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We still can’t afford a tunnel

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How things change…

1/17/2007:

Last month, Gregoire issued her findings on the viaduct options, saying the state could afford the $2.8 billion elevated highway but said the finance plan for the $4.6 billion, six-lane tunnel didn’t pencil out.

1/13/2009:

The overall project is estimated at $4.25 billion, with $2.8 billion coming from state gas taxes and federal bridge funds. That is supposed to cover the tunnel construction, as well as most of an interchange and elevated segment in Sodo.

How can “not having the money” be grounds to spike a tunnel in 2007, but not in 2009? What has changed, other than time?

In any case, back in 2007, State Sen. Ed Murray (D-43) seems to have nailed it:

Murray said he doesn’t believe the idea of eventually building a tunnel is dead yet.

“We’re not done,” he said.

The Un-news

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In the early 1990s I had a disturbing conversation with Nathan Myhrvold, then Microsoft’s chief futurist. Myhrvold was talking about how online technology would “disintermediate” commerce. When it comes to media, the term by its very definition suggests the breakdown of mass media. Newspapers, Myhrvold surmised, would be one of disintermediation’s biggest casualties.

What Myhrvold meant by disintermediation was the removal of gatekeeping functionality, or middle men, between purveyor and consumer. The interactivity of online meant users could select for themselves what to read. They didn’t need reporters and editors deciding what was important for them. A company or official didn’t need newspapers either; they could reach their constituents or customers directly (e.g. MyObama and iGoogle). Most of all, readers had no need for a physical product delivered to their doorstep.

Myhrvold, one of the smartest guys at what was then one of the smartest companies, made it sound as if the death of newspapers was right around the corner. But change is always further off than one initially imagines. It’s also true that change, when it happens, seems to do so all at once. The forces leading to a change, ignored for so long, are forgotten; we’re left feeling blind-sided even if we saw it coming and warned of it for years. This helps explain why someone like Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen could say with perfect honesty that he was “shocked” by the P-I’s announcement of sale and probably shutdown. Sure he was shocked. We all were. But were we surprised? (Today Myhrvold hunts dinosaur bones and was featured in a recent New Yorker profile by Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell. He probably has forgotten all about disintermediation.)

For all Myhrvold’s foresight and my own trepidations over the years, I was shocked as well. As a lifelong journalist (I started at The Seattle Times in 1967), I hate to see the P-I go — not just for its own sake but for its implications for The Times, Seattle, and an informed society. The P-I is just the first shoe to drop. Even the most casual reading of any newspaper, containing page after page of adless or ad-shy layout, reveals an unsustainable business proposition. I’m very worried about The New York Times, which I still get delivered to my doorstep and prefer reading over breakfast with my wife. It’s a vital ritual for us; we have our best conversations reading the paper, a process that reaffirms why we love each other and how much our intellectual lives revolve around knowledge of the day. (Admittedly I also notice how we’re calling out to each other more and more from our laptops, “Hey, did you see this on HuffPo?”) I know that it’s costing The New York Times a whole lot more to get its paper to me than I’m paying for the privilege; I just heard the paper is considering going to three deliveries a week instead of daily.

Although I sensed Myhrvold was right, for years I figured newspapers could transition to online if they just did a few things right. Now I’m not sure anything would have worked. Not only are newspapers dying, the type of “news” they purvey — uninterpreted, blandly regurgitated, pre-spun information supplied and shaped by a stakeholder with the intent of policy manipulation — has lost its relevance as well. Just look where the growth in news is — Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Huffington Post — and you get the idea. Journalism today is a process of un-newsing the news.

[Read more…]

Tax and spend

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I just want to make it clear to the rest of the state that since the rejection of the tunnel and rebuild options at the polls, a consensus had been building in Seattle for the less expensive, surface/transit option to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.  And now the state is essentially imposing the most expensive option, a deep bore tunnel.

Strange.

All I can say is that state and city leaders better find the extra couple billion dollars from somewhere other than Seattle taxpayers, because if we’re forced to pick up the tab ourselves, there’s going to be an awful lot of resentment about being forced to pay so that north/south drivers can get through the downtown a few minutes faster.  

Seattle taxpayers are extremely generous; we’re not shy about paying for infrastructure and services we want, and we’ve a long history of quietly subsidizing infrastructure and services in the rest of the state.  But if you’re wondering why Seattle needs a $4.3 billion tunnel when a $2.8 billion alternative would do, don’t look at us.

Given the choice, I’d rather spend the extra couple billion dollars building light rail from West Seattle to the downtown, and onward to Ballard.  But it doesn’t look like I’ll be given that choice.

Seattle FHLB has issues

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The Seattle Federal Home Loan Bank has problems.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle joined its San Francisco counterpart in suspending dividends and “excess” stock repurchases, after devalued mortgage bonds dropped its capital below a regulatory requirement.

The likely shortfall on Dec. 31 was caused by “unrealized market value losses” on home-loan securities without government backing, the Seattle bank cooperative said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today.

Calculated Risk says uh-oh and quotes Congressional testimony (PDF) by Nouriel Roubini from February of last year:

[T]he widespread use of the FHLB system to provide liquidity – but more clearly bail out insolvent mortgage lenders – has been outright reckless. … A system that usually provides a lending stock of about $150 billion has forked out loans amounting to over $750 billion in the last year with very little oversight of such staggering lending. The risk that this stealth bailout of many insolvent mortgage lenders will end up costing massive amounts of public money is now rising.

So as state and local governments struggle with the crashing economy, and individuals struggle with uncertainty, unemployment, the loss of homes and debt, we still don’t really know the extent of the damage by this insane financial disaster.

It’s like the car has gone off a cliff and we’re somehow going to suspend it in mid-air by giving people $500. Folks may like the money, and the very serious people who have been wrong about everything for eight years will insist the car can be suspended, but most folks won’t have much time to enjoy the dough. The ground is coming up at them too fast.

If nothing else, corruption gets the job done

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Larry Phillips:

[T]he bored bypass tunnel, along with surface and transit improvements, must be among the options that move forward for further environmental review and design when the Gov. Christine Gregoire announces her viaduct-replacement recommendation.

I think the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and the circus surrounding it’s replacement, are proof that Seattle is one of the least corrupt cities in America. If we were a little more corrupt, the civic elite, with the city’s monied interests, would have put this issue to bed long ago, and we would never had had that ridiculous, and totally ignored, advisory vote back in 2007. After all, asking for the people’s input is really only useful if you plan on following their suggestions.

No reason to exist, really

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To answer eburger’s perhaps rhetorical question, yes Republicans in the Legislature tend to be wildly inconsistent. Their constituents want and need things that cost money (roads, schools, cops, etc.) but the GOP is so wedded to outdated anti-tax rhetoric that hypocrisy is the only possible outcome. Those proud, independent real Americans on the east side of the mountains need highways after all! Frankly I kind of wonder why the Republican Party still exists, other than tradition. It serves very little purpose.

When I consider things calmly and rationally every year or two, I realize that a sincere and dedicated opposition party would be very beneficial in running something as big and bureaucratic as a state government. There are always things to improve and it would be naive to think there is not corruption in places, if not illegality then certainly shady practices, back-scratching and nods and winks. You know, like the Bush administration, if we’re looking for textbook examples. But these things are endemic to bureaucracies the world over, public and private, and nobody has a monopoly.

But the GOP never seems to start from a place other than loud, angry, destroy-the-government rhetoric. I guess that’s their purpose, to just be angry. Fun for us as it’s great sport to return the favor. Elections have consequences, you know.

Deep thought

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In only eight days, if I wake up, turn on the radio and hear the president is having a press conference, I won’t have to turn the radio off.

Been a long eight years. Is there anyone left who cares one whit what George W. Bush has to say about anything?

Beware of debris

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It’s been a rough night, but I think I have the software upgrade mostly functional.  You shouldn’t notice any changes at this point, but if you do, let me know.  Especially look for things I might have broken.

Once I’m comfortable the upgrade is stable, we can start rolling out some new features.

Conservatives repudiate themselves

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Barney Frank is right about Barack Obama:

Frank worries that Obama’s evenhandedness may prove to be a political liability. “On the financial crisis, Obama said that both sides were asleep at the switch,” Frank said. “But that’s not true. The Republicans were wide awake, and they made choices to oppose regulation. They had bad ideas. He says, ‘I don’t want to fight the fights of the nineties,’ but I don’t see any alternative to refighting the fights of the nineties if we want to change things.”

Frank illuminates the president-elect’s chief weakness.

Also: Has conservative ideology been discredited by reality? Frank thinks so:

“We are at a moment now when liberalism is poised to have its biggest impact on America since Roosevelt, because the conservative viewpoint has been so thoroughly repudiated by reality,” Frank said. “Someone asked Harold Macmillan what has the most impact on political decisions. He said, ‘Events, dear boy, events.’ Events have just totally repudiated them, and we’re now in a position to take advantage of that.” He went on, “You know Hegel. Thesis: No regulation at all. Antithesis: Now the government owns the banks. What I gotta do next year is the synthesis.”

Conservatism doesn’t exist anymore. One could argue that conservatism isn’t so much an ideology, but rather a reaction to liberalism.

Conservatives do not feel obligated to offer solutions to problems. Why? Because if government is used to solve problems, then they can no longer argue (with a straight face) that government is always the problem.

Conservatives, like alcoholics, come in varieties. There are “unrepentant conservatives.” They argue from absolutist positions that have no basis in reality. There are “functional conservatives.” Bush is a bigtime “functional conservative.” No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug program, bailouts for businesses… While Bush’s programs have a mixed record of success, you have to give him credit for at least attempting to solve problems with government.

Fly Eagles, Fly

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The Philadelphia Eagles beat the hated New York Giants today in the NFC divisional playoffs, 23-11, and will head off to Arizona for their fifth NFC championship game in eight years.  I like their chances of getting to the Super Bowl, but for an Eagles fan, just facing the Giants in the playoffs is kinda like a Super Bowl in itself.

TANGENTIAL ASIDE:
I’m listening to the post-game sports talk on Philadelphia’s WIP, streaming over my iPhone, and I’m not hearing any local ads.  Nada.

Obviously, CBS Radio is running only national ads on its radio streams, which makes a ton of sense, since local ads aren’t of much interest to a national audience.  And while the size of the streaming audience for each individual radio station may only be a fraction of the broadcast audience, combined across CBS’ many stations, it starts to add up.  Strikes me as a great way to use the Internet to monetize existing content.

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