The Serial Thinker Blog

Seattle Construction On The Decline

 

From yesterday's Puget Sound Business Journal: Construction in Seattle is on the decline, both in year over year terms and since the beginning of 2019. Here are the numbers:

 

New Construction -52%

Under Construction -11%

Average Price Per Unit -14.2%

Vacancy Rate +5.2%

Average Asking Rents -3.2%

 

Lost jobs, lost wages, lost opportunities.

 

Expect this trend to continue.

 

This is the affect of the socialist, anti-business, city council.

Worst Product Designs of 2019

Here is a link to the full article:

Worst Product Designs of 2019

 

Another Reason Math Matters

Here's a great example of exploiting mathematical illiteracy to advance a political agenda, in this case: Rich Man Bad.

Here's the relevant math. Let's say that the 99% represent 300 million people and each of those people lost $.01. That would represent a total loss of $3M.

On the other hand, the 1% is a total of 3 million people and they each gain $10. This would represent a cumulative gain of $30M.

Neither group lost or gained very much on an individual basis, so the focus is the difference between what the 1% gained (in cumulative terms) and what the 99% lost (in cumulative terms). It's BS and manipulative because they know that many Americans can't/won't do the simple math.

Here's an example of how it works the other way, this time instead of money I'll use chicken nuggets.

The 99% each got 6 chicken nuggets which amounts to a total of 1.8 billion chicken nuggets.

The 1% each got 12 chicken nuggets which amounts to a total of 12 million chicken nuggets.

According to socialist math, the 99% got more than 100 times more chicken nuggets than the 1% - which they did on a cumulative basis, but individually the 1% were given twice as many.

You can't let other people do the thinking for you.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/14/eye-popping-analysis-shows-top-1-gained-21-trillion-wealth-1989-while-bottom-half

Wait What? No Minimum Wage?

Did you know that Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland have no state mandated minimum wage?

FB Business Platform Is Not For Me

Well, this is interesting. I just made a post critical of a FB platform for business stating that I had zero confidence that any communication done on that platform would be secure. That any proprietary company information would be subject to scrutiny by FB algorithms, censors, and staff, and that my competitive advantages could/would be compromised by these intrusions. When I attempted to post this comment, I got an error message that "Something went wrong. We're working to fix it. Please try again later."

 

Exactly what I was talking about. Thank you for making my point for me FB.

No Palestinian Entrepreneurs?

The PA/Hamas own miles of beachfront property on the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. Why haven't they approached an international hotel chain to help them develop a series of resorts? If they want to help their people, bring actual freedom and prosperity to Gaza.

Quote For The Day

"Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife." - Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The Wheels on the Bus Go.... Nowhere

First of all, kudos to the Seattle Times for solid reporting on the ongoing and numerous transportation fiascos around the city. Today’s headscratcher is Rapid Ride, the clean running, wire-powered trolleybuses that are supposed to carry passengers around Seattle’s CBD along its busiest thoroughfares. Seattle voters approved the levy to pay for this system in 2015, and regional voters agreed to chip in via the Sound Transit 3 ballot measure in 2016, so money has been collected for over two years. HOWEVER.... the sole authorized manufacturer has told the city that they don’t have the proper vehicle available. 

Don’t you think someone at either the Seattle Department of Transportation or King County Metro should have asked the feasibility question BEFORE they began taking taxpayer money? The voters collectively agreed to a $120M spend on this project and all they have gotten from it so far is indecision, mistakes, and fingerpointing. 

Also confounding the situation is the situation is the very sensible decision on the part of the Federal Transit Authority (who has agreed to kick in $60M via a transit grant) to delay the distribution of these funds until Seattle/Metro figure out what kind of vehicle to acquire and how that decision conforms to their original plan. In theory, the routes would be covered by non-carbon emitting trolleybuses to meet the council’s goal for all government-owned vehicles to be carbon emission free by 2030. The reality is, these trolleybuses exist only in the Council’s imagination unless the vendor can figure out a way to configure them out of their existing fleet — a feat that would add tens of millions to the cost and years of delay. 

So, regional voters are at a crossroads. Do they accept a vehicle type, probably diesel-electric hybrids, that they did not agree to upfront and that will have carbon emissions and a mushier ride up Seattle’s steep hills, or should they demand a rebate until the government figures this out?

My vote is for the latter. 

Hooray for Costco

To help consumers avoid Seattle's new beverage tax, Costco has placed signs in its Seattle stores telling shoppers the difference in prices between Seattle stores and stores in neighboring cities. For example, a 35 unit case of soda in Seattle now costs $26.33. Less than 10 miles away the same case of soda is priced at $15.99, a 64% difference with the added tax.

Words Mean Things

I’m interested in a clarification on a few phrases that are often used by leftists:

”Fair share” - They often complain that the ‘rich’ do not pay their fair share in taxes or receive too much of society’s benefits. What exactly is the amount of their stuff that is someone else’s fair share?

”City raising money via a new tax” - In reading the newspaper article about the Seattle income tax being ruled illegal, I read a phrase that I’ve read hundreds of times but thought about it in a different way this morning. The article reads, “The city estimates that it would raise about $140 million a year.” (Through this new tax) 

Here’s what’s different: Typically, when we think about ‘raising money’ it is a voluntary process. We raise money for charitable causes and that money is donated by people who are interested in supporting these causes. The idea that a city ‘raises money’ is clever deception; and it‘s complete crap. Cities take money. They redistribute money. They confiscate money. They do not ‘raise money’. A more accurate turn of phrase would be, “The city estimates that it will take away about $140 million a year from high income residents.”

Words mean things.