Greetings West Coast, Messed Coast™ readers, where this week we discovered that Gavin Newsom doesn't want to talk about what a terrific job he's doing for California taxpayers, the woke Portland DA gets a wake-up call, woke Seattle suspends the laws of supply and demand, and we say goodbye San Diego. That covers the waterfront. Let's get started on the details.
Go woke, go bro—aw, you guessed
What's worse: making a decision that basically destroys an industry or, when confronted with a spectacular failure, refusing to fix it because it's too hard? Please put your answer in the comments below.
In Seattle, the woke city council members decided they needed to meddle in the pay scale of the local gig delivery workers, like the Uber Eats drivers.
The "Pay Up" program for app drivers was a Byzantine minimum wage that was supposed to net drivers a $26/hour minimum wage.
The minimum wage formula for app drivers looks like this. I hope you have a Sanskrit translator.
(Engaged Time x Per-Minute Amount) + (Engaged Miles x Per-Mile Amount) = Minimum Network Company Payment a. Per-minute amount – $0.38 The per-minute amount would ensure that app-based workers receive at least the total of a “minimum wage equivalent rate” multiplied by an “associated cost factor” multiplied by an “associated time factor” for their engaged time to perform an offer. The amounts of each rate and/or factor would depend on applicable law or Director rules. For example, in 2022, the amounts would be: Minimum wage equivalent rate – $0.288 The minimum wage equivalent rate would provide a per-minute equivalent of Seattle’s hourly minimum wage for Schedule 1 employers (i.e., large employers with more than 500 employees worldwide). Associated cost factor – 1.12 The associated cost factor would pay workers for non-mileage expenses (e.g., cost of employer-side payroll taxes, workers compensation insurance) that are necessary to perform app-based work. Associated time factor – 1.17 The associated time factor would account for unpaid time (e.g., time to review an offer) that is necessary to perform app-based work. Karina Bull/Amy Gore LEG App-Based Worker Minimum Payment SUM D3 3 Template last revised: December 2, 2021 b. Per-mile amount – $0.64 The per mile amount would ensure that app-based workers receive at least the “standard mileage rate” multiplied by an “associated mileage factor” for their engaged miles to perform an offer. For example, in 2022, these amounts would be: Standard mileage rate – $0.585 The standard mileage rate would be the Internal Revenue Service rate of reimbursement for operating an automobile. Associated time factor – 1.10 The associated mileage factor would pay workers for miles travelled that are necessary to perform app-based work but are not included in payment for a specific offer (e.g., miles travelled to locations for rest breaks).
Someone at the city did that math up there, but you don't need to know any math to understand that even the mighty City of Seattle, with all its socialistic "good intentions," can't suspend the law of supply and demand.
Suddenly, Uber Eats and DoorDash drivers became the Ticketmaster of delivery guys.
The second the law went into effect in January 2024, shocked customers were suddenly on the hook for a $26 cups of coffee. Reason Magazine reports that customers got hit with $32 sandwich bills.
Remember our $22 Burritonomics lesson last week? One guy complained on Reddit that his $8 burrito magically became a $25 burrito with all the fees, tips, and extras, thanks to the change in the law.
Another person did an experiment with his favorite Pad Thai dish.
Out of curiosity, I checked how much it would be to get an order of pad thai from a restaurant a couple miles away. A $15 pad thai ends up being $25 before tip. If I want it sooner than 40 minutes from now, it's another 4 bucks. So after all that and a tip, it's 35 dollars for an order of pad thai.
How insane is it? Reason reported:
Uber Eats experienced a 30-percent decline in order volume in the city, while DoorDash reported 30,000 fewer orders within just the first two weeks of the ordinance taking effect.
In turn, this decrease in demand directly impacted the pocketbooks of the delivery drivers themselves. A driver who made $931 in a week this time last year saw his earnings drop by half to $464.81 in a comparative week this year. Another reported consistently making $20 an hour prior to the ordinance, only to see his earnings likewise fall by more than half since its enactment.
Then two other things happened. Seattle decided it needed five new full-time employees to oversee the Pay Up plan. That costs money, so the city decided to tack on a ten-cent tax on top of all the other delivery fees.
When confronted with this poop sandwich, the president of the city council, Sara Nelson, said that while she is very worried about the program and didn't think it was her place to "regulate the profit margins of companies...I'm not going to redo the whole legislation."
I wouldn't either. I'd completely obliterate it.
The state of the state is...postponed
Gavin Newsom's experience as California's top executive has been rough. He's lost billions of dollars to crooks and the COVID version of Nigerian princes. He's put the state $73 billion in debt. Americans discovered what an autocratic, thin-skinned Nancy Boy he's turned out to be.
When a leader has no core values, he can get whipsawed pretty good. Indeed, things are so bad right now for Newsom that he postponed his State of the State address on Monday and scheduled it for... TBD.
Newsom had hoped to be able to announce the passage of what he hopes will be a signature achievement in spending yet more billions to add to the other billions and billions Californians have already spent to keep the homeless-industrial complex in business.
Fleeing Gavin's California
I love San Diego. I used to live there. Spent my young married life there, had kids there, chose to go back to "America's Finest City" later to live and work there. But then a few years ago, it started going woke and, like the rest of California, grew even more prohibitively expensive. And now, San Diego, with the best climate in America, is ninth in the nation for losing population.
Los Angeles is #1 in population loss.
Somebody's trying to get re-elected
Mike Schmidt is the Multnomah County District Attorney who was bought and paid for by George Soros and his ilk. Schmidt is the guy who refused to prosecute hundreds of Antifa rioters who set Portland on fire in the summer of 2020.
Now, four years later, as election day grows near, Schmidt is having second thoughts on setting free two violent "protesters" and window-crashers that he gave a pass to during the year of the Summer of Love.
In November 2020, Schmidt dropped ten felony counts against Nicole Noriega and six felonies against Chester Hester.
Reporter Andy Ngo reports that Schmidt has refiled charges against these two layabouts.
Breaking: Two extremely violent Portland Antifa riot suspects who were originally arrested in November 2020 and had their 10 felony charges quickly dropped by @DAMikeSchmidt have been re-arrested with charges reinstated. Nicole Noriega and Chester Hester (exclusive photos from… https://t.co/kfViRM228A pic.twitter.com/r9yXQWaOQT
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) March 21, 2024
The thugs trashed at least ten businesses along Hawthorne Boulevard in November 2020 as part of an anti-Thanksgiving riot thrown by Antifa.
That's my feel-good story of the day.
Just remember one thing: Don't let these woke politicians off the hook. Give them no quarter. Fire them.
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