Archives for April 2014

What the headline said.  A couple weeks ago I sat down with PBS NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solmon to discuss Seattle’s fight for a $15 minimum wage. The segment is scheduled to run tonight.

How much of my interview they’ll use, I’m guessing not much. Past experience at these things suggests that 20 minutes of interview time boils down to less than 20 seconds of airtime. Either way, it was a pleasure meeting Solmon. He proved much more pleasant and thoughtful than the last network TV personality to interview me.

UPDATE: The East Coast tells me the segment airs around 6:40 pm. Sounds like I might have only about 20 seconds combined, but unlike with O’Reilly, at least I get the last word.

So-called “ride-share” companies like Lyft, Sidecar, and uberX have been praised for their innovative services, and there’s no doubt that these Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) are in the midst of transforming the car for-hire industry. Competitive prices, convenient app-based booking and payment, and a superior user experience are quickly changing consumer expectations, forcing the old regulated taxi industry to evolve and/or die.

Meanwhile, consumers aren’t the only ones benefiting from the TNCs. While these companies’ unregulated (and illegal) rush into the market has disrupted the traditional taxi and for-hire industries, creating much hardship for many drivers, other drivers have availed themselves of the opportunity to free themselves from the taxi owners and the hefty leasing fees they impose. At the same time, a whole new class of part-time amateur drivers have entered the field, hoping to earn extra cash from their personal vehicles in their spare time.

But while the TNCs appear in the short term to have created more winners than losers, the question remains whether the long term impact will be as rosy as TNC boosters promise. Will consolidation amongst the TNCs—almost inevitable in an uncapped market—result in higher prices for consumers and lower margins for drivers? Have former taxi drivers, newly invested in driving for the likes of Uber, merely exchanged one master for another, but now absent the protections of the old regulatory system?

For while the TNCs’ technology may be innovative their corporate structure is not. These are top-down, venture-backed corporations whose primary legal obligation is to serve the interests of shareholders. If TNC executives decide to raise or lower prices, increase their fees, change their terms of service, or boot drivers out of the system for whatever reason, neither drivers nor customers have any say nor any recourse.

Which is why a truly innovative taxi and for-hire system would be one that removes capital from its dominant role within the industry by empowering participants to compete with each other within a cooperative network that no one individual or corporation can ever own. And no, this isn’t some socialist fantasy. Things like this actually exist. For example, the Internet.

We’re not even talking about developing a piece of software here. We’re talking about creating a standards organization that defines and publishes an Application Programming Interface (API) for connecting drivers with riders through a completely open network. Entrepreneurs would be free to create apps and or application services for booking and tracking vehicles, processing payments, providing insurance, rating drivers and riders, and any other function the API defines. And this is not about shutting out established TNCs like Lyft, Sidecar, and Uber—they would be free to interconnect their booking and payment networks as well.

In the same way that a VISA card issued by any bank may be used to purchase goods at any store using any merchant service provider, our open network would allow any rider to book any vehicle through any TNC via a single preferred app. Drivers could potentially log into and drive for any or all TNCs at the same time, forcing the TNCs to compete for drivers and riders in real time. And innovation would no longer be limited to what a handful of executives choose to implement; such an open network with low barriers to entry could unleash services and efficiencies that have yet to be imagined.

This sort of chaordic organization (a term coined by VISA founder Dee Hock) could provide the perfect alternative to the half-regulated/half-unregulated system we have today—an alternative that upgrades the organizational structure of our for-hire industry along with the technology and the service standards.

So how do we get there? It could be done through a not-for-profit. Or the city could appoint a citizen committee representing various interests and areas of expertise to draft the network standards and define the API. The city could also incentivize (or even require) taxi, for-hire, and TNCs operating within the city to connect to this open network once it is online. Certainly our struggling taxi industry has a reason to participate if it hopes to compete with its Wall Street backed rivals.

But the larger point is that there is a way to embrace the technological innovations the TNCs offer without ceding control of our taxi and for-hire industry to Silicon Valley startups and their venture capital backers. At least, it’s worth a try.

Tonight is election night. So get your ballot turned in and then please join us for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. The starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks show up earlier for dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out another Washington state DL over the next week. The Tri-Cities chapter also meets on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, the Bellingham and Burien chapters meet. And on Thursday, the Woodinville and Spokane chapters meet.

With 214 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.

After Rodney Tom dropped out of his reelection race, I quoted some speculation about who might run for what. And I hoped that the party wouldn’t push McBride into taking the House seat if she didn’t want it.

I don’t know the district as well as he does, but I’d be wary of the party trying to push her out for one of the current representatives. She got in the race when it was going to be a tough election. The party recruited her, and she stuck her neck out for them. I’m not saying if one of the House Dems runs, she shouldn’t run for their seat, but I hope the party will stay out of it if there is a primary.

I don’t know how much pressure there was behind the scenes, but Representative Habib is going to run for Senate, and McBride will run for the House seat he’s vacating.

Apart from it being total bullshit, I’m not sure that the “total compensation” crowd has fully thought through their proposal, particularly when it comes to health care benefits.

Because total compensation would allow employers to deduct from their minimum wage obligation the cost of providing health insurance, it effectively shifts the entire cost of health insurance premiums onto the backs of minimum wage workers. Accept your employer provided health insurance and the cost of the employer’s share will be deducted from your paycheck. Cancel your employer provided health insurance (say, because you are covered under your spouse’s insurance), and your take-home pay will rise according.

Whatever your decision, your employer’s cost of labor remains exactly the same. As such, your health insurance benefit ceases to be a “benefit” when your employer’s share of the premium is effectively zero.

And yet under the Affordable Care Act (you know, “ObamaCare”), employers with 50 or more employees will soon be required to offer  affordable coverage to all of their full time employees—”affordable” meaning that the worker does not have to spend more than 9.5 percent of income on premiums.

So what constitutes “income” and what constitutes “premiums” under a total compensation system? These are questions that would surely be litigated, but a quick look at the typical American pay stub makes clear that your federal taxable income (the relevant figure for ACA purposes) is your compensation minus the cost of your health insurance premium. So if your entire premium—including the alleged employer share—were deducted from your paycheck, it would lower your income accordingly.

Now presume a total compensation $15 minimum wage in which your only benefit is health insurance at a cost of $2 an hour ($344 in monthly premiums divided by 172 hours of full time work), bringing your federal taxable income to only $13 an hour. But your $2 an hour in premiums would come to more than 15.3 percent of your $13 an hour income, meaning that your premiums would not qualify as “affordable” under the 9.5 percent rule of the ACA.

Business lawyers might argue that the employer portion of the premium should not be counted toward the employee’s insurance premium costs, but that’s not how it would appear on the pay stub. Both portions of the premium would be listed as deductions to be subtracted from gross earnings. Thus any distinction between the two becomes purely fictional.

Throw in additional deductions under total compensation, and the employer’s ability to meet the ACA employer mandate becomes even less mathematically plausible, exposing the employer to up to $3,000 in annual penalties per employee. Like I said, I’m just not sure the total compensation camp has entirely thought this thing through.

But perhaps just as important to the larger discussion is how the ACA employer mandate rules once again expose total compensation for the lie it is: it simply does not pay $15 an hour. Thus any suggestion that total compensation proponents “aren’t arguing with the $15-an-hour goal,” is a lie as well.

So, who are the people behind the real anti-$15 minimum wage OneSeattle Coalition, not the hilariously fake 1Seattle.org website the Seattle Times stupidly quoted? The video below helpfully explains:

Now you know.

A decade ago, in reluctantly rejecting a guest column I had submitted (a modest proposal on how to increase per-student spending in Washington’s public schools), an editor at one of our region’s dailies lamented that, alas, too many newspaper readers lack “the satire gene.” Well, apparently some newspaper reporters lack this gene as well:

Business leaders aren’t arguing with the $15-an-hour goal. In fact, the OneSeattle website calls the current state minimum wage of $9.32 “undeniably less than it costs to support yourself.”

Yeah, that’s right: Seattle Times reporter Lynn Thompson quotes the wonderfully satirical fake OneSeattle website from a page that is so outrageous (it counts time texting on the job toward total compensation) that it’s hard to believe an informed reader wouldn’t get the joke. But she didn’t. Which has the 1Seattle.org folks crowing.

Amazing.

In other questionable reporting news, the Seattle Times taps a Von Trapp’s bartender as the voice of tipped employees opposing a $15 minimum wage, just days after printing an anti-$15 guest column from Von Trapp’s owner. Hmm.

UPDATE: Ha! I’ve once again earned my reputation as the Seattle Times’ volunteer ombudsman:

Information in this article, originally published April 19, 2014, was corrected April 21, 2014. A previous version of this story incorrectly attributed two quotes to business group OneSeattle’s website.

– Get your ballot in the mail by tomorrow, King County.

– Link and the Rising Seas

– Apparently the Bundy Ranch standoff is like Rosa Parks and Gandhi rolled up in one.

– Admitting privileges for doctors who perform abortions is such a problem. Part 2,874,098,236,930,671 in an infinity part series.

– The fact that I liked the explodey fun time action sequences means that a movie in which Captain America is pretty much straight up Chelsea Manning and the security state is literally nazis means that it’s secretly glibertarian and in-group approved… but… since we’re on the subject, HOW DARE HE SPEAK AGAINST THE GLORIOUS SECURITY STATE! HAIL HYDRA!

Okay, now that I’m back writing at HA (at least for the moment), I’m absolutely sick of staring at it’s five-year-old design. It’s cramped and busy and the sidebars are filled with a bunch of outdated bullshit. (Yes, I know.) And it fails to take advantage of all the latest technology that allows websites to automatically resize to fit various screen sizes from desktop to tablet to phone.

So I’m doing a redesign.

Nothing fancy. Very sparse. Lots of white space. Larger text. Wider content column. Won’t win any design awards. But my goal is to make the site a lot more readable than it is today, regardless of the device you are reading it from.

And as long as I’m under the hood, there’s room for functionality improvement too, so I’m interested in hearing from the HA community what changes you might like to see implemented. For example, threaded comments? I’ve always been enamored of threaded comments, although the current chronological display has its merits too. Or how about requiring comment registration? There are available plug-ins that can enable registration via your Twitter or Facebook account, so it wouldn’t be much of a hassle.

And of course, there’s the design and layout itself. Like I said, I’m not planning anything fancy. I’m not a designer. But if you are, and you’ve got some (free) ideas, or maybe you even want to take a crack at a new (and free) logo, let me know.

Or not. One way or another I’m tossing out this tired old template.

Last week’s contest was won by Seventy2002. It was West Vancouver, BC.

This week’s is a random location somewhere in the state of Georgia, good luck! And happy 4/20!

Exodus 22:21
“Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.”

Discuss.

Ann Telnaes: Money corrupts the democratic process.

Maddow: Right Wing Extremists Have Terrorized America More Than Jihadists Since Sept. 11th:

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III

David Pakman: Gov. Rick Perry now the focus of a criminal investigation.

GOP Law and Disorder:

Sharpton: Scott Brown kicks off his NH Senate run…with deception.

Chris Hayes: GOP whackos assemble in NH for “Freedom Summit”.

Deadbeat Rancher Induces Orgasms Among The Right Wing Fringe:

• Ed and Pap: The latest Tea Party flake.
• Steve Kornacki: GOP “schizophrenia” on full display in Nevada
• Young Turks: FAUX News’ Hannity provokes violence.
• Thom and Pap: Is Sean Hannity going to get somebody killed?
• David Pakman: Bundy Ranch a huge embarrassment for the right wing.
• Matt Binder: Cowardly right wing militia will use women and children for human shields
• Young Turks: Shoot women and children first.
• Joy-Ann Reid: FAUX’s & right wing’s Bundy-Ranch hypocrisy
• Chris Hayes: GOP has elevated Nevada ‘welfare’ rancher Cliven Bundy to hero status
• Thom: Perfect storm for the right wing fringe
• Young Turks: Bundy Ranchers angry at Glenn Beck
• Matt Binder: Would Bundy ranch supporters defend Native Americans’ claim to the land?
• Ed and Pap: Cowboy Bundy…the new face of the Republican Party.

Richard Fowler: Rep Blackburn claims GOP “Led Fight For Women’s Equality”.

Mental Floss: 28 birthday traditions from around the world.

Sam Seder: Louie Gohmert vs. Eric Holder.

Alex Wagner: New Republican female initiative–Marry rich men.

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Painting Away the Guilt:

• Mark Fiore: George W Bush’s Art of Legacy.
• ONN: Bush debuts new paintings.
• Conan shows that Shrub isn’t the only ex-prez painting

Ann Telnaes: Congress is out on recess again.

Richard Fowler: Republicans having difficulty with the reality that ObamaCare works.

Aasif Mandvi talks about that one time when a republican said the N-word on TV.

Liberal Viewer: Only rich think the IRS is the most intrusive, punitive part of the government?.

Ann Telnaes: The conservative approach to bridging the pay gap.

A Conspiracy With Some Sole:

• Matt Binder: Rush Limbaugh is Papa Shoether.
• Maddow: Clinton and the shoe
• Young Turks: “Shoe Truthers” say Hillary faked it.
• Sharpton: A new good old fashioned right wing conspiracy theory
• And here go the nutburgers with Chelsea pregnancy (via Crooks and Liars).

White House: West Wing Week.

David Pakman: Glenn Beck says his theories are coming true…won’t say which ones.

Pap: GOP suffers from Bush amnesia.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, that’s what I always say, which is why I’ve decided to supplement my unemployment by driving part-time for Hoopty™, Seattle’s newest ride-share company!

Hoopty fully embraces the efficiency of the unregulated free market to deliver the future of ride-share today, conveniently offering both prearranged and hailed pickups through your smartphone—just call, text, or email me from your smartphone, and I’ll come pick you up! All of our vehicles have passed the state emissions test, and are guaranteed to have been driven fewer than 100,000 miles (at least for the next 600 miles or so). You can recognize Hoopty by the cracked windshield, the menacing dog, and our signature styrofoam “TAXI” sign crudely taped to the roof of the car.

Take that, pink mustache!

With Hoopty, you’ll enjoy our casual user experience, sitting right up front with the driver. Unless the dog lets you into the back—Feisty hasn’t bitten anybody in years, and even then, not much more than a nip, so you’ll probably be okay—just don’t make any sudden moves or loud noises.

At the end of your ride, your Hoopty driver will be happy to take your credit card, but unlike Lyft, Sidecar, and Uber, we also take cash and barter. (For example, we could really use a new windshield. And maybe some brakes.) And of course, all Hoopty drivers are carefully screened and fully insured. Don’t worry how much insurance. Just trust us!

And finally, at Hoopty, we guarantee that you get what you pay for! Hoopty doesn’t waste money on bells and whistles like app development or car washing or routine vehicle maintenance, allowing us to offer you the most affordable ride-share in Seattle. Tired of paying Uber’s infamous surge pricing? We promise to charge you something less than that, or your money back!

Ready to try Hoopty? Feisty and I will be cruising downtown Seattle this afternoon picking up hailing passengers; just look for the menacing dog and the styrofoam sign, and scream out the special offer code: “Goldy, I need a ride!” As for Hoopty’s legality, well, it’s not like Lyft, Sidecar, and uberX have a monopoly on breaking Seattle’s taxi and for-hire laws. So while we don’t technically have a for-hire license or anything, we don’t expect the Seattle police to bother to stop us, let alone issue a citation. And if they do, we’ll just sue the fuck out of the city for selective enforcement.

Hoopty™: Because if Wall Street backed ride-share companies can break the law, anybody can!

I’m not sure what all the hoo-hah is over the current “impasse” on a $15 minimum wage. Mayor Ed Murray’s Income Inequality Advisory Committee is exactly that: an advisory committee. As a body, it is empowered to do nothing more than advise. If it fails to come to a consensus, so what? Either way, it is the city council that will ultimately write and pass Seattle’s $15 minimum wage ordinance, whatever the advice of the mayor or his committee.

Now if the advisory committee does come to some sort of unanimous consensus, that would be news, considering that three of its members—Bruce Harrell, Nick Licata, and Kshama Sawant—comprise one-third of the city council. If you’ve got Sawant and the restaurant industry backing the same proposal, you’ve likely got a deal the council can rubber stamp. Hooray! But if there’s no consensus out of the committee, the council will still pass something.

Eight of nine city council members—everybody but Tim Burgess—are already on the record supporting some sort of a $15 minimum wage. So I fail to see the leverage that some advisory committee members seem to think they have in threatening to block some sort of a compromise proposal. An advisory committee proposal would be nice—especially a unanimous one—but it is not integral to the process. And while a consensus might make a ballot battle less likely, I’m not sure that one is avoidable, for no stakeholder on either side of the issue is bound by decision of the committee.

So yeah, if the advisory committee fails to produce a consensus proposal, the mayor will propose something regardless, and the council will do what the council is going to do. Because that’s the council’s job, not the job of a powerless, unelected committee.

Now that Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar have submitted enough signatures to force a referendum on Seattle’s recently revised taxi, limousine, and for-hire ordinance, it is time to start throwing their drivers in jail.

It is a criminal violation in the city of Seattle to pick up paying passengers without a valid for-hire license, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. No doubt the recently passed ordinance didn’t give the “Transportation Network Companies” (TNCs) everything they wanted, but it did legitimize their businesses, giving them a path toward legal operations. But by submitting sufficient signatures to force a referendum, the TNCs have effectively suspended the new ordinance, leaving the old law on the books. So, you know, enforce it!

Seriously. This is a political power play that is about more than just caps. The question here is who gets to write Seattle’s laws? The popularly elected city council after a year of public hearings and excruciating deliberations? Or the venture capitalists behind a handful of clever iPhone apps?

The TNCs think they have the upper hand. But in addition to suspending all caps, insurance, inspection, training and other regulations on their vehicles and drivers (along with all taxes and fees!), the TNCs have also suspended their right to operate legally. So if they hate the new law so much, let’s see how they like the old one.

A sting operation would be easy. Book a ride, and when the driver shows up, issue a citation and impound the car. Because it’s the law. It’ll only take a few high profile arrests to convince most drivers to log off the system. And then maybe the TNCs will be moved to negotiate a new ordinance instead of attempting to impose one.