Daily Clips: July 21st, 2016

July 21, 2016 Nick Cassella

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US JOBLESS CLAIMS HIT THREE-MONTH LOW: Claims are near a 43-year low – which is pretty incredible. Yet the US financial markets “were little moved by the data”. THE RELUCTANT FEMINISM OF AMERICAN MEN: This was a really compelling article. Even as a young man, I understand that I carry sexist baggage, passed on from previous generations. It is necessary, therefore, to reflect on some of these outdated ideas that still live among us. Here is the author’s most cogent line: “Men who want one thing for their wives and another for their children.” She builds on this idea: This female empowerment narrative — of the daughter, not the wife — is one Americans are more ready to accept. A man who says he’s never changed a diaper and is on his third marriage to a former model may appeal to a resentful male minority, but will look unfamiliar and unappealing in much of the country. A successful child, though — that’s relatable and desirable. When men have daughters, their attitudes shift and they begin to adhere less stringently to traditional gender roles ; no similar effect happens to mothers of girls. Fathers of daughters are also more likely to support reproductive rights than men who don’t have girls. WA’s UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS ABOVE THE NATIONAL AVERAGE. SEATTLE’S MINIMUM WAGE ISN’T TO BLAME: Great read. TWEET OF THE DAY: It's a very Ted Cruz thing that his version of Reagan's scene-stealing speeches in '68 and '76 involves him getting booed off the stage. — David Roth (@david_j_roth) July 21, 2016

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Daily Clips: July 20th, 2016

July 20, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

TRUMP ADVISER SAYS CLINTON SHOULD BE “PUT IN THE FIRING LINE AND SHOT FOR TREASON”: Beyond words. Republicans have lost the plot. WHO CAN NOW SAY THAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ISN’T A VEHICLE OF WHITE POWER: An excellent read which outlines the ethno-nationalism of GOP. MOST MILLENNIALS ARE HAVING CHILDREN OUT OF WEDLOCK: A few years ago, researchers published an eye-opening statistic: 57 percent of parents ages 26 to 31 were having kids outside of marriage . I must admit, that number is much higher than I anticipated. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS NOT DEAD. STOP SAYING THAT: An excellent read on how the GOP could rebrand their messaging. If Trump drives America’s college-educated upper-middle class to the Democrats, Republicans just might start calling for hiking taxes on the college-educated upper-middle class to finance child credits for growing Latino families. TWEET OF THE DAY: A Trump adviser called for Hillary to be shot; GOP base wants her to be jailed. This is the modern Republican Party. — HawaiiDelilah (@HawaiiDelilah) July 20, 2016

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Self-Selecting Poll Blows Up in Restaurant Lobby’s Face

July 19, 2016 Paul Constant

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Policy, Scheduling

When reading about the results of surveys, you should always, always, always consider the source. Self-selecting surveys—most of which take the form of those online Survey Monkey-style polls you see sometimes on Facebook—are basically meaningless. What they tell us is this: an organization wanted to see a certain set of results, and so that organization pushed its polls out to users who were likely to give them the result they want. With that in mind, our friends at Working Washington uncovered something very interesting in a survey led by the Seattle Restaurant Alliance. The survey is being used to argue against the secure scheduling legislation currently under consideration by the Seattle City Council , but Working Washington discovered that the poll actually made a pretty great case for secure scheduling. To wit: nearly a third of the poll’s anonymous respondents complained about not getting enough notice of their schedules. Nearly a quarter said they wanted more hours on the job, and nearly a quarter complained about a lack of flexibility in their schedules. Of course, the Seattle Restaurant Alliance wants to paint this as a “glass-half-full” kind of situation, but if you look at it by letter grades, a 75 percent score is a borderline C in most schools, and 66 percent would be an D. And, as Working Washington points out, this is a survey which is expected to be about as positive as humanly possible. What would a truly independent polling outfit discover if they were allowed to survey Seattle restaurant workers? But even so, none of these results are an argument against secure scheduling. The Seattle Restaurant Alliance wants us to believe that most employers are great at scheduling their employees. Okay. Then those restaurants should have no problem with new secure scheduling laws, then! If their employees receive their schedules two weeks in advance, and if the employers don’t employ inhumane on-call practices to keep their workers on the hook for hours they
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Daily Clips: July 19th, 2016

July 19, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

FRANK LUNTZ THINKS COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES ARE LEADING MILLENNIALS TOWARDS SOCIALISM: We have lost, it’s not like we are losing, we have lost that generation. And I don’t care if you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent, none of the above. The fact that 58 percent [of millennials] say socialism is the better form of economics, that is the damage of academia,” he said at a breakfast event in Cleveland. It’s so weird how little agency Republicans give those that disagree with them. Socialist? Must be indoctrinated. Democrat? Must be on food stamps. REP. STEVE KING WONDERS WHAT ‘SUB-GROUP’ BESIDES WHITES CONTRIBUTED MORE TO CIVILIZATION: So ahistorical and so racist. Does he not remember that Christianity set human progress back for hundreds of years? THE REPUBLICANS’ DISASTROUS DAY ONE: A good recap of last night’s stupidity. I don’t know how you can be a thinking person and vote for this Republican ticket. These imbeciles offered zero policy prescriptions. They merely talked about the maliciousness of Hillary Clinton. “Lock Her Up” was actually chanted by the crowd. It cannot get much lower than this, people. THE WORLD IS TAKING ITS REVENGE AGAINST THE ELITES. WHEN WILL AMERICA’S WAKE UP? Everyone was down with the international entrepreneuriat in those sunny days. Less than a week after Obama’s salute to them at Stanford, Hillary Clinton paid a visit to an innovative co-working space in Denver and rolled out a plan for rewarding this very same cohort of clear-eyed, tech-respecting citizens. “Today’s dynamic and competitive global economy demands an ambitious national commitment to technology, innovation and entrepreneurship,” declared the “ briefing ” her campaign released on that occasion; to make that commitment, Clinton proposed deferring the student loans of young people who start businesses … because I guess the promise of tech riches isn’t incentive enough. TWEET OF THE DAY: I woke up this morning to find out that one of our two major political parties is an ethnonationalist party. At least it's official now. — Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) July 19, 2016

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Daily Clips: July 18th, 2016

July 18, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

THE PARTY OF SMALL GOVERNMENT IS NO MORE: A beautifully written piece by FiveThirtyEight. And it more or less confirms my beliefs (always a pleasurable experience). The author argues that Trump has exposed the true motivations of Republican voters. For years, we’ve “assumed that adherence to a certain conservative purity was the engine of the GOP.” But Trump, quite clearly, shows this to be false. Rather, the GOP’s engine room, as it were, can be found “closer to the neighborhood of cultural conservatism and racial and economic grievance rather than a passion for small government.” UBER REACHES 2 BILLION RIDES: Six months after hitting it’s first billion rides, Uber seems to be exponentially growing. Uber is now in 450 cities worldwide, “up from 311 a year a go.” THE REPUBLICANS WAGED A 3-DECADE WAR ON GOVERNMENT. THEY GOT TRUMP: Great read from two authors that penned, “Let’s Just Say it: The Republicans Are the Problem”…four years ago. I remember reading it at the time and thinking, “This is spot on.” Now today, they have another excellent take on the state of the party of Lincoln. Here’s the crux of their argument: In the end, the exploitation of anti-government sentiment by Republican leaders, and the active efforts on their part to make all government look corrupt and illegitimate, reached its logical conclusion. The Republican political establishment looked no less corrupt, weak, and illegitimate than the Democratic one, and the appeal of a rank outsider became greater. THE INVESTOR WHO BOUGHT TRUMPPENCE2016.COM IN APRIL FOR $10: A “political junkie” bought the domain in April of this year and now plans on selling it to Trump for a lot of money. ALL ACROSS THE WORLD, TEACHERS ARE FIGHTING AGAINST AUSTERITY: For the love of god, invest in education. At all levels. TWEET OF THE DAY: this is a pic of everyone in America a who can afford to take an unpaid internship pic.twitter.com/lwAqpKz7ou — jonathan frandzone (@NotAllBhas) July 17, 2016

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Daily Clips: July 15th, 2016

July 15, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

HERE’S WHAT OBAMA LOVES ABOUT TRUMP’S PICK, MIKE PENCE: Interesting read via Vox. REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS SHARPLY DIVIDED OVER MUSLIMS IN AMERICA: This news is hardly surprising. According to Reuters, “78 percent of Trump supporters and 36 percent of Clinton supporters said that when compared to other religions, Islam was more likely to encourage acts of terrorism.” MIKE PENCE WAS A PIONEER IN THE ASSAULT ON PLANNED PARENTHOOD: Woah. Here is some disturbing dirt on Pence: He was one of the pioneers in the assault on Planned Parenthood. This past March, Pence signed a bill that would force women who undergo an abortion to…wait for it…pay for the funeral of the aborted fetus. TWEET OF THE DAY: Oh, and one time Pence wrote an op-ed titled “Smoking Doesn’t Kill.” pic.twitter.com/5K38GlXO4Y — The Briefing (@TheBriefing2016) July 15, 2016

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Innovation Makes America Great. Donald Trump’s Republican Party Is Anti-Innovation.

July 14, 2016 Paul Constant

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Economics, inclusion, innovation

You wouldn’t know it from listening to Donald Trump, or from reading the Republican platform , but Americans love diversity. Yesterday, Pew Research published the results of an international poll finding that a majority of Americans—58 percent!—believe growing diversity makes their nation “a better place to live.” Only seven percent of all Americans think diversity makes the country worse, and about a third don’t perceive a difference. Significantly, Americans were far more in favor of diversity than any of the ten European countries in the same survey. The nearest was Sweden, with 36 percent in favor of diversity and 26 percent believing diversity makes things worse. Look at that chart. It’s striking, isn’t it? Even moreso when you realize that Trump’s Republican Party is betting big on border walls, Muslim travel bans, and anti-LGBT laws this November. These are exclusionary policies that appeal to less than ten percent of all Americans. Hell, nearly half of all self-identified conservatives polled believe that diversity improves the country. Human beings intuitively approve of diversity. And it’s easy to see why: more diversity leads to more choices, which improves the quality of life for everyone. It’s true in economics, too: you see more innovation—which we define around here at Civic Ventures as the way we solve problems—when you have more people coming from a wide variety of backgrounds. Don’t see how this relates to you? Here’s an example: say you’re downtown and you get hungry. That’s a problem. The food you buy to satiate your hunger is the solution to that problem. And speaking as someone who occasionally reviews restaurants, it’s much better to have a diverse variety of solutions to that particular problem than, say, a McDonald’s every three blocks. But you don’t need to take my word for it. This morning, over one hundred self-described “inventors, entrepreneurs, engineers, investors, researchers, and business leaders working in the technology sector”—people
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Daily Clips: July 14th, 2016

July 14, 2016 Nick Cassella

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Daily Clips

TWEET OF THE DAY: When Donald Trump calls your wife ugly and accuses your dad of killing JFK and you speak at his convention anyway pic.twitter.com/ktssb9tq04 — Dan Amira (@DanAmira) July 14, 2016 RUTH BADER GINSBERG EXPRESSES REGRET OVER HER TRUMP COMMENTS: Why, oh why did she insert herself into the election? Sad! A GUIDE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION: Happy Bastille Day! Here is a good FAQ for all things French Revolution. IF WAL-MART CAN’T BRING MANUFACTURING BACK TO AMERICA, HOW CAN TRUMP?

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The Real Cost of ST3 Would Come from Not Passing It

July 13, 2016 Goldy

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light rail, Policy, Sound Transit, ST3, transportation

Kudos to Seattle Times transportation reporter Mike Lindblom for breaking down the taxpayer cost of the proposed Sound Transit 3 measure, especially his explanation of how property taxes really work : Chances are, you’re now wondering if transit property taxes would skyrocket after 2017, presuming home values continue their rapid rise. They wouldn’t. Tim Eyman’s Initiative 747 capped the increases in property-tax collections for most local taxing districts at 1 percent, excluding new development. So the average ST3 property-tax bill would increase 1 percent in 2018 and beyond. As a rate, the initial $25 would gradually decrease, if values rise. Sure hope his paper’s editorial board digests this explanation before once again misinforming readers with bullshit claims that the property tax “would rise with the real-estate market.” But as much as I appreciate Lindblom’s evenhanded explanation of the cost of passing ST3, I wish he had spent a couple hundred words explaining the high cost of doing nothing. And the cost is huge—assuming commuters value their own time. According to Sound Transit our region’s population is expected to grow 30 percent by 2040—that’s about a million more people crowding our roads, ferries, buses, and rails. And they’re going to have to get to and from home, work, school, shopping, and leisure somehow. Build ST3 and many of these additional trips will occur on bus and rail. Don’t build ST3 and most of these new trips will be forced onto our already congested roads. While building ST3 isn’t likely to make our traffic better, it is almost certainly going to make it less worse. How much less worse? I can only speculate. But even a modest reduction in the increase of cars on the roads would generate huge payoffs for those of us who continue to drive. The math is actually quite simple. Imagine just a 10 minute
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The Same Business Owners Who Threatened Doom Over the $15 Minimum Wage Are Now Predicting Doom Over Secure Scheduling

July 13, 2016 Paul Constant

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Minimum Wage, Scheduling

The conservative Washington Policy Center notes that—gird your loins, because here comes a shock—some local business owners are threatening doom if Seattle’s City Council passes a secure scheduling law : Now the president and COO of El Gaucho Hospitality, which operates the popular and high-end El Gaucho steak restaurants, has joined the fray. In a letter that was recently emailed to 80,000 El Gaucho customers, a blog posted on the company’s website, and an interview published in the Puget Sound Business Journal, Chad Mackay says the proposed restrictive scheduling regulations are “absurd.” The WPC post says “Mackay warns such micromanagement will harm the very workers the rules are supposed to protect.” Which is the sort of thing that employers always warn when any laws are proposed that might benefit workers. Business owners are always “concerned” that the laws will hurt those the very workers they’re supposed to help. Much in the same way that anti-seat-belt activists (and y es, those do exist ) argue that seat belt laws hurt the very drivers they mean to help, or the way that American business owners used to argue that child labor was for the good of the child . This isn’t the first time that Mackay has spoken up for the supposed “good” of his workers. Mackay warned Payscale.com that “Some will be hurt by” Seattle’s $15 minimum wage increase, and he argued that “What will never really be known is how many people didn’t get a job because it no longer exists or those that lost jobs or hours due to such a dramatic increase.” (Considering that Seattle is within the range of full employment , it’s hard to get nostalgic for all those imaginary underpaid jobs that might have hypothetically been lost.) Why, Mackay apparently cared so much about the workers who would be hurt by Seattle’s $15 minimum wage that he was a top donor for a failed effort to undo it . So when we consider Mackay’s forecast for secure scheduling, we should also take
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