A store selling a high-priced premium product is always going to suffer in a recession when people are cutting back. Doubly so this one. I tried it once and thought it was massively over-priced. For the cost of one little scoop of ice cream I could buy a pint of a premium brand at the supermarket. Ben & Jerry's is good, but not that good.
Let's not make the common mistake of applying a higher standard to a new (an unfamiliar) process than we apply to the existing (familiar) process (It's human nature to do that - there's a whole lot of research that shows our assessment of risk is distorted by familiarity and thus we underestimate familiar risks and overestimate unfamiliar ones).
So the pertinent question is not whether voter verification for mailed in ballots is perfect, but whether it is any worse than for a traditional in person vote. Is it any harder for someone pretending to be me to vote in person than to steal my mail ballot (from my PO Box)?
I'm very much in favor of all mail elections - it's very cost effective and much more convenient for elections (especially since we insist on having elections on a weekday - having grown up in Australia I was used to elections being on a Saturday). It's worth noting that Oregon has conducted all of its elections this way for many years.
I just wish we hadn't spent a couple of hundred thousand dollars on voting machines so that they can sit in a warehouse somewhere!
Good to see Garret Wiggins was not seduced by the morally dubious 'thin blue line' and that consequently a bad cop is being held to account.
Police are given very serious powers not available to the rest of us and should therefore be held to a higher standard.
The majority of police who use these powers to 'serve and protect' should never have to tolerate in their midst those who see police powers as something to be used for their own purposes
1. We will kill this thing having loaded every conceivable city infrastructure cost we can think of on to this development and dragged it out so long that the developer can't justify spending any more money spinning his wheels
2. Ten years from now when housing prices inside the (existing) city limits are through the roof, mostly the very same people who killed Steamboat 700 will be bleating louder that ever about affordable housing.
I'm really disappointed in city council members wanting guarantees on affordability. The developer would need a crystal ball to give that. All anybody can say for sure is that housing will be a lot less affordable without this annexation than with it.
The final paragraph tells us we have to "perfect" these water rights anyway, which seems to undermine the argument for having Steamboat 700 meet the cost.
Sure we don't want Steamboat 700 imposing a financial burden on the City's existing taxpayers, but shouldn't they only be up for the true incremental costs?
We saw the same thing with trying to foist the entire cost of a fancy new public safety facility on to Steamboat 700.
Remember that getting Steamboat 700 to pay for our wish list doesn't make it free. It's our future neighbors, who we supposedly want to be average middle class working citizens living in average homes, that will end up paying for it.
Just what people who are really struggling in this economy need, for used cars to be more expensive. This is he standard effect of programs designed to buy middle class votes - screwing the poor.
And it's not even helping most of the middle class, just a few who are lucky enough to be able to work the system. The rest of us are paying for it in our taxes. I may was well just right a check for a thousand bucks to a random neighbor.
From everything that is reported about the annexation negotiations, it is cleat that it is not the City spending money up front; they've loaded the developer down with a truck load of requirements to fund every piece of city infrastructure they can think of (including a new public safety facility for the entire city!), to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if the developer walks away.
Plus you have to take a long term view. This is about managing growth in Steamboat over the next 20-30 years. Do we really want to be in an even worse position in terms of housing affordability in a couple of years when the economy recovers?
The problem I have with a vote is that this is a very complex issue, and I have very little faith that the majority of citizens will inform themselves of the facts before voting or think about the trade offs between growth and affordability. I don't agree with our city councillors on a lot of issues, but at least on this issue they're all in a position to make a well informed judgement.
In a world where lenders' incentives are properly aligned, they would be interested in appraisers doing a good job, not inflating their appraisals. After all, that's critical to them managing their risk when they make a loan. The problem is that the mortgage market was so distorted that lenders were effectively laying off ALL the risk. In that environment all they cared about was getting more mortgages issued. That's the problem that needs to be fixed at its source.
This new set of regulations for appraisals is a classic big government, bureaucratic solution to a problem that is actually a symptom of something else. It's like sticking your finger in a hose to stop the water instead of turning the faucet off at the other end.
You can be pretty sure that when one group resorts to demonising their opponents, they pretty much have no other argument. In rugby (I'm a transplanted Aussie) we call it playing the man and not the ball and it's considered dishonourable and a sign that you lack a real game.
I don't want this town to become a zoo like Aspen either, but I'm not expecting that we can suspend the laws of supply and demand.
The reality is that lots and lots of people want to live in paradise. That growth in demand isn't going away. So if you constrain supply by restricting development, prices will go up and up and up. Maybe as a community we're fine with that. Those of us who already own property in the 'Boat may even think that's a good thing.
These are not easy choices. But what really gets me riled up is that many of the people who are most anti-development are also the ones who are most pro-affordable housing. Please, they need to stop thinking they can have their cake and eat it too.
This reads like a half a story. What does it really mean by consecutive days? Does it mean he goes to the southern hemisphere in the summer to ski? It must to get in 2,000 days since 2003, but it doesn't say that our tell us anything about where he goes. And it doesn't ask or answer any of the other obvious questions - doesn't he ever get sick or injured or just tired of skiing?
Ben & Jerry's closes
A store selling a high-priced premium product is always going to suffer in a recession when people are cutting back. Doubly so this one. I tried it once and thought it was massively over-priced. For the cost of one little scoop of ice cream I could buy a pint of a premium brand at the supermarket. Ben & Jerry's is good, but not that good.
October 28, 2009 at 9:18 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Our View: We've got mail
Let's not make the common mistake of applying a higher standard to a new (an unfamiliar) process than we apply to the existing (familiar) process (It's human nature to do that - there's a whole lot of research that shows our assessment of risk is distorted by familiarity and thus we underestimate familiar risks and overestimate unfamiliar ones).
So the pertinent question is not whether voter verification for mailed in ballots is perfect, but whether it is any worse than for a traditional in person vote. Is it any harder for someone pretending to be me to vote in person than to steal my mail ballot (from my PO Box)?
I'm very much in favor of all mail elections - it's very cost effective and much more convenient for elections (especially since we insist on having elections on a weekday - having grown up in Australia I was used to elections being on a Saturday). It's worth noting that Oregon has conducted all of its elections this way for many years.
I just wish we hadn't spent a couple of hundred thousand dollars on voting machines so that they can sit in a warehouse somewhere!
October 18, 2009 at 7:27 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Public defender questions actions in Johnson arrest case
Good to see Garret Wiggins was not seduced by the morally dubious 'thin blue line' and that consequently a bad cop is being held to account.
Police are given very serious powers not available to the rest of us and should therefore be held to a higher standard.
The majority of police who use these powers to 'serve and protect' should never have to tolerate in their midst those who see police powers as something to be used for their own purposes
October 1, 2009 at 12:22 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Steamboat 700 still confident despite near defeat
Here's what's going to happen:
1. We will kill this thing having loaded every conceivable city infrastructure cost we can think of on to this development and dragged it out so long that the developer can't justify spending any more money spinning his wheels
2. Ten years from now when housing prices inside the (existing) city limits are through the roof, mostly the very same people who killed Steamboat 700 will be bleating louder that ever about affordable housing.
I'm really disappointed in city council members wanting guarantees on affordability. The developer would need a crystal ball to give that. All anybody can say for sure is that housing will be a lot less affordable without this annexation than with it.
October 1, 2009 at 8:45 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Cari Hermacinski: Clarifying the water issue
I don't follow the logic.
The final paragraph tells us we have to "perfect" these water rights anyway, which seems to undermine the argument for having Steamboat 700 meet the cost.
Sure we don't want Steamboat 700 imposing a financial burden on the City's existing taxpayers, but shouldn't they only be up for the true incremental costs?
We saw the same thing with trying to foist the entire cost of a fancy new public safety facility on to Steamboat 700.
Remember that getting Steamboat 700 to pay for our wish list doesn't make it free. It's our future neighbors, who we supposedly want to be average middle class working citizens living in average homes, that will end up paying for it.
August 16, 2009 at 9:41 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Used-car prices rising with Clunker deal
Just what people who are really struggling in this economy need, for used cars to be more expensive. This is he standard effect of programs designed to buy middle class votes - screwing the poor.
And it's not even helping most of the middle class, just a few who are lucky enough to be able to work the system. The rest of us are paying for it in our taxes. I may was well just right a check for a thousand bucks to a random neighbor.
August 13, 2009 at 8:29 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Letter to the editor: Steamboat 700 vote
From everything that is reported about the annexation negotiations, it is cleat that it is not the City spending money up front; they've loaded the developer down with a truck load of requirements to fund every piece of city infrastructure they can think of (including a new public safety facility for the entire city!), to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if the developer walks away.
Plus you have to take a long term view. This is about managing growth in Steamboat over the next 20-30 years. Do we really want to be in an even worse position in terms of housing affordability in a couple of years when the economy recovers?
The problem I have with a vote is that this is a very complex issue, and I have very little faith that the majority of citizens will inform themselves of the facts before voting or think about the trade offs between growth and affordability. I don't agree with our city councillors on a lot of issues, but at least on this issue they're all in a position to make a well informed judgement.
July 29, 2009 at 9:41 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Appraisal rules wreck real estate deals
In a world where lenders' incentives are properly aligned, they would be interested in appraisers doing a good job, not inflating their appraisals. After all, that's critical to them managing their risk when they make a loan. The problem is that the mortgage market was so distorted that lenders were effectively laying off ALL the risk. In that environment all they cared about was getting more mortgages issued. That's the problem that needs to be fixed at its source.
This new set of regulations for appraisals is a classic big government, bureaucratic solution to a problem that is actually a symptom of something else. It's like sticking your finger in a hose to stop the water instead of turning the faucet off at the other end.
June 21, 2009 at 8:59 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Jeremy S. MacGray: Think of community
Well said Jeremy.
You can be pretty sure that when one group resorts to demonising their opponents, they pretty much have no other argument. In rugby (I'm a transplanted Aussie) we call it playing the man and not the ball and it's considered dishonourable and a sign that you lack a real game.
I don't want this town to become a zoo like Aspen either, but I'm not expecting that we can suspend the laws of supply and demand.
The reality is that lots and lots of people want to live in paradise. That growth in demand isn't going away. So if you constrain supply by restricting development, prices will go up and up and up. Maybe as a community we're fine with that. Those of us who already own property in the 'Boat may even think that's a good thing.
These are not easy choices. But what really gets me riled up is that many of the people who are most anti-development are also the ones who are most pro-affordable housing. Please, they need to stop thinking they can have their cake and eat it too.
June 21, 2009 at 8:49 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Colorado skier hits 2,000 straight days
This reads like a half a story. What does it really mean by consecutive days? Does it mean he goes to the southern hemisphere in the summer to ski? It must to get in 2,000 days since 2003, but it doesn't say that our tell us anything about where he goes. And it doesn't ask or answer any of the other obvious questions - doesn't he ever get sick or injured or just tired of skiing?
April 30, 2009 at 4:33 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )