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Buh-Bye, Alta

"Portland-based" Alta Bike Share is shutting down and moving to New York, as they've been bought out by an investment company there that hopes to salvage Alta's faltering Manhattan bike-share program. It lost five and a half million dollars in its first 18 months, but the company hopes to expand its membership base by raising annual membership fees by $54 a year. Yep, that oughta work.

Just keep throwing money at it and Hope for Change. I've lost track of the number of Green&Sustainable companies that Portland's courted and convinced to move in (generally with multimillion-dollar "public-private partnership" arrangements - only to have them go belly-up or move.

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Liberal Cities = Unaffordable Housing

They do love to prattle on about "income inequality", yet if they want to find it, they've only to look around their neighborhoods. It seems that in the most liberal cities in the country, "income inequality" is in every case greater than in other, less "progressive" cities around the USA. And in those cities, the middle class and lower-income folks are being priced right out the housing markets.

Among the 100 largest U.S. metros, 63 percent of homes are "within reach" for a middle-class family, according to Trulia. But among the 20 richest U.S. metros, just 47 percent of homes are affordable, including a national low of 14 percent in San Francisco.

And by "affordable", they mean having a total monthly payment of just under one-third of that city's median income. In places like Mountain View, California, you might pay $8,000 a month for a two-bedroom apartment.

Rich liberals prefer to cluster near historic coastal communities with high home values, where they support high taxes, rent control, and a maze of housing regulations to protect both their investment and the region's "character", altogether discouraging new housing development that’s already naturally constrained by geography.

Of course, Portland's not exactly coastal, but it does have a few things going for it: it's constrained by geography, and it actively discourages new housing and infrastructure development (like roads), which explains why the former residents of inner northeast Portland have been pushed out to apartment bunkers in Rockwood, near suburban Gresham. And in Portland, high taxes are the norm.

With just a little more work, they can achieve status as one of the top 25 cities in the country with the lowest levels of housing affordability.

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NIH Research Points To Value Of GMO Crops

One reason why GMO crops are favored by many farmers is that they reduce or eliminate the need for pesticide application. Splicing some of the genes of a common soil bacterium into the dna of corn and soybeans, for example, imbues the plants with an ability to fend off munching pests, obviating the need for pesticides.

Now data gathered and analyzed by researchers at National Institutes of Health indicate that farmers chronically exposed to pesticides and herbicides are at a significantly higher risk of developing suicidal depression.

To produce their report, released last month, a group of eight NIH epidemiologists surveyed 21,208 pesticide applicators in Iowa and North Carolina, asking them to report whether they had received a doctor’s diagnosis of depression between 1993 and 2010. In total, 1,701—eight percent—said they had. The researchers, who also examined the specific chemicals used by farmers to kill insects, weeds, and fungi, found that farmers who used one class of common insecticide were up to 90 percent more likely to have been diagnosed depression, and that farmers who used common fumigants were up to 80 percent more likely to be depressed.

Studies in rats indicate that chronic exposure alters brain cells and neurological chemistry:

“I don’t think there’s any question that pesticides can affect the functions of the brain,” Kamel said, referring to experiments that found pesticides harm rats' brain tissue and receptors. “There could also be indirect effects. Pesticides can promote other health problems, which could be related to depression.”

It's unsurprising, then, that epidemiological studies show higher per capita rates of depression and suicide in states with the most agriculture, such as California's central valley and the southern plantations in places like Mississippi and Alabama.

 

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Gonna Take You Higher

Obamacare's bringing down health-care costs while providing more services to more people, and the all-important young demographic have been the folks most eager to enroll. Oh, wait....

The Affordable Care Act was supposed to make health care more affordable, but a study of insurance policies before and after Obamacare shows that average premiums have skyrocketed, for some groups by as much as 78 percent.

Average insurance premiums in the sought-after 23-year-old demographic rose most dramatically, with men in that age group seeing an average 78.2 percent price increase before factoring in government subsidies, and women having their premiums rise 44.9 percent, according to a report by HealthPocket scheduled for release Wednesday.

Of course, this is irrelevant, because there is no 23 year-old demographic and there never will be; that cohort can stay on their parents' plan through age 26, so they don't need to purchase health insurance until age 27. And they won't. It's actually doubtful that they'll bother even after they hit that magic age because the penalty for failure to comply is so much less than the cost of the insurance premiums over the course of a year.

Better yet, the premium increases for 30 year-old men, at 73.4%, are nearly as high as those for the mythical 23 year-old purchaser. At this rate, Barry and Nanny are never going to achieve anything close to sustainability.

It's all unicorns farting rainbows.

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He Oughta Move To Oregon

The "naked rambler" has spent most of the past eight years in jail, as he insists on hiking around with no clothes on. That's perfectly acceptable here, but in the U.K., not so much.

He went so far as to take his "case" to the European Court of Human Rights, complaining of "repression". Whatever; they told him to shut up and put some clothes on.

Here, he'd be elected governor.

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California Leads The Nation

When it comes to bicycle traffic deaths, California's got the top spot, although Florida's trying to catch up. And Florida, after all, does have a secret weapon: most of their drivers can't see over the steering wheel, so it's a lot easier for their drivers to miss cyclists until after it occurs to them that the speed-bump they just ran over didn't sound quite right.

Nationally, cyclist traffic deaths jumped from 621 in 2010 to 680 in 2011 and 722 in 2012. The 16% increase was far greater than other motor vehicle fatalities, which rose by just 1% during this same time period.

Interestingly, 54% of all cyclist fatalities occur in six states, and they've all been pushing bicycle riding (Florida excepted). Fortunately, most of the carnage occurs around the "progressive" epicenters, so evolution may eventually weed out things to achieve  something a bit closer to a steady state. Austin pushes bike riding, as do New York City and Chicago. And of course, there's California.

Oddly, Portland, Oregon has yet to see cyclist deaths spike to the acceptable levels achieved elsewhere, despite years of pushing cycling and their widespread implementation of hazards such as light rail and streetcar tracks. Perhaps Portland leaders simply haven't been as aggressive as their counterparts in other "progressive" enclaves.  Alternatively, it may simply be that Portland has more female cyclists. In any case, most Darwin award recipients resulting from bicycle/vehicle collisions are males over age 20; 74% of them, in fact.

In 2012, two-thirds or more of fatally injured bicyclists were not wearing helmets, and 28% of riders age 16 and older had blood alcohol concentrations of .08% or higher, the level at which someone is considered impaired. 

“What's notable here,” Williams said, “is that the percentage of fatally injured bicyclists with high BACs has remained relatively constant since the early 1980s and did not mirror the sharp drop in alcohol-impaired driving that occurred among passenger vehicle drivers in the 1980s and early 1990s.”

Presumably, the fact that you don't have to blow into a bicycle to start one figures into the equation. The push by "progressive" places to encourage bicycle commuting doesn't get a lot of play; despite the fact that it puts more bike-riders into urban traffic. At least that gets a brief mention in the embed provided above.

Unmentioned, however, is something that I see all the time: cyclists blowing through traffic-control devices. As a long-time rider myself, I can understand it when you're huffing up a steep hill at 3 miles an hour. But there's no excuse for it when you're cruising on a straightaway or downhill. One of the features that I really like about the car I acquired a few months ago is the turn-signal camera, which provides a clear view of any such idiots before you make the turn.

 

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Oops, She Did It Again

Shades of "You didn't build that!" Barry:

“Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,” former Secretary of State Clinton said in Boston.

Well, we've seen that government sucks at creating jobs, so what - if not corporations and businesses - exactly is it that produces that magic? On the other hand, they were "dead break when she and Bill left the White House (which is probably why they stole the china and silverware).

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Catchy Tune

Radio talker Lars Larson periodically has a guy do parody songs to kind of add a little kick to his Oregon shows, and the most recent one is "Goldschmidt Cowboy" - a takeoff of "Rhinestone Cowboy". Amusing.

Oh My, Atlantic

Some Alana lady has a big piece making "The Case for Trailer Parks". Really? Must be some really amzing stuff she's ingested. If I had the deed to a trailer house and the opportunity to live in Hell (which, admittedly, I may already have earned), I'd rent out the trailer and live in  Hell. It's probably a whole lot safer.

Apparently, she has failed to grasp a fundamental fact about trailer homes: they're tornado magnets. I mean really, there's not much difference between an Arkansas divorce and a tornado: in both cases, someone's gonna lose a trailer.

Now, some of the manufactured homes don't look too bad, and they're energy-efficient and have a lot of features - and they're inexpensive (if you own the lot). Even so, when they arrive at the homesite for assembly, odds are pretty good that when it's put together, somebody's going to mess up a seam. There goes your energy efficiency, and in comes the water, mold, and mildew.

That's a lot less likely with standard construction, and it's one reason why the traditional balloon-frame homes appreciate far more than manufaured homes - and you can forget about a trailer ever doing more than declining in value. Despite what Alana thinks, there's no better case to be made for trailer parks than for any other bum camp. The only thing in the plus column is that they provide low-cost temporary housing

Manufactureds (or modulars; they're referred to by both terms) are a step up, in that if you buy the land you plop it on, you actually have a shot at seeing some increase in value over time, assuming - as noted above - that you have a decent assembly crew. I've seen some really nice ones, but they were new. It'd be interesting to see what they look like in, say, a decade.

The main source for appreciation in housing markets, however, is going to remain the balloon-frame, on-site built, single-family home. Sure, they can run into issues: sagging foundations, water infiltration, but they build value in general over time. I bought my first one for $50,000 on a very large lot, and yes, it had some problems to address. But hey, a decade later, we peddled the place.

The current one is on a mountain, so great views and no Portland BES hassles. We paid almost exactly what we peddled the old place down in the valley for, and - yeah, it needed things; we had to get rid of the L-P siding that was growing mushrooms, but that gave us the opportunity to add 2" of styro insulation out there.

So it's more energy-efficient. We did some other stuff to it too, and it'll likely sell for well above median next year.

Trailer parks? No thanks.

Why They Love Those Public-Sector Jobs

There are, of course, a lot of reasons: generous compensation packages, job stability, and - oh yeah - it's almost impossible to get fired. I've personally known public-sector employees who called in sick when they were actually out doing the Seattle-to-Portland bicycle ride. They got a firm talking-to when the decption was uncovered; in the private sector, they'd be out the door for good.

At the end of the day, it's harder to fire a public sector employee. It requires more process, more documentation, more time.

No kidding. Most managers decide it's not worth the effort, so they simply retain the non-productive staff. They'll just hire more.

If you wonder how governments can grow to such size while accomplishing so little, wonder no more: it's how they're designed.