Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
More Dispatches from the Pacific Northwest Loony Bin, a.k.a., Seattle
Sometimes it seems like the residents of Seattle are completely detached from reality. While those of us in the real world are hard at work at our jobs, Seattleites are rallying in the streets, protesting Chase Bank’s “Alleged Fossil-Fuel Investments.” Please enlighten me. Why, pray tell, would anyone give a rat’s behind whether a bank has fossil-fuel investments? The said bank isn’t even headquartered in Seattle! Maybe what they’re really protesting is the bankruptcy of the Seattle institution, Washington Mutual, in the 2008 financial crisis. Chase bought WaMu out of bankruptcy and the locals have never quite forgiven them for it. But any institution with any kind of “fossil-fuel” ties gets protested around here.
And then, there’s the story of employees at Seattle’s second-largest employer, Amazon.com, who are irked by Amazon’s “growing ties to the oil industry.” Just like with the Google employees protesting their employer’s work for the US military, Amazon employees think it’s actually their business whether Amazon works with the oil industry. These inmates seem to think they run the asylum. I sure hope that Amazon management lets them know that they do not, and it’s really none of their business who Amazon customers are. They are just acting like the spoiled brats they are.
In the Dubious Distinction category, Seattle has made the list of the most drunken-driving cities. Maybe the drivers in Seattle get really tired of all the traffic congestion, due to the city government’s efforts to get them out of their cars and into government transportation, so they just get drunk.
And, finally, in the Entitled Inmates Thinking They Own the Asylum category, residents of one of the “tiny house villages” for the homeless in Seattle locked out workers from the city government, and employees of the contractor who runs the Village. These residents think they own the place, when they are really living there at the expense of the taxpayers of the city of Seattle. Oh, I actually think the City Council forgets they are spending the taxpayers’ money and not their own!
Published in Culture
And during the Giuliani years and into the Bloomberg era, there were liberals who howled about how Times Square was being ‘ruined’ by things like the Disney 42nd Street deal and the lowered overall crime rates. People who had the $$$ to wall themselves off from the worst of the quality-of-life decline saw Times Square from the late 1960s to the early 90s as exciting street theater that brought a vibrancy to New York. I’m sure there are some progressives in Seattle who have the cash to avoid the worst of the problems there, and think the exact same thing — junkies make the city exciting!
Seattle, Portland and San Francisco seem to be in a frantic competition to see who can reach Venezuela-proportion failure first.
So far, it seems a close race to the bottom.
And “The last person out of Seattle, please turn off the lights”?
I don’t think I want to read any more of this conversation thread. Back in the 70’s and early 80’s I spent many many months in Seattle and surrounding regions. It was my favorite place in all the USA. I loved it. Walking all around downtown, visiting many different parks and other sites, sailing, a short drive to so very much.
When I read this stuff it is just depressing.
As a former Oregon native, I miss my friends and the beauty of my home state. But Portland and Oregon politics are on a downward spiral (of which I’ll make a post soon).
My totally existing detective friend is in Vacouver, WA, where they actually appreciate their LEOs, and occasionally shares the decline in Seattle and Portland, and how increasingly hostile attitudes towards the police has contributed to the spiral. These cities are barely propped up by the local industries they despise, and are going to find that even businesses with very progressive leadership and staff want a nice place to work without overbearing demands.
I’ll note, in my current state of Utah, I see an increasing amount of California, Oregon, and Washington license plates.
That’s exactly the Seattle I knew thirty years ago. A magical place.
I always thought Vancouver, WA, would be a convenient place to work. No state income tax in WA, no sales tax in OR.
I’ve actually looked there, mostly because Washington is slightly saner than Oregon right now, and also my lovely wife really likes my totally existing friend. It’s still somewhat expensive, and it has to deal with Oregon spillover.
I worked with some people who lived in Vancouver and worked in Portland. They did not recommend that.
Live and work in Vancouver, shop in Portland. I really liked Vancouver, too.
Oh looky: another person who thinks they need to tell me how awful Starbucks is!
Way back in 2000 we did a family driving vacation to Seattle. As we got closer there were more coffee shops, but it surprised me how hard it was to get a decent cup of coffee. It was possible if you looked hard enough, but it was not easy.
Spin, it truly is terrible stuff! But I can not convince a grandson either.
@postmodernhoplite, thank goodness! Two votes to counter the northeastern idiot votes. Give a shout when you get here. There’s plenty Ricochetti here.
My concern about progressive places like Seattle and San Fran, when they go bankrupt it will be the rest of the country that bails them out. Oh to go back to being a true federal republic.
SF. Hands down.
Poop Map….
At least with Republican presidents and/or Congress, Gerald Ford set the bar in 1975-76, when he refused to bail out New York City and forced the state to create the Municipal Assistance Corporation to do the job. Get a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress in place, and they’ll throw money at any deep Blue large insolvent city that comes to Washington hat-in-hand (including Washington).
The biggest question will be what happens if a state that’s engaged in drunken sailor spending goes insolvent during the next recession and is the size of California or even Illinois? If a bankruptcy is large enough to roil the bond market do the Feds bail them out, and is there any penalty of loss of local control involved if the other 49 states have to pony up tax dollars to do it? A state that went bankrupt had had no financial restrains placed on its government officials or its spending programs would have zero incentive to ever change what they’re doing, but if you had a situation like 2009-10, where California and Illinois were shaky and the Dems were in total control in D.C., you could see Blue states getting consequences-free bailouts from a Blue Congress and Blue Executive Branch.
Indeed, and grants for bridges to nowhere, lightrails to nowhere special, and the like can only prop up a state for so long – not to mention cash prizes based on how many illegals you can let in.
There’s an awful lot of craziness here. Rushbabe has pointed to a few; it’s like the ad on TV though: “But wait! There’s more!” One of the recent proposals from our feckless mayor is to raise property taxes, yet again, to the tune of $213 million. Part of this is to erase people’s library fines because it will help ‘correct a historic inequity.’
You might ask what keeps people like me here. We have several reasons. The first photo is the view from my childhood home, from the kitchen window. There is profound natural beauty here, all around us.
The other reason is aging parents to whom we are very close. My own father died a little more than a year ago but my in-laws are still active and lively despite needing us a little more for support each month. We are here for the duration.
[Edited to remove my father’s photo now that this has hit the Main Page]
Part of the problem is that Austin has gushing amounts of tax revenues coming in and no politician alive can resist the idea of spending that and pretending to be the hero. I am sure that happened in Seattle 20 years ago. The politicians tripped all over themselves to come up with grand ideas to spend that “always growing” tax revenue. Worse, they spend future revenue growth. However, that growth does not last forever and then these cities are left with expensive programs, high long-term debt, and poor infrastructure. The response is always to squeeze for more revenue, but that accelerates a downward spiral. Go to the Rust Belt and you can see lots of examples.
…
The western coast of the US isn’t going to fall into the sea; it will be pushed.
Where’s Lex Luthor when we need him?
Yeah, we do have the country’s best climate and natural beauty. You are never more than two hours from the shore, the mountains, or a lake. No really extreme temperatures any season, and in the winter even though the skies may be gray, the trees are still green. We have the highest percentage of homes with no air-conditioning, because it’s not really needed for the 10-15 days a year when it’s too hot to sleep.
The Skagit Valley with its Tulip Festival is about an hour north of our house.
NORTH CAROLINA WELCOMES YOU HOME, BROTHER!
I escaped The Peoples’ Republic of Vermont 4 years ago, and I’m never going back.
Where in NC? Also, what’s a tootle?
I keep hearing one of our girls (I’m a step-dad), in grade school, talking about fossil fuels. Haven’t said anything yet, but will next time. Just questions. Like:
She’s an extremely bright and curious young gal. She will follow the logic if she thinks something is flawed or doesn’t make sense. I’d like her to understand the concepts of trade-offs, and how you generally don’t get one thing without a cost or benefit being taken from or applied to another. Free lunch stuff.
I’m OK with hippie losers complaining about fossil fuels. Then don’t drive a car. Consume electricity. Fly. Use sidewalks. Use roads. Live in buildings.
Put your money where your mouth is, hippie. Go sharpen a stick against a rock, hunt a wild boar, and run free with the wild rams.
Sissies. Milksop funboys too coddled all their insignificant lives to bother trying to understand reality.
Otisburg!
Tootle would be like mosey, as in “mosey on over.”
We have the same fight going on out here in West Texas right now, with people who have convinced themselves that this is the current oil boom that’s going to last forever and want to sell bonds for projects based on the current oil price and production levels being the permanent new normal (which it would be nice if it was, just for the U.S. being self-sufficient in oil. But they’re also assuming mineral valuations based on the current $50-$60 per barrel prices in perpetuity, and ExxonMobil’s XTO subsidiary is already saying they’re close to being able to produce oil at a profit for under $20 a barrel. Unless you assume the U.S. is going to get into a cartel with the Saudis, Russians and Iranians to keep prices high, that means you could still see the current high production levels in the future, but with valuations far lower because oil is half or two-thirds below its current price levels. Then your homeowners pay off those bonds).
About two miles from my house. I have a feeling I’ll be able to sell at a tidy profit if Austin goes too loony.
Yes. Californians are prolific here. It’s always been this way.
Thanks! Mrs. PH and I both are already increasingly thinking of NC as home.
We’re on the Perquimans River, just down stream from Hertford, NC. We’ll be about two miles up from the Albemarle Sound: so, I’ll be able to sail from my place down to the Sound, scoot west over to Edenton, or cruise east over to the Outer banks. From there, I’ll be able to sail to any shore that touches the open ocean (in theory, anyway!)
“Tootle” is a verb, “to move or proceed purposefully in a given direction at a less-than-optimum rate as a result of being easily distracted.” Often the use of the word implies a measure of immaturity or child-like status on the part of individual in motion.