Categories: "Economics"

why I don't join AARP

March 18th, 2018
Every so often I get another mailing from the AARP, enclosing a cheap cardboard card they want to entice my signing up, but this outcome is exceedingly unlikely. more »

two takes on housing

June 11th, 2017
Heidi Groover at The Stranger lays in to what looks like increasingly expensive real estate in Seattle ("To afford a one-bedroom apartment in Seattle ..."), sourced largely from a new report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, making the… more »

housing supply and demand

May 6th, 2017
Dan Savage may have a angry way of saying it, but the implication is correct - zoning limits decrease the availability of housing to levels lower than the community would choose if left to their own devices. more »

Legal Tender and ISIS

January 8th, 2017
... the ISIS currency is coinage made from Gold, Silver and Copper; the trick of the matter is that ISIS now compels jewelers to purchase these coins, which must then be purchased by other people for them to pay the ISIS taxes ... more »

your next go at finding an apartment in Seattle might be thwarted

December 12th, 2016
It's not clear how advocates expect to make housing more accessible in Seattle by taking steps that make it less available. more »

Confounding people and wages

November 30th, 2016
Continuing the argument, the higher minimum wage puts real people out of work - individual persons lose their jobs if their productivity is significantly less than the mandate.  Employment is subject to a large number of factors that affect both supply… more »

Seattle's minimum wage experience - early results

November 28th, 2016
I have been attempting to make the point that people who retain their jobs with the higher minimum wage are likely to also spend more as a consequence, but in the mean time, the $15 wage puts another group of people completely out of work. more »

Here's where employment will decline the most in Washington

November 27th, 2016
The election has upset plans and expectations around the globe, but there's plenty of additional disapppointment to come with the fallout, I'm sure.  One likely place to look will be around the consequences of large increases to the minimum wage allowed… more »

legally challenging

June 7th, 2014
I-1358 would revert the local initiatives to the prior condition of State control of minimum wage. The expectation is that since such a high minimum wage as passed the Seattle City Council has not become state legislation, the new $15 mandate would essentially by voided here. [However], Imagine the far greater damage to people's lives if a $15/hour limit kept unemployed hundreds of thousands of people across all of Washington, rather than the fewer people affected by more concentrated damage done to workers in the I-5 corridor around Seattle and Sea-Tac. So while I am on record in opposition to increasing the minimum wage, I have reservations about supporting Initiative 1358. more »

counting the consequence

May 29th, 2014
This was a question I started the evening asking myself - what might the city do to track the actual effects of this wage mandate. How might they seek to understand the wreckage imposed on people's lives, people who are first thrown out of work, and then forbidden from future employment within the city. The answer is an audit, details to be determined. Who knows, the localized nature of the measure may make a good case study to add to the broad existing understanding of the detrimental effects of minimum wage legislation. more »