Slashdot Mirror
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.
"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".
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?
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.
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?
...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/
"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.
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.
Never mind that San Francisco is in the middle of an earthquake zone and the flight paths of three busy international airports.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
????
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!
No, it means it can afford it a couple years sooner.
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
You have obviously never eaten a $100 hamburger.
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
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
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.
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?
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! --
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.
You can get 100 Gbps on campus and 40 Gbps campus-wide at the UW in Seattle.
Makes your 4 Mbps look like treacle.
-- 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...
"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.
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.
So what are you going to do, kill your economy? Change happens, and if you want it to work in your favor you first have to admit that you can't both keep Seattle exactly as it was and have economic growth. If you figure out what to do with the hipsters and yuppies, or figure out how to attract more of the kinds of people you do want, then you might be happier with what Seattle turns into. Unless you're one of those Seattleites who has something against outsiders, in which case you'll never be happy.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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!
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.