. When prices go up, that's usually a very regressive tax, given shopping habits of the rich and poor, but that obviously looks like "economic growth" since, hey, prices went up.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
wtf, are you a 90 year old smoker on a family plan? 50+ smoker is under $500 with 3500 deductable here.
If you make as little as you said would be mostly subsidized. Probably under the $180 figure. Try again.
wow man, 56k dialup forever! the soul of a high tech city. wow.
makes me pine away for the 4Mbps comcast cable we had in the heart of silicon valley.
In fact the big one for Seattle is bigger than the big one for San Francisco (all be it somewhat further away). Both cities have serious natural geographic constraints due to being on the coast with bays or lakes behind them.
Stupid liberals whine about the costs of housing without addressing the real issues...open space laws and regulations limiting housing development- particularly rent control in SF.
And why wouldn't you qualify for Medicaid after your unemployment runs out?
As someone born and raised in Washington, living in Seattle's capitol hill neighborhood for more than a decade. We never wanted to become San Francisco. We have enough trouble with microsoft, google and amazon screwing up our traffic and costs of living we don't need to add more puffed-up hipsters and yuppies.
Bullshit. Fast food burger flipping has a 1 day training period.
It's a starter job. Anybody who gets stuck there is a moron that deserves no respect. Exceptions for actual retards.
Food production and garbage disposal are two of the most important jobs in any civilisation. WAY more important than, say, software development...
What happens if you all have to prep your own food?
What happens if your garbage just doesn't get taken away?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
You can't really get a decent place for $500k in Seattle.
Now if only we would permit Tiny Houses in the driveways of retired SFH zoned properties, so they could keep their house, and rent/lease the land, people could easily buy a Tiny House for $30k and have equity in the actual house. This would double population but allow people to keep their older giant houses with unused garages that they no longer use.
Most of use use transit, bike, or walk to work here. Car driving is something the suburbanites do.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Should a catastrophic plan that covers almost nothing be considered a real health care plan? Group rates go down if you get more people into the group, including people who are well most of the time. If you're in a group with only sick people then your rates go up.
Obamacare isn't perfect, it has many flaws, but what we had before Obamacare was fundamentally broken and had to be fixed. But politics made sure that the fixes weren't implemented very well. The one group had only one goal and that was to make it fail and ensure Obama was a one term candidate, that goal superceded every thing else including the well being of the citizens. The other group insisted on passing it by any means whatsoever and thus allowed it to be watered down and undermined.
Politicians would rather win points than cooperate. And something this big needed cooperation so that the broken health care system we had could be reformed and built up better than it was before. So Democrats gave in too much in their attempt to get anything passed so that they could hail it as a victory. The Republicans were intent to sabotage at any opportunity. So we were left with something much worse than the proposed plan or even the original Romneycare plan. I'm not saying one party should have won out and gotten all of their objectives; a real functioning government would have had both sides cooperate fairly to create a good health care system, or even create a non-partisan non-political committee of experts to help set it up. But when both parties see the other side as the ultimate evil in the universe then that can't happen. So what you get is a collection of tiny "wins", one side wins by removing one feature, the other side wins by inserting a tiny provision, etc.
I've worked for San Francisco companies remotely (and at San Francisco wages) for the past 12 years. It's a fallacy that you need to be there to be part of the tech scene.
How can there be a tech boom in a place with only dialup Internet? Are they doing IP over cockroaches?
If they raised it as little as possible, and solely because of Obamacare, then it means you had crap insurance and they were raising prices to cover extra costs of being in compliance. If either (or neither) of those things apply, they raised rates so they could screw you over, claim "Obamacare", and you wouldn't bother asking questions about why, exactly, the rates were raised tremendously.
Meanwhile, I went from a $320 "Economy" plan with my employer to a $160 "Catastrophic" (Economy for under-30s) plan through my state's Market. Same deductible, slightly higher co-pay/out-of-pocket.
"Why would anyone want to live there?"
Because every year, Seattle hipsters gather on the slopes of Mount Rainier for an art bacchanal called Smoldering Man.
Buh. I meant "If either one of those didn't apply, or neither applied," That's what I get for skimming the preview...
Yep. When the miniumum wage is $15 all workers who produce less than that value per hour are no longer allowed to participate in the work force. If you are poor with no skills, minimum wage jobs just became that much harder to acquire. Bootstrapping may require an under the table job, or other income evasion techniques.
"After taking office last year, Murray made the minimum-wage increase a priority, reassured representatives of the city's manufacturing and maritime industries that Seattle needed them, and has set a goal of creating 50,000 homes - 40 percent of them affordable for low-income residents - over the next decade."
Pshaw. More liberal policies that will only hasten Seattle's demise. SanFran will become like Detroit, and Seattle will become like SanFran, and then like Detroit.
Want to make an actual real difference? Reset the minimum wage back down to the Federal minimum. Back off the regulation. Eliminate the "laws" that infringe on people's Constitutional rights. Get government out of the marketplace (like housing). Let the true free market (not crony-capitalism) do its thing. Fix the roads. (Transit is a major problem in Seattle (land locked), which bussing will NOT fix (nor will rail). Fully embrace new services like Uber and Lyft.) Get govt. out of peoples' way, and things will start to improve.
It is BS. I work for a company that makes benefits software, and for most of our customers the cost has nearly doubled in the past five years. Of course, you can't blame the ACA for all of that increase, but the claim the costs went down is BS.
First Liberals complain that people are not paid enough. Then an industry comes in and pays lots of people very good wages. Then Liberals complain that those people getting great wages are driving up the cost of everything. It's always something to complain about. Always ignoring basic tenants of supply and demand (skilled, valued workers get paid more and limited resources like property in high demand areas will cost more).
They won't be happy until everyone is exactly the same. But what they fail to understand is that even if everyone has the exact same apartment at the exact same price, someone will have a loud neighbor, someone else will have morning sun, someone else will have a shorter walk to such and such place. Perfect equality can never happen and there will always be someone jealous of what someone else has.
or considered such.
The first link I came across is a cost of living (of Bellevue Wa) so a popular search http://www.areavibes.com/belle...
It must be said then...
Witness MEEEEEEEEEE!!!
This space unintentionally left blank.
I've had bronze level Obamacare, and I have my issues with it, but that's not how it works. 6K is the maximum annual spending. Bronze level will give you a higher deductible and a low co-pay, but will pay out at least something on any medical claims you make.
Overall I think Obamacare has its problems, but is way way way the hell better than the system from before.
wtf, are you a 90 year old smoker on a family plan? 50+ smoker is under $500 with 3500 deductable here.
If you make as little as you said would be mostly subsidized. Probably under the $180 figure. Try again.
Nope, 45 and non-smoker. No previous conditions. It's just that the plan I was on went up 500% when Obamacare kicked in.
If you make as little as you said would be mostly subsidized. Probably under the $180 figure. Try again.
I will try again at my next renewal, but by then I expect I will be working again and trying to catch up with all the bills that had to go unpaid so i could pay my insurance premiums.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
lol you stupid bitch your owner is raping you. i suppose you vote red too. you aint ever gonna be a millionaire. you too stupid.
No, Medicaid does not automatically apply if you're poor. Source.
Note: "There is currently no federal requirement that states provide health coverage to adults without dependent children. These adults qualify for Medicaid coverage only if they have a disability or are age 65 or older. However, about half of states provide some coverage through federal waivers or state-funded programs for non-disabled adults who have limited incomes but do not otherwise qualify for Medicaid."
You paid taxes for programs for the poor. You thought you were investing in something to help you if you had a few rough months, but you were wrong.
Aha! This is the answer I was looking for. Thanks.
So basically, this guy is screwed because he's in a shitty state. I knew there had to be a good reason here.
I live here. Now the weather is bad and the hipster SCUM in Teslas are all over. Its totally ruined. Stay away. I'm looking to move.
Medicaid is only for the elderly, disabled, and children, as a Federal program. Many states have other assistance programs but not all. It may be most in OP's favor to simply move, but that is also expensive, and expensive short-term.
Of course, it has to be his fault somehow. Glad we got that all sorted out.
I didn't say that, I place the blame on his state's government.
I do wonder which state this is though. Because I'd like to make sure I avoid ever moving there.
>ease explain to me how someone who is "let go from [his] job" has an income which disqualifies him for assistance.
The government agency also looks at total assets.
If the OP is either paying a mortgage, or owns their home free and clear, they probably do not qualify for any government programs.
The so-called safety-net is merely a propaganda tool of the government, to prove that everything promised by politicians is an illusion.
Deductibles do not work that way.
I don't agree that raising restaurant wages to $15 an hour in Seattle raises prices very much. Remember when Elizabeth Warren discussed how much restaurant prices commonly have to increase with min wage increases - just a few cents, a few percent. I'm willing to pay 1 or 2% more so that someone can have a living wage. There were also some astro-turfy (chamber of commerce type) groups around Seattle looking around for restaurants that were closing because they couldn't afford labor increases. They came up with some examples that were later proven to be bogus.
It's certainly possible that raising the amount you pay employees could wipe out a business that can't afford it, but that turns out to not generally be the case here. The claim that raising minimum wage is wiping out small businesses has become an article of faith on the conservative side, just like global warming.
The other side is you shouldn't have any minimum wage - the problem is that then those workers get various welfare coverage, like Walmart. We shouldn't being subsidizing Walmart's ability to pay people a tiny amount.
Let's not forget that Obama's party had 100% control of congress for nearly two years when he took office. They could have had ANYTHING they wanted and All the republicans could do is stand yelling on the capital steps and stomp their feet hoping the press would cover it.
I think that single payer would have been much much better than what we have. But the dems didn't have that much of a majority and all those chicken shit conservative dems were not really on board with it. We lost single payer because one senate vote counted so much - that senator from Nebraska, a conservative dem, who did lose his seat, personally held out his vote to kill single payer, and that vote was needed so out it went.
Bullshit. Our company rates went up 40 percent in two years. You're a fucking liar.
Why would you imagine a corporation "hoards" money?
Oh, I dunno... I guess Apple with it's $200 billion or whatever it is now.
Large multi-nationals are hoarding money while they wait for a tax holiday. If we simply eliminated corporate income tax (leveling the playing field a bit for small companies who can't afford "the Double Irish"), and increased upper bracket income taxes and capital gains taxes beyond some wealth threshold, then we might see an influx of investment in new employees and facilities in the USA.
So what did the party in power do?
1) Worked on cleaning up the wreck of a war left behind by Bush.
2) Dealt with the biggest economic crash since the Great Depression.
3) The Dodd-Frank Act, the biggest change to financial regulation since the Great Depression.
Healthcare was simply not a front-burner issue in the first couple of years of his presidency.
Have you checked the size of Apple's cash mountain lately? They hoard it because they can't repatriate most of it without paying billions in tax.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Seeing as many gay people are not "out", there is no way that statistic can be thought of as accurate.
Sounds to me like Seattle is following in San Francisco's footsteps, with "preservationists and local politics" doing pretty much the same things they did in San Francisco.
I just wish they'd stop blaming the "tech boom" or software developers for their failed policies.
Maybe there is hope for Seattle yet!
Yes, and that building stock is decrepit and inefficient. Good riddance.
Well, as a white gay male engineer, I left a few years ago, because people like you are prejudiced and bigoted and have destroyed traditionally gay neighborhoods by trying to purge them of anybody who doesn't look sufficiently queer to your tastes. Fuck you and people like you.
remote work. Ok this advice was free, next won't be.
OK, then let me reword that. Out Homosexuals are statistically far richer than their heterosexual peers. And in particular Settles population of said demographic is huge and rising.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Seattle is quickly becoming the worst city on the West Coast.
One time in Tucson, it rained a lot. That place is a rain forests!
Actually it is simple.
1. The majority of the tech press is in SF. The best product on the web or the app store does not always win. It is the one that people know about. You come up with a cool app in Twin Falls, ID and you will be hard pressed get any buzz.
2. A lot of the venture capital people are in SF.
3. If your startup in SF goes belly up you can walk down the street and find a new job.
4. SF, Seattle, and Austin are seen as being cool tech centers.
Frankly it is probably the reason that Slashdot never became huge like Engadget dispite the fact that at one time it was the tech site on web for techies.
I live and work in South Florida. The PC was created in Boca Raton Florida. We used to have a ton of tech companies in South Florida and we have an extremely diverse population but very little in the way of start ups. I think a large part is the lack of colleges with strong tech programs in South Florida. The schools with the best tech programs are FSU, UF, and UCF which are all located central and north Florida.
Florida is still loaded with tech companies like Harris, Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and there is a lot of talent, cheap housing, good beaches, clean air, and sunshine but venture capital? Thriving start-up scene?
Nope not at all.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It is called logistics.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/1...
Walmart pays more than the federal minimum wage. So if you need food stamps on a Walmart paycheck, it is time to improve yourself and find work elsewhere. $9 now, and $10 next Feb (2016), nationwide, is nothing to look down on. In many places, that is the best paying job around.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Apple isn't your typical company. That $200 billion is because Apple knows what it is like in the lean times, so they are saving for those times. Most corporations invest profits into buying new businesses or expanding their existing business as it reaps more profits to do so.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
The sky is blue and white, sometimes red or pink.
If you think I am wrong, prove me wrong. The robot to flip burgers was invented, it is just a matter of time until McDonalds thinks automation is cheaper than people. When they decide that, it means half the people are out of a job.
When a machine can make the food, you need one less person. The McDonalds in my area put in a fry machine, now there aren't fry cooks. When they replace the person flipping the burgers, and the people making the sandwiches, that is 2-3 more jobs gone. If the machines are setup right, you don't need the front counter person, because that job is easily automated. The only person you will be left with soon is the guy loading food into the machines, and the maintenance technician.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Really? Historical buildings being torn down and empty storefronts because of greedy developers who want to suck the life out of a place to install bland condo blocks?
It's disgusting.
I think you are mis-remembering. It was Joe Lieberman of CT who didn't want single-payer. Strange how you disparage all those Democrats who took courageous/suicidal votes against their constituents wishes, and ended up paying for it with their seats. Such that now there is only a single Democratic senator in all of the old South.
You obviously don't appreciate the once in a life time luxury item.
the San Francisco and Silicon Valley communities have gotten themselves into a trap where preservationists and local politics
The housing bubble in the bay area is a direct result of government interference in the housing market. Every local government around here is extremely hostile to new construction, especially to increasing housing density.
A plot of land with a five million dollar single-family house on it would be worth far more if you put a ten-story apartment building on it, and it would make homes available at far lower cost for far more people.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Considering what gay people have to go through, your point still makes no sense. It might have something to do with it, it might not - the complete lack of rigor behind your claim makes it absolutely pointless and prone to error.
Umm, wealth is pretty rigorously tracked by the government. They are very serious about that. There is nothing more rigorous than government income statistics... I really do not think they make this stuff up.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
No startups, IMHO, it's partly because places with existing tech companies, like the ones you listed, do everything in their power to kill innovation. They preach it, but bury it under a pile of bureaucracy.
--voice of experience
Cheap storage VM.
I want to try to respond in a somewhat "pragmatic" way. First of all, I don't think most cities can afford to build out heavy or light rail to the extent that would be necessary to provide adequate transit for most everyone in an affordable way (both fares and taxes). NYC is an exception and also Washington, DC. Other than that a combination of Bus Rapid Transit combined with advances in self driving cars will ultimately be the solution. I don't even think we are utilizing the full extent of the highways we already have because humans are stupid drivers in the first place compared to what you will see with self driving cars. You can have the cars riding within a foot of each others bumper at high speed and enforce sensible merging and lane changes no matter whether the occupants like it or not. With all the cars traveling very close together and efficiently and smoothly I think you will find that the capacity of every single highway will increase dramatically. Another factor to consider is services like Uber and Lyft once they migrate to self driving vehicles. The fares could be reasonable and you would just order a vehicle on your smart phone where ever you are at to get a ride and the system would automatically send a car to you and you'd even be able to see it arriving on the GPS on your phone. I look forward to this day. Speed limits, congestion, merging, lane changing, stopping, driving conditions can all be managed responsibly and allow a far higher volume of traffic to pass through a given highway. Humans have proven that they don't want to drive properly or safely so I look forward to the day where it is mostly all enforced as self driving and computerized traffic management and flow to go with it.
Where I live in Maryland, taking the commuter train in to work in the DC area is actually faster than trying to drive, but only due to the congestion on the highway and roads.
If I'm able to go in to work a few hours later than everyone else, the drive takes about 45-50 minutes, vs. the 2+ hours during rush-hour.
With the train though, you're also freed up to do a little bit more than you can while driving. You can read a book or magazine, or get some work done on a computer.... That has some value too.
Mass transit is never going to really be the king of convenience, but when your alternatives aren't good, it can win out as the best choice.
Why not invest in bike lanes like they did in the Netherlands or London?
For me it has always been faster than any other kind of transport be it a car, bus, overground or tube.
Added health benefits and the fact that that kind of transport is virtually free once you have a bike makes it the best kind of transport for most.
Guess the real feat is to make those bikes cool enough to gather critical mass that'll demand those bike paths built.
Then again, this is Europe. I've not a clue what'd be perception of such idea in the states. Does it sound egregious for you guys over there? Does your status depend on not riding a bike to work?
Actually it is simple.
1. The majority of the tech press is in SF. The best product on the web or the app store does not always win. It is the one that people know about. You come up with a cool app in Twin Falls, ID and you will be hard pressed get any buzz.
So why do the developers need to be located in the same city as the PR department?
2. A lot of the venture capital people are in SF.
Ditto for the money people.
3. If your startup in SF goes belly up you can walk down the street and find a new job.
Or, I could got to an Internet site and see jobs all over the world.
4. SF, Seattle, and Austin are seen as being cool tech centers.
Frankly it is probably the reason that Slashdot never became huge like Engadget dispite the fact that at one time it was the tech site on web for techies.
I live and work in South Florida. The PC was created in Boca Raton Florida. We used to have a ton of tech companies in South Florida and we have an extremely diverse population but very little in the way of start ups. I think a large part is the lack of colleges with strong tech programs in South Florida. The schools with the best tech programs are FSU, UF, and UCF which are all located central and north Florida.
Since when are techies sociable?
Anyway, "real" tech exists more in S. Florida than N/Central. Only UCF has really tried to do a proper research park, and that's only about 2 decades old.
Florida is still loaded with tech companies like Harris, Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and there is a lot of talent, cheap housing, good beaches, clean air, and sunshine but venture capital? Thriving start-up scene?
Nope not at all.
Those companies are all doing military work. Most of the civilian space program work is not in Florida, and the whole military-industrial complex is alien to the "cool tech". Even when military tech is cool, they're not allowed to talk about it, share it, or show it off (except to congressthings, maybe).
Outside of military, the older tech enclaves are Jacksonville and Tampa Bay. For some reason, Miami seems to have mostly been happy with System 38's while the smaller cities were into the big mainframes. Now that mainframes are passé, Orlando has picked up on a little PC work, but the old-line computer users in Jacksonville are still trying to figure out who stole their punched cards.
Texas has less to offer than Florida, but it has a better tech reputation. Maybe it's because they know how to do something other than lure in tourists and use minimum-wage under-educated workers to do it.
Most of Eastside (even more so than WA) has very anti-competitive housing laws. It's all geared against keeping renters out and benefiting orthodoxy. This discourages building, but it's also the reason why Greater Seattle didn't participate in the housing crash of 2008. But, as with any market place obstacle, market place treats obstacles the way rivers treat boulders... a large obstacle can slow the flow for a while, but it's just a build up which will eventually burst through. Builders will find loop holes. The renting prices are already in a mini crash.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
"Diverse"? "Historically"? C'mon. Seattle has the highest ratio of Caucasians of any metropolitan area and it's been that way for a very, very long time. It's main function before the tech boom was as a port to Asia and Alaska. Oh, and the new constructions are actually quite beautiful. But I guess you can't argue about taste (even in architecture). Oh, and if there is any low brow behavior, it's more likely from the port workers than from Amazon employees (who are far too busy to care about drag queens).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
You have obviously never eaten a $100 hamburger.
Not everyone enjoys slamming, you know. Sure the chicks are to impress, but after a while you feel like "what's the point?"... Wait, you meant $100-burger as a luxury, didn't you? Um... I gotta go.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Right. One company. There might be a handful more among the Fortune 1000 that haven't yet figured out what to do - classic mismanagement (pay it out as a dividend if you can't figure out how to invest it in your business). It's not normal, and last I check, Apple was one of the "Big 5": one of the 5 destination software development companies, because they pay their engineers so well (and are quite large). While they're certainly douchbags for participating in that "no-poach" agreement, they still pay engineers on average somewhere north of 2x the median wage. Perhaps not the best example for a company screwing it's employees over?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"So why do the developers need to be located in the same city as the PR department?
2. A lot of the venture capital people are in SF.
Ditto for the money people."
Because in many startups the developers and the pr people, and the money people are all the same people. They are called startups after all.
"Anyway, "real" tech exists more in S. Florida than N/Central. Only UCF has really tried to do a proper research park, and that's only about 2 decades old."
Yes and that is a big part of the problem you do not have the schools feeding the tech companies. UF is in Gainsville which really is the middle of nowhere and FSU is in Tallahassee which is a city with two major employers, State government and FSU.
"Texas has less to offer than Florida, but it has a better tech reputation. Maybe it's because they know how to do something other than lure in tourists and use minimum-wage under-educated workers to do it."
Florida has more than that including aerospace and shipbuilding but the reputation is correct. I still think it is the disconnect between the Universities that have good tech programs and where the tech companies in FL are.
It really is too bad, I feel that a good tech company could do really well here.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The hidden assumption here is that there is a finite amount of work to be done. More stuff with less work is a good thing. If all a higher minimum wage does is induce companies to produce more stuff with less work, then it too is a good thing.
The simple fact that 30% of every message from apk contains bold face type and caps has already convinced everyone on /. of apk's tentative grasp on technology.
Link spam disguised as professional references doesn't fool anyone, apk, you're a joke and you've been a laughing stock of /. for many years.
Important != hardtoreplace
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Important != hardtoreplace
Its worth respecting those guys though. Or one day the cities will have grown so much that literally everyone will be full-time engaged in bringing food and water into the city and removing waste from the city. At that point 'Crazy Eddie' will stand up on top of a garbage truck and get all the garbage collectors to go on strike for better pay and conditions.
(thats from Mote in Gods eye btw)
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Should a catastrophic plan that covers almost nothing be considered a real health care plan?
Yes, yes it should. I take the money I saved in premiums and used that for my annual checkups. I banked a large portion of it over a few years and had a savings account worth considerably more than the annual deductible. It was a completely valid - and financially sensible - approach for me. Low monthly payments to cover something big, and my savings would cover the rest. Much like I do on my car - high deductible, low payment.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Yes, and that's pretty much all there is: a bunch of whiny, overpaid tech journalists, artists, marketing droids, and writers. Those people are not "techies". Neither are a bunch of e-commerce or social networking sites.
Techies actually come up with cutting edge technologies, and those people are rarely found in SF, because we are also smart enough to do the math, and because we generally want nothing to do with journalists, artists, marketing droids, and writers.
I dislike you intensely based solely on this opinion.
I occasionally see people like you around town, you can just SMELL their smug self satisfaction.
"look at that worker over there, must be a retard. I'm better than him."
I'd say I'm wishing for some awful thing to happen to you, making you revise your opinion. Nothing beats down that smugness like personal tragedy whacking your life out of orbit. But that would make me as douchy as you, so I won't. But the devil in me is pondering the thought.
So raise it to $1000k/hour. Champagne for everyone!
When you get right down to it, the bigger issue is why a heart procedure costs 85K at all.
When I was born, in 1970, my family had no insurance. The hospital bill? $200.
At some point, we might just burn down all the hospitals.
When you get right down to it, the bigger issue is why a heart procedure costs 85K at all.
Because the insurance companies in the US want to make money regardless of anything else.
At some point, we might just burn down all the hospitals.
This isn't the fault of the hospitals per se, but of the insurance companies that have driven costs through the roof.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
$15/hr minimum wage means McDonalds can afford that burger robot to replace half their employees.
Show me a city where 50% of any chain restaurant's employees were laid off. I can point to many cities that raised their minimum wage, and employment increased, not decreased.
Ideology is all well and good, just make sure it conforms to what has actually happened in reality.