SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, today on the Is It Legit podcast, we're going to talk about Katie Wilson, our new Seattle mayor, and how she said, in quote, like bye to all the millionaires leaving because of the new tax laws. Uh so Peter, I think uh Seattle has been um a source of pride, a source of pain, also, because of some political things that have been happening. COVID was a huge thing, uh mass migration, not just out of Seattle, but out of Washington State. Right now, the focus seems to be on uh our new mayor, who just got uh elected last year and came into office this year in January. Um she labels herself as a progressive and a democratic socialist, and a lot of people are hanging on to that socialist term. Um I think you know, Mom Donnie from New York and actually her and mom Donnie have been kind of uh very similar in their leanings, and I think that's where they're getting press from everywhere. Um what are your basic thoughts about Katie? And how are you thinking about this?

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yeah, it's interesting. Uh this whole socialist movement, and you know, why are people even like because if you were some of the circles, some of the people that we talk to, they're very clear on their stance on you know the socialism and what they're seeing, right? They're like, why are we doing this? It's clearly not working, right? So you look at Seattle for many, many years, you see uh California for many, many years, you see Oregon, and you're clearly seeing that it's not working well, even New York. I mean, New York was one of the most beautiful places to go, fun, exciting. Um, and yet they have a massive homelessness problem, they have a massive uh, you know, wealth gap problem, they have a drug problem. It's dirty on the streets, and you're seeing the same thing in a lot of these, you know, socialist um type of economies, that these types of states, right? Uh governances, right? And so, and then of course you have a lot of crime. Like, why is this happening? Why are we allowing this to happen? And I think the appeal for Mamdani, the appeal for Katie Wilson's of the world are that people are struggling, they're suffering right now, and they need some kind of solution because the current administration, which we haven't had a Republican in in a while, it seems like, um, but it's just not working out. Um, it's people aren't barely able to make ends meet. People need resources. You know, it's like when you're in a when you're in a tough spot, and by the way, the tough spot is relative, right? So it's like at the end of the day, even though you're making money in Seattle, even if you're making a hundred thousand dollars, you're still struggling. Like you're struggling every single uh year, which which I I I know other people might think that that's crazy, but that is the reality of what's going on right now with inflation. So a lot of people are struggling. The appeal is this person's gonna save me, this person's gonna give me the resources that I need to be able to survive. So, of course, if you are offering that, regardless the the the thought for the future, you know, I'm gonna vote for this person because they're gonna give me resources now, and I'm suffering, and I I need something. So I believe that's one of the reasons why they are getting voted in. That's why she won uh the recent race, and that's why, you know, when Donnie got in, that's why, etc. etc. And so just to uh break down uh some background because I have no idea who she is, I don't know where she came from, I just don't know anything about her, and so I have to do research on her. She's 43 years old, she looks younger. I don't know if you would agree, but she looks like she's like in her like early 30s personally. Um, her parents are both evolutionary biologists, okay. Um, she had had she had had uh uh working class jobs, she was a barista, a lab tech labor, boatyard worker, apartment manager, uh, legal assistant before she went in, she founded true uh in 2000, I don't know, TRU in 2011, which is basically advocacy for transit, worker uh project protection rights, um renter rights, and progressive revenue measures like jumpstart Seattle payroll expense tax on large corporations. So there's not that much background information on her. There's not a lot of dirt on her, yet there's a lot of conspiracies on her. She's you know, people are saying, you know, the same old, same old, right? It's like same thing with the Mandani and et cetera. Um, there's like weird ties to the sorosis, to the deep state, you know, and they all kind of have a similar uh narrative, which is uh kind of like socialism, like, hey, we're gonna give you things for free, and uh, you know, we're we're gonna be able to help you, let us help you, vote us in, and we're gonna be able to help you. That's kind of their appeal. Um, but of course, that has a lot of holes, and that's what we're gonna talk about. So that's what I know about her.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Uh so just to cover what she's been doing in her political career, um, she's built her career around uh a movement-oriented kind of let's make these kind of changes for Seattle, let's really harp on the progressive nature of Seattle because that's what we're known for. And that word is, I think sometimes misleading, and we'll kind of cover that. But she's been uh involved in a lot of advocacy work. Uh, she's been um doing a lot of things and advocating around transit, you know, better transit, like, and some of these things are genuinely good things, like providing, you know, free orca, which is the bus cards to students, you know, uh fighting for transit fair free zones in Capitol Hill, you know, things like that, which is good. You want public transportation, you want less, you know, car usage and you know, stuff like that. So that's and then also housing. Uh, she's fighting for housing, which God knows we need help on. And then we'll talk about how and why that might be effective or not. Uh, labor, homeless issues, which is uh almost seems like a hot topic for any blue state. Um, I think where she has really come to the spotlight is for what some people might consider very uh harsh ways of saying or doing things. Like, you know, the like I led with that uh interview that she did where you know the interviewer is asking or the serious question about, well, there's this new millionaire tax, and what do you think about millionaires leaving Seattle? Because that's a huge trickle-down effect. And she's like, Well, to the ones who are leaving, like, bye. I mean, it's kind of funny, but at the same time, it is really not. And that maybe shows people that, hey, is she actually thinking about what's happening to the city and the long-term effects? Uh, she's also made some public uh comments about I think she was giving a speech, I can't remember where, but it's on T, it's on the news, and she literally said, I'm not supporting Starbucks, and neither should you, you know, to a major employer and a driver of the growth that actually made, you know, partly what made Seattle what it is today, along with the Boeings and Google's and Microsoft's. So, what is a uh a socialist, right? What is a progressive? Um, I think a progressive, if you look on Google, essentially says that it's a way to reform capitalism where you know you have the free market, you set your prices, and if you have customers, you have business. If you set it too high or too low, you know, you you either have a problem or you know, a benefit. Progressives are more about changing that, but socialists are more about overthrowing that completely and trying to become more of a government-heavy. I I would think it's right before communism, and I think that word strikes people a lot stronger. You know, I just came from a communist country in Vietnam. Oh, it's a communist, I think. It's a communist country with like a democratic flair, is what they call it. So you're on the beach or you're doing this, and all of a sudden, like a tank rolls by. Uh, and then these soldiers with, you know, like uh if you've seen war movies, like the old green uh military uniforms with like the red star and stuff like that. It's like I've had similar experiences with in Mexico where I'm on the beach, and literally like uh people in jeeps with 50 cal machine guns, and those are the ones with bullets that are like this big, right? Yeah, they just roll by, and I think the concern is are we heading into more of a not communist but more socialist uh state or country? And I really love that you hit on the fact that a lot of this movement I think is from younger people who are disenfranchised and feel like, man, I can't even buy a house with a hundred thousand dollar income. I mean, we've tried to approve people, you know, through our lenders with that much income. And it's not that easy, you know. We have to sometimes say, hey, according to your debt and this and that, you're gonna have to go into like a two-bedroom house or a condo, condo, you know, or whatever it is. Um, so do you what is your thought about you know is socialism the way out? Why are people really pushing for that in Seattle and other other states and you know, uh cities? And uh yeah, what do you think it's the answer to our problems?

SPEAKER_01 10:36

The biggest criticism for socialism, that whole thing, it's very appealing for the many, many people who are struggling right now. The statistics are out there on how many people are struggling. The problem is, is it is short-sighted. The problem is it's not looking at the big picture on how this runs. So, for example, the whole idea of uh taxing the rich, right? And so going from a capitalistic so capitalism, the beauty of it is you kind of have your own freedom, you work hard and you get what you earn. You play the game and you get what you earn, right? Uh, you so people like capitalism. Like for me, like I am able to invest, we've invested quite a lot. I've been I have I'm heavily invested in stocks, but that money I worked really hard for and I saved it, right? Like I actually earned that money, didn't spend it like many people do. Like five of my friends, I'm not talking about any specific friends, but assuming five of my friends, they all go on vacations, they eat out of nice restaurants, they do all that, make the same kind of money, but I'm the one who saves it, and I uh I invest it and I live a more comfortable life, right? Uh, that's the beauty about capitalism. The problem with socialism is that, well, there's it's like I I am being taxed, I am being uh punished for being good, for saving, for working hard, for doing all those things, and that's the biggest uh criticism. It's the freedom aspect that people want that people take for granted. I will say that because if you talk to anybody who comes from a communist country, and most of these uh uh immigrants actually are for capitalism, um, and they don't like socialism because they know what that looks like, and they can tell you ask someone, right, who comes from that kind of society, they will tell you that it is not what you think it is. It's it seems like kumbaya and it seems great. And you find out that wow, like I have no freedoms at all. I can work hard and I can't, you know, nothing will nothing great will happen. A government can come in and just take over your business, can take over, seize your assets, can you just have no freedom? And um people would that's why the appeal for America is so great, right? Um, that that push for uh um that having that freedom and and and that ability to work hard and actually make money. So that's that's the main criticism. Um now let's talk about like, is it working? Right. So there are socialist types of governances that's been uh occupying certain states. So you look at the okay, Seattle. We've lived here in Seattle for a very long time. You came here when you were very young, right? Like uh college, yeah, like almost 20 years ago. Yeah, that's 20. I'm I'm I I've been here longer, 30 plus years. And I've seen changes in Seattle. Once Seattle was a beautiful place to be, it felt safer, it was happening, it was popping, it was developing, great stuff. Uh, it got riddled with a bunch of crime. There's multiple stabbings. There's the, you know, I was heavily into the whole homeless thing, right? So I was I was running a nonprofit in Seattle. So I would go out there every single weekend, and I see what I saw what happened when we just throw resources at a problem, right? We just give everyone free stuff because that's kind of how it is, right? Like ultimately the money's coming from somewhere, and that's what people don't realize. It's like uh whatever programs that we're doing, that that that's our money because it's our taxes, because they want to tax the middle and and and hike uh uh the rich class, and they want to give it to the poorer class, right? And what happened is you saw the homelessness. Uh, I looked at the data and um I forget which year this was, but homelessness literally more than doubled when they gave a big injection of money, right? Yeah, I believe it. And so it clearly does not work. Look at California, it is a hot mess. I don't like being there. Every time I go to California, like I go, I recently went to LA, uh, and before that I went to San Francisco, and I'm like, I'm like watching my step. It's so nasty because there's like homeless people everywhere, there's poop everywhere, there's like people are doing drugs, and they're just enabling that, right? And we believe that we should just allow you know, allow this stuff to happen. So this is the this is where it's like we're seeing pockets of this socialism, right, actually play out, and it's clearly not working. The other problem, right? And we're gonna talk about this, is that this whole tax the rich thing seems honestly for me, it's like it's it like makes sense. Like, okay, the millionaire tax. What actually is the millionaire tax? It's it's charging 10 above a million dollars extra, right? It's like, okay, these guys are very rich. Will this actually affect their personal lives? Probably not, right? But the problem is if we continue to tax the middle and the uh rich class, they are going to leave our state, and it has it has happened in other uh places before and in history in France, right? So the problem is if they leave and our state is going to crumble. Imagine, okay, so let's talk about Starbucks. They're building in Tennessee. They're like, okay, let's move to Tennessee. There, I know people who work at Starbucks, you know, it's like they're major employers. What if they if they keep uh taxing the you know middle to higher class? What if they all leave? What if another major corporation like Microsoft, Amazon moves over to Texas? You know what I mean? Like, oh my gosh, that's gonna be that's gonna make such a huge economic disruption because those guys are the taxpayers. Those guys still pay like into our society, and if they end up leaving, it's gonna be so destructive. So that's one of the main criticisms uh with this whole socialist thing. It's like tax the rich, okay, that sounds great, but think about it practically, and it doesn't make sense. And we've we have historical records of what happens when we do something like that. Um, you want to talk a little bit more about you know the vacancy tax and you know some of the other things that she's trying to push.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Well, let me ask you, um, let me uh let me piggyback on that. So you know, you talked about our progressive policies enabling different, you know, things that are getting worse, like the homelessness issue, and it's just it's not just us. I mean, California has been like the hotbed of this issue, right? And we can break it down even further. Um but what do you think makes people because if you think about it, we can all complain about what's happening, but at the end of the day, she was voted in by the people, right? Uh, we are still a democratic society, we have to cast votes. She did win super, super, super narrowly. I think it was like 0.7% more votes or something like that, which is essentially a tie. But what do you think uh makes people okay or even blind to the worsening of the problem? And why would people knowing that things are you know bad? Because clearly, if you just walk through Seattle, I mean, I was just in Seattle doing a volunteer activity, it's dead. I mean, you know, you talked about San Francisco. I had a knee surgery there, and I remember getting a whole it was a nice hotel. Like, I want to recover in a nice area, I wanted a view in downtown. And as soon as you leave and turn left, there's poop, like literally poop. Like I almost slipped on, like, you know, I'm I'm on crutches, just like walking past these, you know, all these nasty things. What do you think makes people want to continue to push that agenda or elect people?

SPEAKER_01 19:10

It it the appeal to the poor, which are the majority of people. There's a lot of poor people in Seattle, and people don't realize it because we just think when we think about people who live in Seattle, like, oh, you live in Seattle, you're probably a rich tech tech guy. There's also a lot of people who are not in tech. There's also a lot of people who don't have money and who are struggling and who just need stuff, and it and it's the appeal to the, and this is honestly a lot of the appeal for the Democratic Party, which is it's the appeal to um grace, is it the right word? To to compassion, right, for the poor, right? And the Republicans are just rich white people. That's that's that's really the narrative that's out there. It's like, you know, if you like, if we get voted in, then we're gonna help all the poor people and the struggling people, the marginalized, um, because no one's really focusing on them. And so think about what Katie Wilson represents, everything she represents. So she she tried to um, you know, advocate for transit, she tried to advocate for worker protections. Man, great things. Renter rights, right? So there's a lot of renters. Uh, and and of course, you know, it's the same thing, right? It's like, okay, let's uh let's uh cap these landlords, let's make it really difficult for landlords to uh be able to raise the rents. Or so I think we have some kind of cap. You can't, you know, go above what it was 10% or something like that within a year. Um, sure, yeah, something like that. Uh great things, it's compassion, and that's what appeals to people. Um, it seems great on paper, and I understand it. Listen, I ran a nonprofit for over 10 years, I understand that appeal, and I too had a similar kind of thought. Like, man, like these guys are not thought of or or heard of. I think the issue, the the biggest issue is is that it's it's not thinking about the so the solution is not actually going to work, you know, because for example, if so so uh what let's talk about the the housing uh problem, right? So um we have for many years that there's like the the the rent control, right? That's a big topic. And you know, for a renter, if you are a renter, I totally get it. There's an appeal to have rent control because we keep increasing the rents, same thing with taxes, and we keep increasing that. We need to stop that because it's becoming very difficult to rent and to serve and to survive. Like it's it's rent is so expensive now. The problem is that when you do rent control. What happened to a lot of Seattle landlords is a lot of them pulled out. A lot of them don't uh we don't have rentals in Seattle, right? And one of the biggest reasons is because the government, they have so much control over our properties, they can control our rent. Uh if a tenant, you know, decides not to pay, they can they can fight it, they can be in there for one or two years, you know, and that can make us go under. So there's so much risk. The problem is, is that if there are the less landlords there are, right? The less landlords there are, the less rental supply there is. And the less rental supply there is, and there's uh assuming stable demand, the more rents go up. You know what I mean? So it's like all these landlords are pulling out. Well, now we don't have rentals, now the the problem is becoming worse. So statistically, you might think you might look at that and be like, oh, it makes sense, right? So this method actually doesn't work. But again, and that's what Katie Wilson's getting, the fire that she's getting. It's things like this, where they are not understanding the mathematics, the data around some of these I ideological pushes and some of these ideas, some of these methods. It seems great on paper, but it won't work, and that's the problem.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Well, that's a wrap. Um, I mean, honestly, jokes aside, I think that's a really nice way to sum things up. I think the fact is, and we'll cover some of the uh the numbers because I want people to have some actual historical facts to support what we're talking about because it's not us, it's history, and I think history must be studied. To become a master of the future, you must understand the past because history just repeats itself because we're just human, you know, until the moment we all become robots. I feel like that's gonna be the the the way. So I think for me personally, two things come to mind. Number one is just how our political system is based, it's all based on narratives and short-term campaigns and trying to be re-elected. The fact that somebody who has hasn't been in politics before was trusted with the city because of her leanings. I mean, I think that shows a lot. Um, you can debate it, shows a good or bad thing, but I think that shows something, which is that we are all very um, we all hold on to the narrative that's being presented to us. And I think what you're saying is, well, let's think about what the narrative actually means. Let's try to backtrack, you know. This is something I do with my son all the time. We were just talking about our kids before the pod. And it's like he said something kind of like blatantly wrong, okay? And you're like, this is, and I'm like, well, how did you get that thought? Well, it did, and then I'll keep backtracking it until we come to like, oh, but but that takes a lot of time, you know, for people who don't have the luxury of just having a breath and being able to sit down on their couch and just think about it instead of getting their kids ready for work and then I'm sorry, getting their kids ready for bed and then having to school to sleep for work the next day and you're arguing with your spouse, all these things. But you have to think about the second third order consequence of things, which is that if you give a candy to a baby every time he cries, he's gonna expect a candy every single time. And that candy will become a cupcake and a cake and toys, and it's just enablement, right? And that's classic psychology, it's not some like weird thought that's you know. So, um, having said that, let's see what happened. So let's the crit the argument for the higher taxes and being more progressive essentially is that higher taxes can fund things: housing, transit, social services, you know, all these things. Well, the criticism is that taxes can discourage investment, encourage relocation, to your point, and weaken competitiveness, which usually drives down prices. So, what happened in uh the COVID era? Because this is like the closest example to when people left cities in droves, tens, hundreds of thousands of people, even millions of people. New York City saw roughly 300,000 residents leave in the early phase of the pandemic. And I think we can point to that because the pandemic with the the shutdowns and all the business that that was a political thing, right? Uh, IRS data showed that the movers reported $21 billion in annual income, and New York City lost that. Um, and at the same time, the top 1% accounted for 41% of the city's personal uh income tax revenue in 2019, right before the pandemic. Think about it. Crazy. Top 1% was 41%. If they leave, if the top 5% leave, well, that's probably 50 to 60 percent of the the city's uh income, tax income. Another one, San Francisco. Um, the net migration out of the city reduced the federal income tax base by more than $8 billion or 20% between 2020 and 2021. And the average household leaving earned 105,000 more than the average household moving in. Okay. Give you two more. Uh, California, not to you know, beat a dead horse, but California, uh $102 billion in income left the state from in the COVID era, and the missed personal income tax revenue went triple before compared to before the pandemic. So they're net losing. And um I heard this on a podcast that I wanted to reiterate, but in 1982, in France, uh the president introduced a wealth tax. So this is very reminiscent of the millionaire tax and even the billionaire tax that the the the uh at the federal level that they're considering. Uh the policy resulted in thousands of wealthy individuals leaving France, leading to economic losses that outweighed the tax revenue, causing the law to be repealed and uh canceled in 1986, so four years later, right? So, you know, maybe the question is how much do we have to be hurt by these policies before we, you know, wake up and fight against it, or have people actually look into it and say, hey, this was actually not a good idea to elect these officials or or whatever. And just to draw a quick, you know, comparison to somebody like President Trump, like we know that he's on a second term, this is his last term. Supposedly. Supposedly. Now there's we're in war, so he can actually do a third term. Um if we have another two hours, we can talk about that. But so, yes, that's true. Uh, but typically two terms are the are the are the limit, which means he's not necessarily uh concerned about being re-elected, meaning he can do things that are un unfavorable or unpopular. And debate that all you want. You you know, we can go either way, but being a politician in this country unfortunately means just being good for the two to four-year term, maybe six-year term that you're in. And I think that's a huge thing on uh why people latch on to these narratives that are created by these political parties. And I think people have to really think is this a long-term benefit for Seattle's health uh and wealth? And um I'll kick it back to you and then we and we can uh you know wrap on this.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

So the answer is likely not, and it's but people are really suffering, and so we'll see how it goes. Uh, I mean, at the end of the day, it you know, it's just the short-term uh it's a short-term gain for long-term suffering. This is has been a dynamic of Americans, right? Of America. That's been our governance, and you know, this is why we are in the place that we are. We're buried in debt. Here's the other problem, though, it's like we need the money. You know, I know people who are who understand that who are in the system, we need the money. So, what do we do? Like, I know local governances, like I did research on some of our local cities here, and it's like they're putting camera speeding cameras and ticketing people that's generating a lot of money. I've been caught. You've been caught.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

I've been I've paid the Muckle Tio uh, you know, traffic cameras, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Yeah, so the thing is is that a lot like we need there's a lot of cities around here, Seattle included, that are genuine, like they don't have enough funds to fund particular things. That's why you see schools closing down, that's why you see so many things uh that are suffering. That's why you see like all these potholes, and we're suffering. Now, the other argument is you know, can there be efficiencies? Probably. Like we probably Seattle's probably the second place that we have to investigate uh for what happened in uh Minnesota, right? With all of the uh the fraud and the the the the problems with with these scam artists who are just you know siphoning a bunch of our our funds and and our money, right? So there's probably stuff like that, but we are suffering and we do need the money, and I think these are quick fixes to some of these problems that do have long-term consequences, and so we'll see how it goes. It's super unfortunate. I personally for me, I'm always thinking about uh okay. So let's talk about restaurants real quick, just to wrap up. I think it's a great way to kind of see how the system is manifesting because I feel like our our restaurants are just really poor. Like compared to many other places that we go to, I feel like it's just not pro restaurant or pro business. And uh we have so much potential, we have so much income coming in, right? From you know, all of these, you know, we have high property taxes, we have high um, you know, a lot of earners here. We're we're getting the money, but why is our city so low on good restaurants? Um, now, of course, that's relative, right? But I feel like we could be so much more pro-business. There should be so many more things to do, but business owners can't survive. And most restaurant owners right now in Seattle, I believe that the the um the statistics are that four percent of them are making money, the rest of them are are basically breaking even or they're they're losing money, and that's how bad right now the restaurant industry is. So, you know, it's it sucks, you know. Please, you know, let us know if you have like a different side. I mean, that's just kind of what we see, and um, you know, I'm always open, right? We're always open to hearing another narrative, but that's just the narrative that that's just kind of what we see and and the calculations we are uh making based off of what we are seeing. And so, yeah, those are my final thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Yeah, I I do think it's fraud and greed that we have to attack first. I think um the first thing that I will do, I mean, listening to a lot of different thinkers in the around the world and um kind of dissecting this. Thankfully, due to our podcast, we've been doing a lot of research. You know, we've been spending a lot of time looking into these social things or tech changes or you know, AI, what have you. But there is a tremendous amount of fraud, waste, and abuse in this country, and we are incentivizing the wrong things. Like, nobody ever talks about the fact that um like the director or executives of the California's homeless uh population you know program to help them, they're making like a quarter million to half a million dollars a year. Like, is that really the right incentive? I'm not against people making a lot of money. I think you know, I believe in capitalism and everything. But you talked about Minnesota, there's you know hundreds of millions of dollars that are in question. In California, there's billions, and around the entire US, I'm sure there's a lot more, right? Than the Nick Shirley story of the kid who became an investigative journalist and started uncovering things. Um, I think there's clearly, but how do you tackle that? And I think that's the issue with uh like we want quick answers, we want a fast answer. And if you have to sit there and think about it, it that that cognitive dissonance of like, okay, I need a quick answer. Okay, I'm just gonna, it's you know, socialism or you know, progressivism. Let's just, hey, this person is is saying the right things to make me feel like I think this is the issue. So that's how people latch on. But if you really think about it, I think there's a lot more things we can attack, corporate, you know, greed or fraud. I think those are that will probably pay for more than what we need to have other, you know, investments into transportation, education, whatever, homelessness, whatever it is. But I think uh, you know, we can only hope and see.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah. Well, thank you guys for watching. Uh please like and subscribe to our channel, and uh, we'll continue to cover stories like this. We are from the greater Seattle and we see it, you know, we're we're here, and I know a lot of you guys think we're you know we're we're falling apart, but um, I will say it's not great. We're not falling apart, but it's not great. So we'll just continue to cover more stories like this, and uh, we'll see you guys on the next video.