Quote of the Day
Since 2006, Bellevue has actually cut per-resident spending from $5,741 to $4,653 — a 19% decrease. Seattle? It’s ballooned from $5,997 to $8,677 — up 45%. Seattle now spends nearly twice as much per resident as Bellevue for the same basic services.
What’s that money buying? On violent crime, Seattle logs 542 incidents per 100,000 residents. Bellevue: 99. Property crime: Seattle racks up 4,100 cases; Bellevue about 2,200. Seattle residents are also earning less — median household income is $120,000 v. Bellevue’s $160,000.
But here’s the number that stops you cold. Life expectancy in Seattle’s downtown core — Belltown, First Hill — is 71.6 years. East King County, where Bellevue sits, comes in at 84.2. That’s a 13-year gap. Thirteen years of life, separated by a bridge.
Jake Skorheim
May 15, 2026
Jake: Seattle has a Bellevue problem – MyNorthwest.com
See also: Equality of Poverty and Misery is More Desirable than a Range of Prosperity and Happiness.
Seattle could start by not electing admitted socialists and communists to the city council and as mayors. But they probably won’t. They will, almost for certain, advocate for Bellevue to become more like Seattle so as to stop attracting the jobs out of Seattle. Just like in the early days of the USSR it was always the fault of the capitalists. The solution was to confiscate the property and send the capitalists to the gulag and/or a mass grave.
Even with San Fransico and Detroit as examples of their path of folly, Seattle will have to attempt learning the bad lesson for themselves. I just hope they actually do eventually learn. With the contrast of Bellevue just a few minutes away across the lake you would think they would learn quickly. But I expect they will be more successful in exporting their mistakes than importing real solutions.
Just in the last few years a homeless shelter was constructed within walking distance of our home in Bellevue. And in March of this year, Sound Transit completed a “high‑frequency light rail service” connecting Seattle to Bellevue and Redmond. That will make it easier for Seattle criminals to do business in Bellevue and Redmond.
Barb and I will enjoy Bellevue while we can. I see storm clouds in the west coming our way. I’m so glad I have an underground bunker in Idaho we can retreat to.
Better do it soon. Worst case is that you don’t get raped by WA taxes.
Does Washington’s income tax system work like New York’s, which allows them to tax people who work there but don’t live there? New York can camouflage the effects of their thieving and morally bankrupt government programs indefinitely, so long as the CEO class wants the prestige of a Manhattan address for the Headquarters.
An average is only just that. An average hides, or contains, a lot of interesting detail.
Vagrants dying of exposure or drug overdose will tend to drive the average life expectancy down.
As will other lifestyle choices that result in people dying in their 40s.
Communists are almost incapable of learning from failure. That’s a feature, not a bug in their programming.
The only thing one can be sure of is that they will be invading you as soon as they can. No matter where you live.
So, even shoving all the homeless back across the bridge and sinking it, is only going to slow them down.
The biggest problem to conquer is your own “normalcy bias” toward their advances. Then getting caught up in their system. Like getting busted for carrying a gun by their enforcement.
Best to get out while one can.
Democrats Socialist or Leftists aren’t responsible for Detroit.
Always the problem with communist?
Nobody is ever responsible for the damage done.
But actually it is a rights fault. They should have deported every communist in America to the east bloc in the 60’s.
So late? It would have been more effective if they’d been expelled in the forties and fifties. And all the books used in post secondary education while they were at it.
I suspect the biggest factor in the difference in life spans is drug use/abuse. Downtown Seattle is brimming with homeless alcoholics and junkies. NOT a
lifestyle conducive to living to a ripe old age.
Better do it soon. Worst case is that you don’t get raped by WA taxes.
Quick question — for those running Gemini Omni heavily, do you find the Pro tier enough or do most end up on Ultra? Trying to budget out the next quarter.