On the West Coast Price Control Obsession Continues
A long, long time ago in an empire far away, an emperor decreed that prices were going up too fast and too high and he imposed a regime of price controls on everything from wheat to labor. The penalty for violating the controls was death. The emperor was Dioclectian, and in spite of his track […]
Perverse Sentimentalism Part 3: How We Might Get Rent Control
You’ll hear a lot of people hand wave the notion that Seattle will get rent control anytime soon. Even the legislative proponent, Representative Nicole Macri, says she thinks it will be a struggle. But here’s how it might play out. My job is to worry about the worst case scenario. Here’s the worst scenario I […]
Issaquah Councilman: Twisted Irony or Perverse Sentimentalism?
When I was a young philosophy student we spent many hours debating ethics and morality and learning the difference. One element of the pedagogy was the hypothetical scenario as a way to explore whether human beings can behave in ways that are moral and what that even means. One key discussion was always around altruism, […]
