Seattle Bubble

• Gas Prices & Home Buying
• Puget Sound Counties July NWMLS Update
• Case-Shiller: Price Drops in Seattle Re-Accelerating
• Puget Sound Counties April NWMLS Update
• South Sound Inventory Up, Prices Down

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83 responses so far ↓

• 1 vboring // May 22, 2008 at 8:59 am

  absolutely insane.

  b/c of lifestyle choices (living close to work and actually preferring cheap food, usually prepared at home), i have almost no exposure to price increases.

  but trips to the grocery store are still borderline traumatic. just seeing significant price rises on virtually everything, except for meat, of course. beef won’t get expensive until next year. the high grain prices right now have encouraged herd culling, flooding the market with meat for now. watch out next year, though.

  beef futures might be an interesting hedge against inflation.

• 2 Ray Pepper // May 22, 2008 at 9:07 am

  May I suggest the 5.00 cheese or pepperoni pizza’s at Lil Caesar’s and the 1.29 wraps at Wendy’s. By gaining a little weight you can also save on heating bills when winter rolls around.

  Thats my plan!

• 3 b // May 22, 2008 at 9:16 am

  Isn’t it great to know that not only did the housing bubble screw over most people, but now it can screw over everyone else? The Fed has dumped $250B to investment banks via their new facilities in the last few months. Its pretty strange that somehow commodities have shot up during that same time, almost like a bunch of money is being poured into them by speculative investors. I am sure its just a coincidence.

  The only good thing about this new Fed bubble is that it won’t be able to last very long at all. Blowing up housing or stocks can last a good 3-5 years and will end with people having no savings or going bankrupt. Blowing up food and energy prices will end with riots and people dying.

• 4 Sky Diver // May 22, 2008 at 9:20 am

  I relocated my family from Dallas to Edmonds last summer. Because the house prices were so sky-high I am renting for now. I have been relocated by Boeing three times in the last ten years and always bought a home, until I moved back home! I am not alone, many of me fellow Boeing employees could not afford a home after relocating back to Seattle for the 787 Dreamliner program. The prices need to drop by 35% or more to even start getting real.

  Blue Sky’s

• 5 TJ_98370 // May 22, 2008 at 9:40 am

  S-Crow; You can get four 1/2 gallon containers of Tropicana OJ for $10.69 at Costco.

• 6 S-Crow // May 22, 2008 at 9:44 am

  TJ-

  Now that is what I like about blogs. Thanks for the tip on the deal at Costco.

• 7 Gill // May 22, 2008 at 9:45 am

  I walked by a Shell station in Belltown this morning that was $4.15 for the cheap stuff.

  As with vboring, these increases are not effecting me as of yet. My wife and I get bus passes from our work and we live in Ballard and work downtown, so commuting is basically free. We can bike to tons of restaurants, bars, parks, etc.

  We just bought a town house that’s green built and very energy efficient with radiant heat — our rental had an electric heating system so we’ll save quite a bit of money this year on energy costs as well.

  Needless to say, we won’t be buying any plane tickets or taking any trips in the near future — ridiculous prices!

  I haven’t noticed the grocery prices increasing significantly either but we don’t buy milk or OJ usually. I’m sure we’ll start seeing them soon enough.

  Time to buy a bicycle and get in shape!!!

• 8 Jimmythev // May 22, 2008 at 9:56 am

  I have a boat… this year, no long trips. I think I’ll be spending a lot of time in the marina with it tied up. I never could have imagined the rate at which fuel has gone up in such a short period of time… I miss the 1990’s.

• 9 rose-colored-coolaid // May 22, 2008 at 9:56 am

  I’m going on record that rising prices are not such a terrible thing. Look at it this way, gas prices are a problem for people here only because people choose to live so far from work. Europe and Japan have had prices in the $6-$8 per gallon range for a long time, but they develop cities in a denser and less sprawled out manner. So, we’ve had an unmaintainable lifestyle and with gas prices are now moving towards what the fuel is really worth, we’ll have to adjust to changing times. It doesn’t sound so bad.

  About food prices, I am less positive. We have an obesity epidemic in this nation, so I guess higher prices *could be a good thing. The real problem is that we are seeing rising prices in the wrong items. Ideally, fresh fruits and vegetables would go down in price while potato chips, top ramen, soda pop, and fast food prices went up. Unfortunately, the exact opposite is happening.

  The good news about food prices (in my opinion) is that much of the increase is related to this ethanol craze. Once people figure out ethanol is a boondoggle or in 2009/2010 plugin hybrid cars become standard, ethanol will slowly be phased out. I guess alternatively we could have a major breakthrough in cellulosic ethanol. I’m not so optimistic about that in the near term, however.

• 10 b // May 22, 2008 at 10:10 am

  RCC -

  The problem is that while we complain about expensive OJ, people are dying in other countries because they can no longer afford rice and grains. Food and fuel prices rising here means they are rising everywhere on the planet. That is not good for anyone.

• 11 S-Crow // May 22, 2008 at 10:13 am

  Rose,

  That’s the thing though about living close to work. Back in 2004 when living in Edmonds, there was no way we could afford to even buy a larger place in our own neighborhood. Being closer to work meant more expensive housing. So we ended up looking northbound for better opportunities. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that make the commute from Everett area to the eastside or downtown Seattle. It has to be a real drag. Everett’s community transit recently announced a large bounce in ridership.

  I don’t know what the threshold will be when mass people just say, “the heck with it, I’m riding the bus, even though it will extend my commute time by a factor of 2-3 times. Maybe $5/gal? For a lot of people, that threshold is already there.

• 12 WestSideBilly // May 22, 2008 at 10:19 am

  RCC -

  Our government is still subsidizing corn ethanol at very high levels, and the farm bill that our Congressmen rammed through W’s veto will essentially increase those subsidies. Corn-based ethanol will take a long time to eliminate because the companies that backed its subsidization have done a very good job convincing the public that corn ethanol is a good way to stick it to the oilman (even though about 1/2 gallon of oil is used to make every gallon of ethanol). Don’t hold your breath for costs to go down on commodity level foodgoods. It’s a very good time to be a farmer, very bad time to be living at a subsistence level.

  And you got it absolutely right - healthy foods are skyrocketing in price, while the products made with the subsidized garbage byproducts (high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, etc) are holding steady. When I was a teenager (circa 1995) a bag of Doritoes was $3 and a 12 pack of mt dew was $3… that’s true today (actually, Doritoes are a bit less and soda a bit more). Anything healthy has doubled or tripled in cost.

  I’m not sure how rising energy prices could possibly be construed as a good thing, at least not how they’re rising. If my gas went up $2 overnight because of a gas tax that was used to pay for investments in other energy sources & subsidizing alternate transportation, yeah, that’s a good thing as a whole. But the $2 gas has gone up in the last year has mostly ended up in the pockets of a small number of businesses and foreign oil-producers. And a big part of the reason why apples are $4/lb is because it costs so much to haul them.

• 13 Sorin // May 22, 2008 at 10:20 am

  Nice that the CPI number doesn’t really reflect the current high inflationary environment. Let’s the Fed keep rates way too low, and cover it’s ears while chanting “There is no recession and inflation is contained. There is no recession and inflation is contained….”

• 14 laxtosnoco // May 22, 2008 at 11:06 am

  ** Schadenfreude warning **

  I’ve got to admit that part of me is enjoying the recent public angst over food and gas prices. I may be a dirty renter, but the latest inflation hasn’t impacted me a bit. Renting means I can live 4 miles away from work, and if I were somehow to lose my job, I’d just move closer to a new one.

  Granted, as a DINK family our costs are probably lower than average, but we don’t make much more than the median family income and we’re able to drop about $3500/month into savings after sending 20% off the top into retirement accounts. Even so, my budget hasn’t really noticed increased food or gas prices.

  My sympathy is reserved for children, old folks, and people living in poverty due to bad luck or unfortunate choices (there are 50k+ in Snohomish County alone).

  People who complain about how much it costs to fill up their giant rumbling ‘08 Dodge Rams do not deserve anyone’s sympathy. At the gas station this weekend, I had stifle a giggle when I saw how much it cost a fellow to fill up his giant diesel RV. The pump read $324 bucks.

• 15 Slumlord // May 22, 2008 at 11:27 am

  People have been using oil faster than we are finding it since around 1981. Gas price increases simply reflect that we are running out of oil reserves. It is not going to vanish overnight, but I think we can expect gas to go up around 10-20% per year, forcing a shift to conservation and alternatives, and eventually phasing out of fossil fuels. None of this will be easy on the economy.

  Relating this to housing, I expect most suburbs to see major declines in value. The exceptions will be those places with significant job bases or the ability to attract new employers. People will want to live closer to work. Transportation costs will be high enough to make the current way of life unaffordable for most people.

  On the other hand, there are going to be plenty of Memorial Day sales at the mall and we should all go and get some retail therapy. It is good for the economy. There is nothing to see on this blog. Move along.

• 16 S-Crow // May 22, 2008 at 11:30 am

  Lax,

  When I explained to my wife when I stepped in the door about the prices, she said, “I don’t know how people are making a go of it.” If the median household income is around $55-60K (I’m guessing- those numbers are from 2004 Census) in Snohomish Co today, it is tough for those families that are getting hammered by these prices. My kids (in sports) go through about $10 of fruit per day (apples, bananas, grapefruit ) etc….Sure, there are ways to buy inexpensively, but the idea that a gallon of OJ costs $7.30 just completely took me by suprise. My two boys are not even in high school yet and they INHALE milk and bread as if it is candy.

• 17 patient // May 22, 2008 at 11:31 am

  I’m not sure if the poeple who comments that raising energy prices will not impact them really understands the impact. The cost of gas is the most visible impact but it impacts or will impact almost every single thing.
  - No commute? How about heating, cooking and ligthing? Part of the rent? What do you think will happen with your rent?

  - Garbage eater? Even garbage needs to be transported and “refined”, it takes energy to do that.

  - Are you working? What do you think lights and heats your office and provides power to your PC you are using now? Energy.

  - Every service you use that has transportation or facility and maintenance costs will be impacted since those things uses energy. The cost must be transferred to the consumer for the companies to survive.

  If +$100 oil is here to stay it will impact every one. As one energy source inflates the other follows.

• 18 Garth // May 22, 2008 at 11:35 am

  Produce in grocery stores is way overpriced. I have been paying $1 a pound for apples at the fruit stand by my house.

• 19 Yaoyao // May 22, 2008 at 11:43 am

  Agree w/ rose-colored-coolaid: the gas price we have now is still cheap by Europe/Japan standards. We need to redesign our lives/business to adapt. My idea is to hike gas tax to Europe levels and use the proceeds to give everybody an income tax rebate. Do you know that by paying $6 gas tax, we actually would have enought to abolish income tax? Well i don’t want that, but an income tax rebate of $2k per person that you can spend anywhere sure should help.

  Anyhow, here’s my petition page:
  http://www.gopetition.com/online/19157.html

  and my blog page:
  http://taxmygas.blogspot.com/

• 20 deejayoh // May 22, 2008 at 11:44 am

  At least the cost of housing is declining!

• 21 Dave // May 22, 2008 at 11:49 am

  I think this is a trith that will stand for the forseeabel future - the quality of the food you eat is directly proportional to its cost. Food that is garbage is cheap , food that is good for you is more expensive. I think the help ramifications of this going forward are going to be huge - to the poitn of impacting our healthcare system.

• 22 Yaoyao // May 22, 2008 at 11:49 am

  I think high energy price is not a problem. People will adapt. the problem is energy price volatility. Price double or half in a year that kind of thing. Business fail because they don’t plan for price volatities. Look at Ford and GM whose SUV sits in lots while Priuses fly off the shelf commanding higher than ticker prices. Same with families. Families who planned based on energy consumption prosper while families who splurged on suvs and live in big houses in exurbia suffer. I wrote a post on this issue earlier.

  I’m lucky to have TraderJoe/costco within 3 miles, and gets lots of good deals.

• 23 Dave // May 22, 2008 at 11:49 am

  Where is an edit button? I apologize for the horribel spelling above - I am used to auto-spellcheck.

• 24 Dave // May 22, 2008 at 11:50 am

  Argghhh!

• 25 patient // May 22, 2008 at 12:03 pm

  “At least the cost of housing is declining!”

  One bubble crushing another. It’s kind of poetic.

• 26 SoCalXplant // May 22, 2008 at 12:11 pm

  All I can say regarding higher energy costs is… GET USED TO IT.

  All of our whining and conservation efforts will have absolutely zero effect on the near 3 billion people in Asia who have recently discovered the internal combustion engine.

  Combine their ever-increasing thirst for oil with the past eight years of Bush/Cheney looking the other way while their oil pals manipulate the market to rake in record profits quarter after quarter, and we all get what we deserve.

  Now, thanks to all the human ostriches who ignorantly thought they could drive around in their oversized gas-guzzling behemoths forever, we are all paying insane prices for just the simple basics! We can’t continue to expect politicians to fix everything because they are just as stupid as we are. At least the ones we’ve been electing anyway.

  Do you know what Venezualans pay for gas? 12 cents per gallon! Why? Because they can. What they have is a lot of oil, and instead of trying to exploit it like any other commodity, they first make sure everyone in the country can at least benefit from their bounty. Then what’s left they sell to the oil thirsty world at a huge profit.

  My point is the cost of energy is relative to how much of it your country produces as a resource. If this country stopped looking at energy as something it could use to profit off its own citizens, and something we could produce in mass quantities in OTHER WAYS that we could then profit from selling to OTHER COUNTRIES, it would re-invigorate the economy.

  Did you know that if we built just one 100-square mile solar farm in the Mojave desert, it would produce enough electricity to power the entire country?? All it takes is the will of the people and stifling our apathy enough to give our elected officials a call or two.

  So how high will gas and food prices have to get before we take back control of this country? We can afford trillion dollar boondoggle wars that turn a dictatorship into a theocracy, but we can’t afford to develop alternative energy resources and electric cars?

  If we don’t pull our heads out of the sand darn soon, then we will get exactly what we deserve.

• 27 Gill // May 22, 2008 at 12:18 pm

  Patient –

  I understand your point, but I do see how it effects things generally.

  However —

  I don’t own a huge SUV or a truck like many people, I bike or take public transport to work. This costs me nothing.

  I just bought a home that was green built with radiant heating and new high tech energy efficient appliances. I estimate that I’ll be saving over $1500 this year on energy expenses over last year.

  I’m not planning on taking a vacation in the next year (at least a big one that would require expensive airfare.)

  I don’t have any kids or extra mouths to feed.

  My place of work is already very ‘green’ and we’ve been conserving energy and not using paper products for some time.

  I’m not saying my lifestyle won’t be impacted, but, it will probably be impacted much less than someone who lives in the suburbs, has a family and has to drive a huge SUV 10 miles to work and back everyday.

  Not judging the lifestyle, mind you, just pointing out that some lifestyles will be greatly affected while others may not.

• 28 economist // May 22, 2008 at 12:25 pm

  At least the cost of housing is declining!

  But nobody has to buy a house in the first place, so nobody had to be affected by the housing bubble. There is no way around high food and energy costs.

  Declining house prices will only make an impact on living costs when buying becomes cheaper than renting. And it will.

• 29 B&W Nikes // May 22, 2008 at 12:52 pm

  Anyone else willing to attribute 90% of this gouging (and more to come) to dollar devaluation? Our watchdogs are increasing money supplies to inflate the economy out of it’s debtload and prevent institutional failures. The kind of supply and demand issues that would drive these prices has not occurred yet, so this is probably not merely the invisible hand of the market at work, how ever much the commodity conglomerates try and pass that idea through the media outlets.

• 30 biliruben // May 22, 2008 at 12:59 pm

  My truck’s tank is empty. Time to get a second job!

  Is 15 months too early to get my boy working? He’s a lefty and has a pretty good arm.

• 31 Lake Hills Renter // May 22, 2008 at 1:25 pm

  I read an article a few weeks ago when oil was around $120/barrel that in inflation adjusted dollars it was really around $90 a barrel (sorry don’t have hard numbers as it’s from memory). That to me showed much of the price increases are from a weak dollar and inflation. Thanks, Fed.

• 32 explorer // May 22, 2008 at 1:48 pm

  “Time to buy a bicycle and get in shape!!!”

  A nice 150cc Scooter for me, thank you. I stay in shape in other ways…

  I have taken the bus nearly every workday for the past 3 years from Ballard to Downtown. Ridership is up dramatically this year. I now often cannot get a seat in the AM, and I leave later than most.

  All good comments regrading contributory factors, and I believe ALL of those factors are gathering into a perfect storm in my nightmares. No one will be uneffected, and you will feel the pain. You will feel the pain more after the November elections, as much of the Fed bubble is timed to keep a lit on the worst of it until next year, IMO.

• 33 Gill // May 22, 2008 at 2:01 pm

  Make certain you plant a garden this summer and fall : )

• 34 rose-colored-coolaid // May 22, 2008 at 2:06 pm

  Several comments on my trolling =)

  #9 I agree completely. I pity anyone who actually can’t feed themselves or their family. Which is just another reason I do not like ethanol.

  #10 All the problems you listed only exist because gas was too cheap in the 90’s. How can I say it was too cheap? It was too cheap because it encouraged people to make stupid unsustainable decisions.

  #11 I agree that federal mandates about ethanol are a problem, as are subsidies. Take a serious look at the net energy output and it’s absolutely pathetic. By the time you consider energy put into growing ethanol and processing it, it provides almost no net gain. If you consider fertilizers used and water usage as well as pollution, the picture gets even worst. We’d be better off putting solar panels on a small section of that open land.

  As for how I can proclaim high energy prices are a good thing, it all depends on your perspective. Yes, if USA produced all oil, it would be even more of a good thing. But the only real problem alternative energy has ever had is that it was too expensive. In short, oil was too cheap for us to move past it. We’ve finally hit the point where that’s not all that true anymore. So, this might sting for the next 5-10 years, but in 15 years when everyone is driving an electric car to work (possibly even made in USA), running off a clean power grid, we’ll be asking why it ever took us so long to get off that awful gasoline engine in the first place. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a little in the short term to benefit in the long, and in America we don’t get that. So it requires the invisible hand to force us, and that’s why high oil prices are good.

  FYI, I am predicting regular gasoline in excess of $5.25 this time next year.

• 35 John Doe // May 22, 2008 at 2:11 pm

  Minutemaid increased $4 (maybe– i m not sure) to $7 in 2 to 3 years..

  House prices increased from $500k to $750k in 2 to 3 years..Do they worth it? Hell no…

  So why are we suprised?..

• 36 EconE // May 22, 2008 at 2:11 pm

  Red Delicious instead of Gala.

  Eat an orange…drink water.

  Rice, Legumes.

  Oatmeal.

  Rising Sun Markets on 65th has good deals on vegetables.

  EAT LESS…Most Americans could use this anyways.

  $25 for a fruit plate for an open house? Bah…nobody needs food at an open house.

  5 years ago when I was a teacher…I knew children that didn’t even get to eat at home. Their meals were the “free and reduced lunch plan”. Their families couldn’t afford computers to get on the internet and "dog" about inflation.

• 37 Sandy // May 22, 2008 at 2:17 pm

  The latest trend on my street is scooters. Our neighbors down the street got one (Honda Metropolitan) and now we are looking at them. The Metropolitan gets about 100 miles to the gallon (the tank holds a little more than a gallon) and is perfect for bopping around town. My plan is that any time I don’t need to haul people or stuff, I will be riding the Metropolitan. And it comes in PINK! What could be better?

• 38 Sandy // May 22, 2008 at 2:21 pm

  PS–The Mukilteo Station for SoundTransit rail opens on May 31. First train goes to the Mariners game that afternoon. I plan to be there!

• 39 TJ_98370 // May 22, 2008 at 2:44 pm

  .
  B&W Nikes (#26), I’ve been wondering the same thing -

  OPEC: Weak Dollar, Not Supply, Keeps Prices High

  The weak dollar is the main factor keeping prices at high levels, not the supply of oil, and that situation is likely to continue, current OPEC president Chakib Khelil, who is also Algerian Oil Minister, said on Tuesday…….

• 40 TJ_98370 // May 22, 2008 at 2:52 pm

  That’s it! Pink Honda Metropolitans! We had it all wrong!

  IT’S NOT ABOUT PINK PONIES! - IT’S ALL ABOUT PINK HONDA METROPOLITANS!

  It seems so clear now. Why didn’t we see it before?

• 41 Sandy // May 22, 2008 at 2:58 pm

  TJ–Alas, I fear the Pink Metropolitan lacks the power to affect real estate pricing. It does have the power to transport you from place to place as long as you don’t mind going less than 40mph. Also, for those who object to pink it does come in other, less femme-y colors.

• 42 TJ_98370 // May 22, 2008 at 3:07 pm

  No Sandy, you are a genius! Honda is the mastermind behind this big conspiracy to destroy our financial system and devalue the dollar SO THAT EVERYONE WILL HAVE TO BUY PINK SCOOTERS. It’s so obvious. How can you not see it?

  Where is David Losh when we need him? This needs to be investigated immediately, if not sooner!

• 43 Sandy // May 22, 2008 at 3:14 pm

  Well, all joking aside the point I was trying to make (sort of-I was really just sort of noting a funny trend on my street) is that buying a vehicle that uses less gas is one way to cut down on the gas bill, and it’s not like it has to be a big trial to do it. Some of the less-gas alternatives are actually a pretty fun way to get around. And we figured out the numbers, the scooter would (in theory) pay for itself in 3 years, assuming you mostly ride in the spring/summer/fall months.

• 44 TJ_98370 // May 22, 2008 at 3:38 pm

  Sandy - I hope my “peculiar” sense of humor did not offend you. Actually, when I was a very poor college student, I rode my barely legal 125 cc dirt bike to work / school sometimes. I would fill the tank and pay with the coinage I had in my pocket.

  The obvious major downside to two wheeled transport around here is the wet weather. Otherwise, I agree, riding a bike of any type can be a fun way of getting around.

• 45 Sandy // May 22, 2008 at 3:52 pm

  Not offended in the slightest. Just wary anytime someone tells me I am a genius… :-)

• 46 B&W NIkes // May 22, 2008 at 5:32 pm

  Granted, Shell’s CEO Van der Veer is on record as saying that world demand for oil and gas will outstrip supply within seven years. But in May 2008, the supply of oil is increasing and prices are still skyrocketing:
  

  Under pressure from consuming nations concerned by oil’s rally, the kingdom said last week it would boost output by 300,000 bpd to compensate for lower supply from other producers.Oil prices were unmoved by the report of rising OPEC supply.(reuters story earlier)

  … think I’ll bypass the pink metro and head straight at lobbying for yellow brick sidewalks.

• 47 Mikal // May 22, 2008 at 6:04 pm

  I agree that the far out housing will be difficult if not impossible to sell when oil reaches a certain point. Even if the house is so low that the lower income brackets can afford it they still have to get to work and will be the least likely to afford it. Some suburbs that are forty miles from Minneapolis have subdivisions that are ten percent filled with no buyers in site. The town that expanded the waste water treatment plant isn’t sure what to do as they are now going to have trouble paying for it.

• 48 Rhonda Porter // May 22, 2008 at 6:23 pm

  Years past, I would buy a small chunk of Copper River Salmon at the grocery store (typically our kids would have other dinner plans)…silly shoppers (me included) would wait at the fish counter at Metropolitan Market to get some of this salmon.
  This year I noticed that the price for Copper River is over $38 a pound…and nobody seems to be buying it. I’m wondering if they’ll drop the price and when/if they do, the fish will no longer be fresh.

  Tonight for dinner…no salmon…chicken enchiladas ("golly" good ones too).

• 49 biliruben // May 22, 2008 at 7:36 pm

  I made the same decision at Met Mart yesterday, Rhonda. Hamburgers and corn for us. Only $36 in Bryant. A virtual bargain!

• 50 Ira Sacharoff // May 22, 2008 at 9:11 pm

  It’s very early in the Copper river salmon season, but 38 $ per pound, yikes!
  It’ll come down to maybe 13. We’re all preached at by the Seattle cognoscenti to eat wild salmon because it’s not farmed and there’s a sustainable harvest, bla bla bla, but who can afford to have such virtue?
  If i can come up with recipes for dandelion and wild morning glory, I’m all set.

• 51 B&W Nikes // May 23, 2008 at 12:05 am

  Ira I usually agree with you but… salmon is not a good benchmark. There was a generationally epic non-return of spawners this year that the fisheries are still trying to understand. I don’t remember numbers exactly, but I do remember the math being somewhere near that they would be 3x the cost of previous years without inflation as a factor. Bad scene. Wild salmon is better all around, farmed salmon screw up ecology and their meat is died pink with products that don’t get processed - it’s yet another measure of how much less your dollar buys. Anyone who thinks that natural foods are a luxury good really needs to think hard about what their earnings are worth, not that only chardonnay sipping yuppies can afford real food - unprocessed food shouldn’t be a luxury item in line with designer cars.

• 52 NotaBull // May 23, 2008 at 6:33 am

  “Look at it this way, gas prices are a problem for people here only because people choose to live so far from work.”

  I think that only goes half way. Gas prices are a problem because people choose to live far from work AND because they choose the use a lot of gasoline moving to and from work.

  The first choice (location) isn’t always a fair choice. Some people can’t afford to live near their job. How does someone who cleans bathrooms in Bellevue live nearby? It’s easy for those that make a lot of money (me included) to pour scorn on those that live in cheap areas as if ALL of them are choosing to do so because they want a McMansion. Some are, but not all.

  The second choice (method of transit) is a real choice. If you live in Everett and commute to Bellevue and you *choose* to do that in an SUV/Pickup/muscle-car then count yourself lucky - at least you can do something about what you pay in gas! Get rid of that gas guzzler and pick up a used 10 year old Civic. You’ll go from 15MPG to 30MPG and suddenly your gas bill will be magically back to where it was in 2003 when gas was $2 a gallon! Voila! If you don’t *want* to get the Civic/Camry or other vehicle that doubles your MPG, then I have no sympathy.

  If, however, you’ve already got the efficient car, live far from your job, and the gas prices are biting you, then I have a lot of sympathy. You made the right choices, and have nowhere to go at this point. Drive slower, take a bus, hold on tight and good luck to you.

• 53 Dave Lincoln // May 23, 2008 at 6:57 am

  I don’t think your calculations are right, SoCalXPlant. At 300 W/sqmeter daily average of solar insolation (for the SW desert in June, and tilted array), I get ~ 640,000 GWh/year solar. Even with really low losses and the most efficient system (whether photovotaic or otherwise), I guess you could get 30-odd % of it in electricity (last number just via rectal extraction). So, maybe 200,000 GWh/year, while US use is in the neighborhood of 4 Million GWhr per year. Plus, I didn’t allow for anything but surface - gotta be at least 30 % mechanical equip. So, build 30 of these 100 sq mile plants and they will come. Hell of a project, buddy, plus you’ve got to transmit most of the electricity a long way to the users.

  OK, enough of that, I would like to say that I have not seen a single comment yet that is appreciative of the super low residential electric rates we have in Seattle. I mean around 3 to 4 cents / kWh! It is 3 times as much in many places. It particularly matters if you have electric heat and/ or an air conditioner (not necessary in the NW, but I’ve seen em.)

  Most of the posters here know enough to know why these rates are low, and that is due to hydro. If nothing else, we should at least be thankful for those dams. Let us really re-consider blowing up dams to try to save a few salmon - remember, you can get em at $38/lb (BTW, also jacked up a little, I’m sure, due to the air-freight costs - many are flown in on Alaska Airlines 737 freighters or combi’s.)

  I absolutely agree inflation is way higher than the CPI says (not only that, what is it with the whole “core” thing anyway? You’ve got to pay for your fuel and food.) Also, I’ve always wondered why housing prices were never in the CPI “basket” of goods - or were housing *payments* included? I would like to know.

  Finally, a funny from Ray Pepper. Yea! Thanks for not trying to sell anything to me, as I am not buying (nothing personal, just bidness ;-)

• 54 NotaBull // May 23, 2008 at 6:58 am

  Gas Taxes
  There is obviously a point at which people *really* start to struggle when it comes to gasoline prices. Economists have been saying for a few years now that “any minute now” the price of gasoline will cause consumption to drop and people to move to more efficient alternatives. That point seems to be $3.50+ gasoline, as it’s happening right now. Prices of used SUVs are down 12% (ish) and there is now a 13 month stock in dealerships rather than a 6 month stock. In other words, if you’re looking for a used SUV, it’s a buyers market. :)

  What we need is the political will to maintain gas prices at this level. We need legislation that says that “gas prices at the pump will never be lower than $3.50 a gallon”. If the price of wholesale gasoline goes down below that point, we just tax it more. The taxes, by law, MUST go into funding grants/prizes/research for solving alternative energy problems and assist towards creating patent-free technologies for all to use. Some of the taxes must also go to credits for poor people that are regressively affected by this tax.

  The effect of this is that everyone will know the future of prices. Companies will be able to invest in a solution that makes sense if gasoline >$2.50 because they know that will always be so. Individual consumers won’t moan about prices but hold onto desires to buy an full size SUV they don’t really need, because they know that it will always cost at least $80 to fill it up. Ultimately, the price at the pump goes down for consumers because you’ll use less gasoline due to the new technologies the tax brought in.

  The problem with the demand side of the equation is that *if* a significant amount of people buy a Prius/Volt, then the demand for gasoline will go down. If the supply stays steady (which it is right now) then prices will drop. If gas drops down to $2 a gallon, that SUV starts to look pretty attractive again and we’re back where we started. That would be bad, and would put us back in the 90s again!

  It will take significant political will power to enact this kind of legislation, which is why I think it might never happen. After all, it’s pretty hard for the general public to understand how this solution might actually work, long-term. I suppose as long as we address the problem with this kind of long-term solution AND short-term assistance for those that are struggling, then you might be able to package the legislation into something that’s palatable.

• 55 Dave Lincoln // May 23, 2008 at 7:10 am

  Oh, and people, get off those gay scooters - get on your bikes and ride!*

  You will feel so much better, and you can run all the red-lights you want. Yahoo!

  * All I wanna do is bicycle, bicycle, bicycle,
  Bicycle races are coming you way,
  so look out for those beauties, oh yeah….

• 56 Dave Lincoln // May 23, 2008 at 7:12 am

  aaah! “coming you way” S/B “coming your way”

• 57 Angie // May 23, 2008 at 7:17 am

  Another thing I didn’t see skimming the comments–those Gala apples at almost $1 each were almost certainly shipped from the other side of the planet. Think about it: Washington is an apple-producing state, it’s May, the freaking trees in our state only just finished blooming. Local apples won’t be here till September. The fresh ones in the supermarket are from the southern hemisphere.

  There’s no shortage of "dog"ing about how fresh foods cost more than processed junk food here. But there doesn’t seem to be any recognition that the reason you’re able to enjoy fresh product at all (other than greens and radishes, judging from what’s on the tables at the local farmer’s market lately) is that it’s shipped from elsewhere. Oftentimes WAY elsewhere.

  SCrow, your kids are eating $10/day worth of fruit. Where do those bananas and oranges come from? Those crops don’t grow within 1000 miles of here.

  Fuel prices are going to impact the cost of everything.

  A wide variety of fresh produce year-round is a recent development–there wasn’t this much choice and quality in the winter when I was a kid in the 70s. I think 15 years from now we may recognize it for the luxury it is!

• 58 Angie // May 23, 2008 at 7:19 am

  Dave, I’m a bike commuter myself and I share your enthusiasm–but the comment about running a red light is sheer stupidity.

• 59 NotaBull // May 23, 2008 at 7:20 am

  “Most of the posters here know enough to know why these rates are low, and that is due to hydro. If nothing else, we should at least be thankful for those dams.”

  On a recent business trip I sat next to an engineer that works on dam design. He told me all about the new turbines and generators that we have now, and the retrofitting you can do to an old dam to increase efficiency by maybe 20-30% or more. Apparently they also have turbines that certain fish can get though, and they also attempt to mitigate impact by putting in fish ladders.

  Obviously, *everything* we do to get energy from the environment has an impact whether due to the production of a wind turbine, or the impact on a valley due to a new dam. If we’re sensitive to those impacts and pick solutions that will work and have minimal impact, then I think that’s about as good as we can get. Using less energy in the first place reduces the overall size of the system needed to generate that energy, so that should be part of the solution too.

  I heard a frightening statistic about electricity usage in SoCal. I heard that 30% of the electricity used is to pump water around. I used to live in SoCal (short stint - didn’t like it) and it’s disgusting how much water is wasted. I lived in a medium income suburb and pretty much everyone has sprinklers that they use DAILY. So they picked a yard that required a lot of water (grass) and *then* they picked a method of irrigation that’s the least efficient (sprinklers) and *then* they use that method inefficiently (watering every day which creates shallow roots and discourages drought tolerance).

  I rented a place and had to leave the sprinklers on. It pained me. So I changed it to water for 50% longer, but every other day. In the winter I followed the forecast and only watered if it hadn’t rained for a week. I dramatically reduced water consumption at the house, kept the stupid grass yard, and spent zero dollars. However, water is too cheap in SoCal for most people to consider this. In summer my water bill was $80 at the peak. That doesn’t seem to come close to pricing in the true cost of that water.

• 60 Dave Lincoln // May 23, 2008 at 7:42 am

  Angie,

  No it’s not, You may have not ridden bikes as long as I have. Rule #1 is STAY AWAY FROM THE CARS! Rule # 2 See rule # 1 (I hate when people say that, oh well ;-(

  Really, I will break whatever traffic laws I need to on a bike to stay safe, and running lights and stop signs sometimes can keep you away from the cars (and buses)..

  30 years of riding and never hit anything but one dog (he was fine, just bent up my front wheel, but the people were cool and payed me $15 for a new wheel)

  Oh, Rule # 3 You do not tell people how bad the movies “Fight Club” sucks.! (just had to throw that in, wasted $3.75 on that one).

• 61 Ira Sacharoff // May 23, 2008 at 7:47 am

  “Ira I usually agree with you but… salmon is not a good benchmark.”

  Don’t worry B+W Nikes, I don’t buy farmed salmon, I was just making a feeble attempt at humor.
  I might buy less wild salmon this year if the price is 3x the normal price, but I won’t be switching to the farmed stuff.

• 62 db // May 23, 2008 at 8:06 am

  Agree with Dave 100%. Stay away from the cars at all costs. I commuted by bike for many years had three run ins with cars, all the drivers fault. I learnt the hard way to run any red light or use any other means to stay away from the cars. As a driver now I have no problem when I see a biker breaking the law. Good for them.

• 63 Lake Hills Renter // May 23, 2008 at 8:08 am

  To reiterate Angie’s point (but not her tone), my grocery store puts the state/country of origin on the price signs for fruit and vegetables. Right now much of it is coming from South America, primarily Chile and Venezuela. But things like oranges and apples are usually from California. In summer, most will be from Washington, but our growing season is just starting.

  I generally try to buy as close to home as possible, but for things like bananas that’s just not possible. But even in summer the grocery store generally can’t compete with farmer’s market prices. I expect there will be a boom in local consumption this year due to lower shipping costs, not to mention an increase in interest in personal gardening. I’m sure the wild blueberry and huckleberry patches will be swamped even more than usual as well.

• 64 patient // May 23, 2008 at 9:14 am

  “Get rid of that gas guzzler and pick up a used 10 year old Civic. You’ll go from 15MPG to 30MPG”

  The idea of getting a more fuel efficient car is good but a 10 year old Civic is not the answer for many. Try taking your kids to daycare in that. Not only is it cramped but it’s also questionable from a safety point of view. As long as 5000 pound vehicles rules the highways I won’t put my kids in a car that will look like you stepped on a coke can in a confrontation. Also, I wonder how clean the typical 10y old car really burns compared to a new one?

  We got a pretty large new sedan (BMW) that gets us about 22mpg in commuter traffic, so you can have decent space and decent fuel efficiency. I think we will see more diesels in sedans as well going forward. In europe almost all sedans are diesels due to fuel efficiency.

  Regarding european cost of gas, I’m european and when I left about 15 years ago the price was comparable to ~$4 a gallon. Since then the price has gone up about 40% which is pretty much inline with inflation. Since I came to the US about 10 years ago the price has gone up with 400%…So to compare with europe is dicy since they have had very long time to get used to small increases. In the US the truly has been a chock increase. That’s why I think the impact will be shocking as well. People and the system have had no chance to adapt and absorb these hikes.

• 65 B&W Nikes // May 23, 2008 at 9:19 am

  hehe. ugh. my slow.

• 66 Sandy // May 23, 2008 at 9:35 am

  I talked to the fish lady at our grocery store about the prices on Copper River and she says that it is only the first week or two that it is so high, then typically it will come down. Evidently the reason is that when it comes off the boats there is a bidding war for it, and this year the bidding went really high. Plus, transportation costs and price gouging on top of that I’m sure.

• 67 cheapseats // May 23, 2008 at 9:53 am

  Off-topic
  I have recently observered that the Mercer Island PD are ticketing cyclists who do not stop at stop signs when riding on the street.

• 68 biliruben // May 23, 2008 at 10:15 am

  I gotta agree with Dave on the light thing. In 8 years commuting downtown, saved at least minimum hospital stay numerous times by watching driver’s eyes instead of traffic signals. And yeah, I happily paid my ticket. Cheaper than a hospital bill.

  Now that I rarely venture too far south of 65th, I generally can safely obey traffic laws. Downtown it’s suicide.

• 69 biliruben // May 23, 2008 at 10:26 am

  Cheapseats -

  That’s very strong evidence that there are far too many MIPD officers. It’s time to cut the force in half when you see that. That goes double for Lake Forest Park Kiddie-Cops (where I see ‘em).

• 70 Garth // May 23, 2008 at 11:07 am

  cheapseats,

  That is not new, they have done it for years, and it is a moving violation :)

• 71 SoCalXplant // May 23, 2008 at 1:52 pm

  “I don’t think your calculations are right, SoCalXPlant.”

  Well, I was referencing a documentary on global warming I saw recently. I’ll leave the calculations to you eggheads.

  However, I did do a little Googling, and the documentary had it wrong in part. They should have said “100-mile square area” vs. “100 square miles.” But even that may not be large enough.

  The tech I’m talking about is not photovotaic cells, but solar mirror arrays. I’ve seen one of these in the SoCal desert. Large, dish-shaped mirrors controlled by computers constantly focus concentrated sunlight on a receptor at the top of a central tower. The intense heat powers a turbine that generates electricity.

  SoCal Edison has invested heavily in this tech, and by 2011, they will have a plant covering 4500 acres that generates 500 MW’s. These plants convert solar to elec much more efficiently than photovoltaic cells ( around 30% vs. only 14%)

  Of course it’s a huge project, but so was going to the moon, Mars, and developing the atomic bomb. The oil on this planet is running out fast, and we’re going to have to find other resources sooner or later. The smart thing to do is develop these alternative resources NOW when it won’t be as painful.

  Or we can do what we always do and wait till chaos erupts and millions of lives are lost or ruined before we change our ways.

• 72 Dave Lincoln // May 23, 2008 at 7:52 pm

  Well, SoCa, 100 miles square it 100 times bigger than 100 square miles, so that is quite a difference. One big pilot plant has been out in the desert near Barstow, CA for many years, built in the late 70’s. If the solar plant were economically competitive, or even could be forecasted to be with known improvements, then we would not be having this conversation. With oil at $130/bbl, the situation changes.

  “Or we can do what we always do and wait till chaos erupts and millions of lives are lost or ruined before we change our ways.” Or, we can do things right, and let the market decide what works. It’s all about prices and returns on investment. The ethanol boondoggle alone should show you what happens when the heavy hand of governement gets involved. I’m not implying that this it what you want, but whenever people say “WE should do this” or that, it sounds to me like “the government should force people to do this” or that.

• 73 Dave Lincoln // May 23, 2008 at 7:59 pm

  Enough about politics, here’s one more story about biking for Cheapseats, BillRuben and DB:

  Downtown Seattle, 4th Ave headed S. in the “bike lane”. I had a cop yell at me and tell me to quit riding on the sidewalk. Why was I on the sidewalk,? you ask. Because the cop had her Crown Vic. parked blocking the bike lane (and 1/2 of the left car lane), attending to some bum who passed out or something.

  Needless to say, I rode by her and flipped her off*. How stupid do you have to be to get hired at the Seattle Police Dept.? I feel I could never get hired and would need some type of affirmative action.

  Yeah, right, good luck catching me! You’d have a better chance trying to find D.B. Cooper.

• 74 SoCalXplant // May 24, 2008 at 1:35 am

  “Or, we can do things right, and let the market decide what works. It’s all about prices and returns on investment. ”

  Letting ‘the market decide’ is fine for home prices and plasma TVs, but not for anything that can potentially end civilization as we know it. If we allowed the market to decide everything, then we’d never have safety belts in our cars and the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica would have reached the equator by now instead of closing.

  Some things are simply too important to allow human greed for profit to override the survival of our planet and our species.

  And like I said, just a few minutes of web research led me to the info about SoCal Edison investing heavily in these solar farms. That means it IS economically feasible. However, it’s because we’ve allowed ‘the market’ to determine when investments are made that we find ourselves in the current mess we’re in now. Just a little courage and forward thinking on the part of the people and their elected reps could have put us ahead of the curve on global warming and peak oil reserves instead of playing catch-up.

  And when I say “we,” I literally mean WE, THE PEOPLE. We should stop being so apathetic and take responsibility and initiate change through laws, not “the market.” If a majority of Americans decide to change things, then, yes, it should be enforced by the government. If some of those in the minority, like Libertarians, usually — don’t like it, they can go pound sand. Or they can recruit more members to their party and try to win a majority.

  Of course that can never happen in our current demorcratic system since Libertarians are at best “fringe” Republicans.” The only possible, VIABLE third party would be to organize all the moderates from the right and left into a centrist party. Any ideologies too far right or left cannot succeed here for the simple fact that Americans, because of our relative “freedom,” naturally gravitate towards the center.

  Only a calamity of apocalyptic proportions could push the electorate to the extreme far right or left. So until then, Ron Paul and his ilk should not quit their day jobs.

• 75 Dave Lincoln // May 24, 2008 at 4:19 am

  i think you are a socialist, SouthernCalifornia. We are not in bad economic straits (coming I mean) due to the free market. It is due to government involvement in too many ways to list here - it would use all the space on Mr. Tim’s server to describe! cafe standards, gov’t influence on lending (to force bad loans on minorities), Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac… it goes on and on.

  Also Ron Paul does have a day job in the US Congress. He is not far right either - you may want to take the libertarian quiz (no I don’t have a link) and see where you stand. You may want to keep your day job, Mr S. California, as you definitely don’t have the thinking skills to do anything involving numbers and decision-making. 100 miles square is 100 times bigger than 100 sq miles ! So, you want to write about what “WE” should do, and you are off by a factor of 100 on your suggestion. Maybe that should be your clue to concentrate on your day-job and not spout off nonsense (especially about science/technology) Your mistake on that makes some of Obama’s “gaffes” sound like quotes from Isaac Newton.

• 76 Dave Lincoln // May 24, 2008 at 4:21 am

  To add, SoCal, you have the math skills of Robert Mugabe, but without the weapons. That is a good thing for us all, you Commie.

• 77 [troll] // May 24, 2008 at 5:42 am

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• 78 SoCalXplant // May 24, 2008 at 6:02 pm

  “To add, SoCal, you have the math skills of Robert Mugabe, but without the weapons. That is a good thing for us all, you Commie.”

  Hmm…. I thought that I had pointed out that I discovered the documentary was in error, and that it was not MY math. I was simply referencing their claim. Still, the tech is valid, and even at 100 times the area, there is still enough empty, useless land in the southwest to make this a viable alternative energy source.

  But, Mr. Lincoln, you seem to require a punching bag or two to vent your understandable anger — what with the “Commie” comment and flipping off police officers and selfishly ignoring traffic laws and whatnot. I’m sure that forking out several hundred dollars every month to fill your gas guzzling SUV, and coming to grips with what a massive failure the Bush administration has been for the country, it’s much easier to bark out blame and frustration on everyone else instead of taking any responsibility yourself for putting him in office — TWICE — so the he could uselessly squander American lives and treasure to the detriment of us all.

  But since you seem to take my opinions on energy so personally that you feel you have to make personal attacks, you’ll have to find some other punching bag. I refuse to debate politics or their inherent issues with anyone who takes it personally.

  P.S. Being that stressed and angry can be very distracting. Try to stay a little calmer while you’re running all those red lights and stop signs on your bike lest some socialist commie mow you down in their Smart Car. :-)

• 79 John Doe // May 25, 2008 at 12:13 pm

  If you wanna make quick bucks for the few couple of years, open a scooter dealership on Eastside.. you may start a new trend - just imagine Kirkland DT full of colorful scooters…

• 80 what goes up comes down // May 26, 2008 at 7:36 am

  dave lincoln: you come across as a major a–hole, but I am sure I am not the first or will be the last to tell you that, take a giant chill pill.

• 81 Dave Lincoln // May 26, 2008 at 1:28 pm

  No, WGUCD, you are the first. I stand by what I said to SoCal.

  I really resent people trying to take away my freedoms every day of the freakin’ week. SoCal is the type (judging by what he posted way above) to want that. Everything is “We need to do this”, and “we need to do that”. If you are a big fan of solar power, more power (npi) to you - just do it - start your own business, get an engineering degree, put out resumes. Build a better mousetrap, and they will come (mixing a coupla expressions here).

  “Commie” is indeed the correct word for someone who wants to use my tax money for their pet projects, such as forcing the use of corn-based ethanol in gasoline. Maybe, SoCal, you didn’t mean it in that way, but you should say so. Just tell me you don’t know what’s good for me (and you don’t want the laws to make me do what’s good for me), and I will take back my statement. This majority forcing the minority to do what, in your mind, is right, business is tyranny. How is that different from the governenment of Turkmenistan (or whatever it is) telling the people they can’t dance?

  I don’t expect a reply, as this thread is old.

  Oh, I never said I voted for either of the Bushes, dude. Neither is a conservative, with #43 being even farther from one than his Daddy. I started voting L way back in 1988. I don’t own an SUV, and never have. Some people do have a need - say people with 4 kids and/or living out in the sticks. No, I don’t want to hear them complain about the $120 fill-ups either. Not my problem, but on the other hand, I don’t want to pass laws that prevent auto makers from building what these customers may want or think they want.

  The main thing I’m pissed at you about, SoCal is putting out crap information. It’s the same as the Greenies - if you believe in some idea, at least don’t try to BullS__t every one. You were quoting some TV show with bogus information, or you have no clue about science. That is fine, if you are more of a verbal person or what have you, but, see, I don’t want 10 people with this kind of knowledge on some type of “Central Committee” ruining people’s lives (It’s called, yes, COMMUNISM).

• 82 Ira Sacharoff // May 26, 2008 at 4:05 pm

  Dave Lincoln,
  When big government is in cahoots with big corporations, that’s not communism or socialism. Yes, it’s similar in that it stifles competition and free enterprise, but it’s more like a corporate socialism, more similar to fascism.
  I consider myself a left winger with libertarian leanings and usually believe that there’s no government like no government, but the government ought to exist to protect people’s rights, not the rights only to big corporation’s profits.

• 83 Dave Lincoln // May 27, 2008 at 11:11 am

  Absolutely, Ira. If those are really your views, I don’t know why you even consider yourself a left-winger at all (It will just make people shun you at parties - oh wait, not in Seattle, or at least not in Fremont ;-)

  “but the government ought to exist to protect people’s rights,”

  maybe you meant “but the government ought ONLY to exist to protect people’s rights,” There, fixed it for you. haha

  Dave out.

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