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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
It's a growing problem that's apparently going to go on being ignored yet again.
The problem is obvious, and neither you nor your challenger mention it. We've seen investors swoop in en masses to buy up properties and immediately jack up rents. My building has been sold three times over the past few years, and each time my rents got jacked up, and I'm now paying double what I was five years ago. We're seeing numerous new housing complexes being built which few of us current residents can afford - except maybe if we want to live in a small 200 square foot box with a kitchen we have to share with three other units and no bath, paying the same amount for it that one bedrooms were going for just a few years ago.
The paltry reforms you suggest (a little more money for low income housing) will do nothing to prevent your constituents from being pushed out of their homes by the thousands and replaced with a new and more rich urban professional population. And given your lack of attention to this, I don't think that bothers you at night. Not one bit.
These efforts are of course, fruitless. The only answer is to build out -- away from Seattle -- and have fast regional travel with something like a Long Island Rail Road.
Then those who really, really want to live in a big city will and those who merely want access to a job, or an occasional ball game will glide in.
Meanwhile, it's obvious that all other efforts will not hold back the tide of high prices. And in some sense, at this point, maybe even suburban housing wouldn't help. Looking in Yakima, Tri-Cities, Spokane...might.
Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/busine…
You're even livening local politics, now that each election cycle draws a Sawant or Spear using you only to sharpen up for their City Council runs.
Look, there is zero way that raising costs on developers to fund housing programs can lower housing costs across the 99%. It raises housing costs. Maybe rent stamps or another income based program would be the way to go. As far as real solutions general policies raising incomes are the ticket, plus, for once, supreme ruler hits it on the head -- we ALREADY HAVE AFFORDABLE UNITS. They are in skyway or renton or burien or federal way or everett, lynnwood, bothell. what we ALL need is a massive train system all over, around the lake, really one that carries like a million trips a day not just the piddling number 100K whatver the little light rail system will have. it's a little feeble system in having only 1.5 lines: one north south, and one east. we need like TEN lines ALL freaking OVER. so chopp and the state leg, what do they do? they allow a fucking tunnel costing $4.6 billion for 1.5 miles that will reduce capacity. they allow stadiums. you know where the money for rail went? it's right in front of your eyes, we got stadiums instead of rail. and it goes to ferries, too, really carrying 60,000 people a day is peanuts for years the ferries took 25% of the state transpo budget.
why does vancouver have so many skytrain lines in service and we have today only half or less a light rail line? are we poorer than the canadians? fuck man it's because our politicians suck and play incremental inside games managing retreat retreat retreat instead of pushing mobilizing and gain gain gain iow LEADING.
Maybe it's time we started talking about the real corruption in Washington State politics...all the sweetheart deals for Longtimers plus a state that is not willing to allocate the full and market-rate costs of fair property taxes across all its citizens.
What we end up with is a fiend like Gregoire who spend her entire sinecure forcing the tunnel on the state. Meanwhile the 60% of the people who moved here since 1990, and who live in suburban King County, have almost no representation in the centralized institutions.
The easiest, fairest, most efficient way to help the housing situation is MASSIVE investment in public transit -- that will allow people to move around cheaply and safely from high-cost areas (with jobs and entertainment) such as downtown Seattle) to lower-cost housing areas such as White Center, Burien, Lynnwood.
The public should not use limited subsidy money so that people "prefer" to live on QA or Cap Hill much less should we use use rent control which will only lead to a contentious, protracted fight. (There is a huge difference between supporting $15 and supporting rent control.)
Chopp has power, and he uses it for the good of his constituents (and in his case, he considers his prime constituents to be people who can't make it anymore in this rich society). That's the most you can expect of a politician, and he delivers. The comments said about him by people who have no idea what a hard fight it was and is to advocate and legislate for low- and middle-income people in this increasingly wealthy area are small-minded and short-sighted. If you vote for a socialist SIMPLY BECAUSE she's a socialist (and she has no other experience), then do so, but it would be a stupid and damaging move.
It's a catch 22 and someone is always going to get screwed. Even if Seattle takes on a massive low-income housing program, rents will continue to rise for all the people that aren't lucky enough to get into a rent-controlled unit (which will be a vast majority).
Look to san fran for what is in store for seattle.
But you want to know a secret, well secret to you and your ilk anyway? You don't have a constitutional right to live on Capital Hill. If you can no longer afford it, seems to me you have two choices. Make more money or move. Choice 3, stealing money from homeowners in property taxes or developers in inequitable fees to make your life work is just that- theft.
Voting for Spear because you want more transit is ridiculous. Spear replacing Chopp would result in less transit, not more. The state Republicans want to kill all transit in the state. How is Spear going to be able to stop them? She can't even organize a pair of shoes, while she is running against the best organizer in the state.
I liken the situation in Washington State to that of the Rotten Boroughs of England prior to the Quiet Revolution. You have people commanding resources from the state without any corresponding payment or bearing of costs.
#11
We've spent billions of dollars over two decades.
We have one train line and a lot of expensive tunnels.
In that same amount of time, and for a lot less we could have built elevated rail all over King County and Puget Sound.
With such as system there is no reason to put each and every centralize resource like a stadium in the most congested area -- downtown.
Even San Francisco realized this when they moved the 49ers stadium to a conveniently accessed suburban location served by multiple transit lines.
But seriously, I think that this article is interesting. I really welcome Franks support for overturning the ban on rent control, and his record on housing is a good one. But I would have said that, as a 20 year incumbent, it's still the case that not enough people have seen the rewards of the programs Frank mentions. And I think that that's a shame, because some of them are good ones.
I have to say though, that there is also some element of passing the buck here. So Chopp agrees with overturning the ban on rent control, what does he think should happen then? I agree that it would be down to the city of Seattle and its citizens, as Chopp says, but what would Chopp campaign for?
I think it's great that Chopp has written this article, but it's clear that he's written it in response to Jess Spears campaign. One of the main issues that Jess has argued for is rent control. I think that, in this election race, it is Jess Spear who is setting the agenda, not Chopp.
Last week the debate was over affordable housing for the needy.
But now you're not interested in the needy anymore, now you're only interested in your own rent.
If you're not in need, and you want to live in the same neighborhoods that lots of other people want to live in, but without paying the prices that lots of other people are willing to pay, then perhaps you shouldn't be looking for a democratic political cure for the resentment you're feeling.
The is a simple formula to determine the rate of increase in housing costs.
Job Growth / Housing Growth. If jobs are growing faster than housing than the rent is going up. If you block development and cap rents in Seattle than the suburbs are going to grow and sprawl raising the cost of transportation and all the problems of a car centered community.
You either need to grow housing or stop job growth to truly get rents under control.
Frank wants to repeal that law, but he's not pushing for it in the legislature because he knows that it's a non-starter right now. I will say what I've said repeatedly here and elsewhere: IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT RENT CONTROL. You don't have the votes. FULL STOP. I know that twits like you think you can stamp your foot and pout and get what you want, but you can't. You have to do it Frank's way.
One thing is absolutely certain, though: Spear is not setting any agendas, here or in the future.
What is most annoying about Spear and her supporters? The stupidity, or the dishonesty? I can't decide.
So, strike 41,893 against Bailo, but you're still batting. Why is that?
A special legislative session was called around the holidays.
The public should have been a 5 day public notice, but, for Boeing, the five day public notice was waived--Chopp was there for the entire thing.
Boeing's bill was considered an "emergency" until minutes before the vote. Then, the "emergency" clause was removed from the bill.
You are a lying sack of shit (your favorite term for anyone who disagrees with you) or just stupid (which is not so) if you think that Sound Transit's ONE line is a massive transit program.
ST is at best a feeble start. I am not blaming anyone. Obviously the politicians reflect the will of the voters and voters -- over many decades -- don't want to spend the kind of money it takes to do transit right.
If we are to use transit as way to deal with housing affordability then buses must be a big part since buses can be on the road in month, not decades.
But it is incorrect to characterize ST is "massive."
Btw, if you don't agree with me then you must be a lying sack of shit.
So it's okay for Chopp to declare they're for rent control but not Spear. Because. Got it.
Chopp has not declared support for rent control.
Chopp is a traitor to this state and to the voters who elected him. It's time for him to go.
Ack. I fell for Chopp's trap of sounding like he's supporting rent control in order to swing votes away from Spear. Crafty guy.
Still, there's nothing wrong with staking a position on issue regardless of its legality. I can just imagine fnarf screaming at women in the 60's "You can't say you're for abortion rights, you sacks of shit! IT'S ILLEGAL!!!"
http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/Traf…
Gee, isn't that a combination of the heavy demand for transit to the location but with a lack of organization.
And yes, this was the first day the stadium was ever used..so give them a friggin' chance, Fnarf!
That analogy doesn't quite work, I'm afraid; Chopp has declared he's in favor of cities having rights to rent control.
What you'd have Fnarf screaming there is "you can't say you're for abortions, they're illegal!"
Some people claim that building more units will control rent increases, but that's not happening. Allegedly, the highest vacancy rates are in Ballard, where the greatest increase in units has also occurred.
In addition, plans are proceeding apace for the East Side. Oh, yeah, and you apparently are unaware of the city to the south called "Tacoma", which also has a couple of miles of Link, built and paid for by the same authority as Seattle's. That section is also in planning to link up with the airport line.
All told there's about 70 miles of system already built, under construction, or in advanced planning. That's way more than SkyTrain in Vancouver has -- the gold standard, according to @5!
Yes, by the time all that opens Vancouver will still be ahead, having opened up more lines as well -- remember, they have a twenty-year head start. Remember also that large portions of Link are subways, which cost a fortune compared to elevated systems.
If you want to quibble about the word "massive", go right ahead, halfwit. It is obvious that you have no idea (a) how large transit projects get built nor (b) what is going on right under your feet. I repeat: you want large fully-assembled transit systems to fall out of the sky when you snap your fingers.
Your characterization of voters being unwilling to pay is also pig-ignorant. Voters WANT transit, and have authorized every one of these expenditures. It has obviously escaped your notice, but Washington Republicans want to impose the will of Eastern Washington neanderthals on the voters of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties and PREVENT us from spending our own money on transit. That's where a guy like Frank Chopp comes in handy. Jess Spear? She doesn't even know what the MVET is. She has NO CLUE what's going on in transit planning or funding. Neither do you.
You are so defensive, Fnarf. (Or Chopp.)
Also needlessly offensive.
Also not quite as smart as you'd like to think you are.
Or else deliberately mis-representing the way the world works.
In any case, you are not worth engaging at the moment.
Unfortunately up til now the only other option has been to vote for a derpy Republican.
For the idiot @33, I have lived here 24 years, and I've watched quality of life for normal people decline under Democrats. The party that allegedly stands for working people really stands here for downtown developers.
Fuck all of you. We need genuine populist uprising here, and Frank Fucking Chopp is not part of it.
Chopp told Capitol Hill Seattle blog that rent control is something he "supports, but doubts it would get enough votes to pass."
I guess he could have been lying to them.
Or he really does support it but won't work to gather votes. Apparently it's somebody else's job to corral support and enlist votes. Once that work is done and there's enough votes to pass it, the Speaker of the House swoops in and takes credit.
Of course pot legalization and gay marriage and repealing DOMA and climate change and a million other issues are different. Then it's OK to be a lone voice of reason trying to turn a minority into a majority. When it comes to helping the poor pay the rent, it's not the Speaker's job to build a winning coalition. Instead he throws a couple more bucks into 'Housing Programs' and basks in the glory.
I don't know. Chopp was probably just lying anyway, right? Rent control? Frank Chopp? Nah.
Ergo, if you want rent control, first step is to run for the statehouse.
Now here comes somebody who is running for the statehouse, on the platform of working to overturn the state ban, and Fnarf weirdly declares you can't because rent control is illegal.
I mean it's obviously fucked up to say a state house of representatives candidate can't work to overturn a state law. It's fucked up to say any citizen is proscribed from advocating legalizing something. Changing the law by due process is governing.
But it's also really two faced to have said Sawant was running for the wrong office, yet Spear isn't. Somebody is really fucking worried about Frank Chopp's future. So worried they're losing it.
As usual SB has no idea what he's talking about.
Hopefully something like JBITSMFOTP.
You GOT one. They were called The Tea Party. That's your "populism."
And it's 100% reactionary dumb shits.
More populism isn't going to help. Populists only break things. They never build anything. They fuck around while grown ups do all the heavy lifting.
God damn it. Adults are in short supply in this country.
The court is essentially asking for a new funding stream for education. Otherwise, the legislature will be in contempt.
http://budgetandpolicy.org/reports/FINAL…
Meanwhile, ex-governors are asking for a delay:
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/politicsno…
What is your position?
How old are you?
Vancouver abolished rent control in 1983.
Since then, they've fiddled with policy off and on to arrive at the current state of affairs, which allows annual rent increases 2% higher than inflation, with a provision that gives a landlord an avenue to obtain permission to raise rents by more than that if the adjusted rent would be below market value.
It's a policy that arguably can't even be described as rent stabilization, because the 2% allowance allows rents to increase much faster than the cost of living. It certainly can't be called "rent control," in any commonly used sense of the phrase.
And of course, nobody in Vancouver is happy with it. Not tenants, not landlords, and certainly not the poor or the needy.
Which hill would that be?
Beacon Hill in Boston? You're going to have a hard time finding a 2-bedroom for $2500 a month (that would be your max affordable rent at 30% of $100k/yr)
Nob Hill in San Francisco? Doubt it.
Capitol Hill in Washington, DC? Unlikely.
Lots of cities in the US have wealthy, desirable neighborhoods with lots of expensive amenities right inside the city, close to lots of high-paying jobs. And now Capitol Hill in Seattle is one of those neighborhoods.
It shouldn't surprise you or anyone else that rents are very high in such a neighborhood-- unless you're comparing it to Capitol Hill in 1985, when the restaurants weren't as numerous (and nowhere near as fancy) and the high-paying in-city jobs hadn't started to arrive yet. You'd be comparing a funky lower-middle-class neighborhood that simply doesn't exist anymore to the very wealthy and decidedly less funky neighborhood that sits in the same place today.
http://www.tenants.bc.ca/main/?rentincre…
The province only allows tenants to increase rents by 2% for 2014. This may not be "rent control" as you'd like to define it, but it's a set of laws that define that allows the government to control how much the landlords can raise the rent each year....So yeah, if you want to keep defining "rent control" as a failed strawman such as SF/NY implantation, go ahead, but MANY places outside of the USA have Governments that regulate the rental industry and protect renters from unfair tax hikes.
What does Washington State have? Fuck all. They allow landlords to raise rent 10000% if they wanted to, as long as they give enough notice.
So yeah, define "Rent Control" however you fucking want, but what I'm trying to say is its COMPLETELY FUCKING REASONABLE TO HAVE GOV'T REGULATE THE INDUSTRY AND MOST SANE PLACES DO IT. TO SAY WHAT WE HAVE IS ACCEPTALBE BECAUSE NY/SF FAILED AT RENT CONTROL IS FUCKING BS AND A STRAWMAN ARUGMENT.
Allowed increased in BC:
•2012: 4.3%
•2011: 2.3%
•2010: 3.2%
•2009: 3.7%
•2008: 3.7%
•2007: 4.0%
•2006: 4.0%
•2005: 3.8%
•2004: 4.6%
Allowed increases in SF:
come in and talk to a counselor) Following are the annual rent increases for past years:
March 1, 2012-February 28, 2013–1.9%
March 1, 2011-February 29, 2012—0.5%
March 1, 2010-February 28,2011—0.1%
March 1, 2009-February 28, 2010—2.2%
March 1, 2008-February 28, 2009—2%
March 1, 2007-February 28, 2008—1.6%
March 1, 2006-February 28, 2007—1.7%
March 1, 2005-February 28, 2006—1.2%
March 1, 2004-February 28, 2005—0.6%
Landlords in SF can also petition for other increases as well.
So yeah SF is a couple percentage points shorter then Van, but Van is a fuckton better then Seattle.
And just for fun, here's the Toronto numbers:
come in and talk to a counselor) Following are the annual rent increases for past years:
March 1, 2012-February 28, 2013–1.9%
March 1, 2011-February 29, 2012—0.5%
March 1, 2010-February 28,2011—0.1%
March 1, 2009-February 28, 2010—2.2%
March 1, 2008-February 28, 2009—2%
March 1, 2007-February 28, 2008—1.6%
March 1, 2006-February 28, 2007—1.7%
March 1, 2005-February 28, 2006—1.2%
March 1, 2004-February 28, 2005—0.6%
2013 - 2.5%
2012 - 3.1%
2011 - 0.7%
2010 - 2.1%
2009 - 1.8%
2008 - 1.4%
2007 - 2.6%
2006 - 2.1%
2005 - 1.5%
2004 - 2.9%
But we are not SF or NYC yet, so yes, it is still appalling that earning over 100k isn't enough for a two bedroom apartment, and the cavalier dismissal of the vast majority of those who don't make even remotely that much, and yet still need homes, is even more so.
I don't think you have any understanding at all of what "2% above inflation" means.
Also.
Rent control, as defined the way that every policymaker, economist, and social scientist uses it, is absolutely not a success story outside the USA. You yourself are unable to provide the name of a single city where rent control has achieved adequate housing for the poor and the needy.
Now, public housing, on the other hand, is very common all over the world, in some places at a scale that hasn't been even suggested, let alone attempted, inside the US. And in a lot of places, it works. Unlike rent control.
What's more, the people helped by public housing are exactly those who need it: the poor and the needy. As opposed to economically secure people who simply resent those who can afford to pay more rent than themselves — that is, the natural constituency of the rent control advocate.
The government in the US, of course, does regulate the housing industry. And it should— building codes are a good thing. We even have public housing programs! Which ought to be greatly expanded.
You seem to know the names of cities where rent control has failed, and naming those cities clearly makes you very angry. But you can't name a single city, anywhere in the world, where rent control has achieved adequate housing for the poor and the needy.
Because no such city exists.
If you had any conception at all of what "2% above inflation" means, or why it's important, you'd realize that far from demolishing my argument, the numbers you've provided buttress it.
"The allowable rent increase for 2014 is 2.2%." Period, dot, no "above inflation". So I don't think you know how to read...
And dipshit, you can say that Toronto doesn't have "rent control", but it does
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_contro…
So keep defining "rent control" as any failed rent regulation, I'm going to define "dipshit" as roboslave.
Oh and dipshit, Ontario only allowed an 0.8 percent TOTAL increase in 2014. http://www.ltb.gov.on.ca/stdprodconsume/…
Read fucker. No where does it say "above inflation", so yeah rent control does work outside of America, even if you want to say otherwise, dipshit.
"The monthly rent of an apartment is $800 beginning August 1, 2013. With proper written 90 days notice to the tenant, the landlord could lawfully increase the rent 12 months later on August 1, 2014.
For example:
The guideline for 2014 is 0.8 per cent.
The rental increase is 0.8 per cent of $800 = $6.40.
Therefore, the new rent on August 1, 2014 could be up to $806.40 ($800 + $6.40)."
I'll grant you that capitol hill is changing in a way that destroys the reasons that people used to want to live there. However! It's patently obvious that more people than ever before want to live there now, changes and all. They might not be Our Sort Of People, but then, maybe they're clamoring to move in because they're seeing a lot of Their Sort Of People on the street.
I'll let them have it, personally. They seem to be having fun, and like you, I've found there are plenty of My Sort Of People in the Other Neighborhood I live in now.
OK, so you're not only economically illiterate, you also don't know how to look up legislation (pdf).
http://www.rto.gov.bc.ca/content/news/de…
If this isn't "rent control", then what is it? Do you really think what Washington state has is better? I'd take a 4% rent increase over a 10x one any day.
Ontario's is just the average CPI.
No one's screaming about how Ontario/BC is a failure. And sorry dipshit this is rent control. All three are formula's to control rent increases based on inflation/cpi. The big difference is in Ontario/BC it applies to ALL THE BUILDINGS, whereas in SF it's only some.
http://www.ltb.gov.on.ca/stdprodconsume/…
http://www.sfrb.org/Modules/ShowDocument…
Way to gracefully admit you were wrong, there. Really gives everyone a clear signal that you're arguing in good faith.
And you still haven't grasped an inkling of the significance of allowing increases 2% above inflation per year. Is it just economics you don't understand, or do you have trouble grasping multiplication, as well?
It's not rent control (or even rent stabilization, arguably) because it allows rents to increase faster than rate of increase of the cost of living (more familiar to the economically literate as "CPI inflation"). And rather significantly faster, to those who understand simple geometric progressions.
Also:
I'm reading up on Toronto now (the only major city in Ontario). It appears they have the most massive per-capita public housing program in North America! Almost 7% of the city's citizens living in government-owned housing, that's commendable, and it looks like it's working, too.
So the poor and the needy in Toronto are, clearly and overwhelmingly, served by public housing.
Not by rent control.
Also dipshit Toronto just surpassed Chicago in population size and is much larger than Seattle.
Pack it in and stop talking like you know shit.
And yeah, I've lived on the hill for a long time. I should be pushed out of my neighborhood just because people think it's hip? Is that really the world you want to live in where people lose their neighborhood and their neighbors to the whims of the market?
All this talk about gentrification - like it's all the fault of those high paying jobs that everybody said we needed and wanted for years - is bullshit. Gentrification - in the sense of higher income young professionals invading the hill - has ALWAYS been here. Sure there is no much higher demand. That is not the real issue we need to control.
I've lived on The Hill for over twenty six years. There were always families up here. Always rich people. Always young people. Always upscale businesses.
And they ALL coexisted with working class businesses and working class families. Rents were proportionally much more stable. That is why everybody loved this neighborhood.
The overwhelming difference between then and now is there didn't yet exists massive investment property groups and banks who monopolized inventory and owned huge swaths of rental properties and go nearly completely ungoverned and unregulated. This is the real problem.
Not Amazon. Not rich kids. You can't regulate where people want to live. you can't regulate the high tech job sector growth. You SHOULDn'T even if you could.
The problem is greedy god damned developers and investment property people. And THOSE we can regulate. And some form of rent controls is one way to that.
If you want rent control, you want a subsidy. Someone's gonna pay for your discount so you can live on Cap Hill.
We're the ones that made this place attractive and livable. We're the ones who paid the taxes, volunteered, lobbied, and struggled. We're why Amazon and all the other big dollar businesses located here in the first place. The people who have been living up here for decades, guess what? We're subsidizing YOUR lifestyle.
What makes this community work is diversity. And you can't have that with developers and banks running rough shod over everything.
If you want what has happened in places like the upper west side of Manhattan — investment properties galore with no community stake, sky high rents, totally devoid of culture and no small businesses — to happen here, then go ahead, let your mighty market decide. Then you'll be stuck with a sterile chain store shithole. I'm going to do my best to make sure that doesn't happen.
If that means you and me have to pay more of the the real life costs of living somewhere dynamic and compassionate in the form of rent controls or public housing or what ever, then so be it. Prepare to pony up, asshole.
How that would be done, I'm not sure, but the business model now is not sustainable. There are only so many Amazonians to go around after all. Developers keep building cracker box high rises willie nillie on the Hill for ridiculous rents, and are forcing out every one else. They will run out of Dude-bros to fill their tiny over priced hamster high rises and then what? The whole thing is greed driven and shortsighted.
I mean seriously, you think a 42% rent increase on a unit in a building built in the early 70s is ok? You think that 100k isn't enough to be middle class? Should every one but the captains of industry be forced to live further and further away from where they make their living?
Does this kind of income and housing stratification not give you pause?
People will be as greedy as they are allowed to be. Letting developers run amuck does nobody any good in the end.
Dude, Bellevue is more diverse than Cap Hill. Go look at census data if you don't believe me.
If you ask me the only people allowed to complain about newcomers are Indians and there'll down at victor steinbrueck park getting shit faced
I doubt it. The moochers will lose this one too.
Yep. Just as I think it is okay for you to sell your snatch for whatever price you feel is right. Not my business.
There has to be more than one way to do rent controls, public housing, and implement developer regulations. All the cynics and negative comments have basically given in to the Just So stories and developer propaganda.
"Golly. There is just no way to successfully interfere in the market place!"
Well. You're wrong. It can and has been done. Vienna. Vancouver. Amsterdam. All over the world.
As a business owner I'm as capitalist as they come. But the market has to serve us. Not the other way around. As it stands now big investors with no stake are fucking over entire cities.
While I'm not convinced that Spear or Sawant are the people to do it, they have the right idea. And I think their rather dogmatic brand of populist socialism is rather soft headed at times (I mean, seriously, collectivizing Boeing and shit like that? Ridiculous). But they are driving stagnant liberals in the right direction.
Talk of rent controls and regulation will put the fear of god into developers and maybe bring them to the table where otherwise they have ignored their civic and social responsibilities.
You know bullshit about development & construction.
If you want to whine as a consumer, fine.
But cut out the rest since you know nothing about how real estate works.
But you do know enough and I offer you one piece of advice:
If you care about affordable housing, when you sell your house in Issaquah, sell it for the same price you paid (plus any capital improvements) when you bought it.
Will you?
But yes, I'll be doing my bit to keep Issaquah affordable. :)
Are you sure you didn't use that example because those are the only terms regarding private you could understand?
You missed my point, sweetheart.
If you're working class, one of the 99%, of course you should always vote for the Socialist Alternative and $15Now candidate -- against the capitalist snake-oil salesmen, against their Democratic-Republican two-headed snake.
Vote with your class, for your class!
And in this particular contest, what a splendid Socialist candidate: JESS SPEAR .
-- Director of Kshama Sawant's victorious 2013 Seattle city council run.
-- Director of $15Now spearheading (no pun intended!) the magnificent relative triumph in Seattle of the $15 minimum-wage struggle.
-- Will never accept a cent from any corporation, big or small.
-- Together with her co-fighters, courageously put her freedom on the line with the rail-track protest of last week; arrested by BNSF police; locked up.
In addition to voting for Jess Spear, make Socialist Alternative and $15Now your very own party -- join it, fund it, build it, influence it.
http://www.socialistalternative.org/
http://15now.org/
Whereas what a contemptible candidate the capitalists' Democratic-Republican apparatchik Frank Chopp is:
-- Gives $8.7Billion of our money to Boeing Corporation, which then promptly steals its machinist employees' pensions! He's "Cougar Chopp" when he springs into action to give our money away to the corporate fat cats!
-- But he's "Lamb Chopp" when it comes to defending our living standards: His anemic $12 per hour minimum-wage proposal he hasn't even put to the WA house vote, nor letting cities impose rent control, nor stopping BNSF oil Bomb-Trains, because "Ooh, those horrid house Republicans!"
-- Chopp accepts donations -- blood-money -- from BNSF.
BNSF vaporized 47 of our sisters and brothers at Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in 2013.
Since then, 5 more derailments and explosions.
The BNSF executives should be facing trial and jail for that, but instead they've got off scot-free to send more Bomb-Trains through places like Seattle.
Two weeks ago one of those derailed under Seattle's Magnolia Bridge, but thankfully did not explode -- this time.
If one such explodes in Seattle and turns us all to ashes, BNSF will again cry copious crocodile tears; heck, they might even send each one of us a magnolia wreath, accessorized in our favorite colors!
Frank Chopp reminds me of a budgie,
And budgies are so wise and so sage.
When he gives a little chirrup
One's heart turns to syrup
But I wouldn't fancy cleaning his cage.
:)
Dump the Elephant, Dump the Ass! Build a Party of the Working Class!
And how is Sawant or Spear "working class" exactly? Not that it matters that much. I mean I don't doubt they care about working people, but they aren't "working class" themselves.
FFS Sawant and her husband were Microsoft millionaires! Spears was an academic and has an MA in climate science.
Neither are from "working class" families. Neither has ever belonged to a union. Neither were dock workers or truck drivers or some shit like that.
Chopp was a fuck load more "working class" than either of them.
So do yourself and your cause a favor and drop the nutty sloganeering nonsense.
A genuinely socialist (as opposed to a capitalist) party always speaks and fights as one:
Socialist Alternative members all decide upon policy together, and then every member publicly fights for exactly that same policy.
Totally different from a pack of capitalist leading liars like with the Democratic Party (or with the Republican Party) -- Obama says one thing and does another, Clinton says something else and does something completely different altogether, Chopp accepts BNSF's blood-money donations while disliking their bomb-trains!
An "Orchestra" -- Fiddles and Lyres (liars).
:)
Hey #91, everybody who works is working-class, by definition.
And in JESS SPEAR's and Kshama Sawant's case, they furthermore are splendid fighting representatives of the working-class.
Don't be fooled by the capitalist liars' socio-babble where they try to divide us by telling us we're "lower class", "middle class", "upper class" or any other such gibberish.
A social class is a collection of individuals in society who have a unique and specific relationship to the means of production.
You, I and the 99% sell our labor-power.
We're the working class.
The capitalist class owns the means of production -- which includes their owning us, as a class.
They're the ruling class.
But only until we, the 7 billion throughout the planet, throw them off our shoulders.
Dump the Elephant, Dump the Ass! Build a Party of the Working Class!
Excellent! seriously -- a Strunk & White for socialists :)
And how did you get so smart in just 24 hours!!??
Ah, I know, you have finally listened to my advice.
Probably an agent provocateur.
In fact Socialistworld is probably Fnarf, just trying to make Spear look stupid.
Actually, there's nothing to be "dubious" about.
Every member of every national section of the Committee For A Workers' International (CWI), such as Socialist Alternative in the US, democratically participates in formulating national policy -- and then fights for it in public as one voice throughout that country!
If you want confirmation of that from Jess Spear, please do ask her:
http://www.votespear.org/contact
Or Kshama Sawant:
kshama.sawant@seattle.gov
Or anybody in any section of the CWI, of course:
http://www.socialistalternative.org/
http://www.socialistworld.net/
Because we're not a talking-shop, not a mere debating society.
We strive to win over the huge majority to our ideas, and to broad working-class organizations such as $15Now -- against the capitalists' Democratic and Republican parties.
Regarding "turn of phrase", of course we use different slogans to try to reach different sections of our class:
"$15 and a union now!" in the magnificent and largely-victorious Seattle Minimum Wage struggle.
"Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value!", "The Right to Free Safe Abortion", "The right to walk on the street without being whistled at or otherwise insulted", etc., as part of the fight for Women's Liberation.
And to try to win over nursery-school students: "Socialism means free ice-cream forever!"
:)
Not at all, the Left does not "eat its own".
The Democrat leader liars, just as much as the Republican, are not left but actually extreme right (without being fascist).
Obama the White House Slender-Man is "disgusted" by the Israeli regime's murder of 10 Gaza kids at school -- so much so that he keeps sending Israel $3Billion a year in "military aid"!
Hillary Clinton and her equally-sadistic husband won't release Puerto Rican independence activists from 30 years of prison -- because they have the temerity to not renounce acts, sometimes foolish, committed in their now far-bygone youth!
Frank Chopp "dislikes" BNSF's oil bomb-trains -- so much so that he accepts BNSF's blood-money donations!
Whenever such specimens face us in public debate, we'll "eat" them all right!
Yep, we'll have them for lunch.
:)
Dump the Elephant, Dump the Ass! Build a Party of the Working Class!
Some other time? :)
I was only trying to make a joke about how everyone wants affordable housing except people are eager to sell their own house at the highest price possible. Which is totally normal, human etc etc. but simply pushes housing prices into "unaffordable" range."
Moochers gotta pray?