The following is an exchange on a community discussion board that I had this week with my neighbors about a “Day of Solidarity” that took place in public schools. I’ve changed the names of my neighbors and edited some of what I and they wrote for the sake of brevity. To me some of the […]
City law a loser for landlords and renters
Seattle’s new first-come first-served renters law is unfortunately more of the same from our city council. It’s legislation in search of a problem, passed with little public notice or consultation, assumes the worst of business people, takes away property rights, won’t deliver the results that are promised and will hurt the very people it’s intended […]
Tackling homelessness with Econ 101
Seattle councilmember Mike O’Brien is to be praised for his renewed efforts to ease zoning requirements for developing property in single-family neighborhoods. The goal is to increase the supply of affordable property and put downward pressure on prices, thus easing the city’s homeless problem. Specifically, O’Brien is looking to remove some of the hurdles required […]
Largest restaurant job losses since the Great Recession
(First posted at Sound Politics) Mark Perry, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus, has been looking at Seattle’s employment numbers and noticed that following the April increase in the minimum wage to $11, we experienced the largest one month drop in restaurant jobs since the Great Recession. As […]
Adapting to “Seattle on the Mediterranean”
With Seattle’s hot streak of weather in June, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to use it to make the case for “doing something” about climate change. Timothy Egan did just that in the July 3 New York Times, in which he pleads: “Before giving in to a future in which […]