In The Race to Mouse-Click Their Way to a Charitable Payout, Eastside Moms Are Destroying Amputees

Posted yesterday at 6:05 am by Mark Fefer

No, not that clicking.

​Clicks are the new currency in an Internet economy. We all know that. But it's never been more true than in the case of a charitable promotion being run by Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union—one that comes to an exciting climax today.

Seattle Metropolitan is going to give away $5,000 to a worthy non-profit organization—depending on which of seven finalists receives the most votes on the credit union's Web site. The potential winners include, for example, a group that prepares meals for the homeless and a scrappy theater company (Wing-It Productions).

There are no limits to voting. No registering or providing email addresses. You can just keep refreshing the page and voting again and again. It's all about passion and dogged determination.

So it may not be too much of a surprise which of the seven groups has managed to take a commanding lead.

Continue reading "In The Race to Mouse-Click Their Way to a Charitable Payout, Eastside Moms Are Destroying Amputees"

Topics: Business, Money, and Technology

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Pontiac Silverdome Sold for $583,000: Here's the House the New Owners Could Have Bought

Posted yesterday at 7:52 am by Caleb Hannan

If only they'd thrown in the football team too they might have made it a cool million.

​At an auction on Monday, the Pontiac Silverdome, the former home of the NFL's Detroit Lions, was sold to a Canadian developer for $583,000. Roughly half of what a New Jersey couple recently paid for the one-bedroom bungalow where Bruce Springsteen wrote "Born to Run" and a 99% discount on the $55 million it cost to build the stadium 35 years ago.

The Silverdome's new owners say they plan to use it as a home for a professional soccer team. But assuming they were just in the market for any old house, just what could their money have gotten them here in Seattle?

Continue reading "Pontiac Silverdome Sold for $583,000: Here's the House the New Owners Could Have Bought"

Topics: Money and Sports

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Seattle Blogs: Washington Leads the Country in Taxing the Poor

Posted Nov. 18 at 4:12 pm by Caleb Hannan

If you're wealthy enough to afford that jet, you're probably going to love Washington.

​Hot links, served fresh daily.

- Strange Bedfellows reports on a study that says don't be fooled by the lefty image: Washington has the U.S.'s most regressive taxes.

- What's worse than getting mugged? Central District News says that'd be getting mugged during a downpour.

- Who cares that Seattle lost the Sonics? If we can't get the NBA, SunBreak says we can at least look forward to NBA talent.

Topics: Money

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Irish Bookies Bet on Boeing Dreamliner to Fly First

Posted Nov. 17 at 12:08 pm by Caleb Hannan

Tony the Bookie will gladly take action on Boeing. After all, business is business.

​God bless the Irish. More specifically, god bless the Irish who think that nothing is too weird to wager on.

Paddy Power, the country's largest bookmaker, is now taking bets on which airline will be the first to get its massive bird off the ground, Boeing or Airbus. Although a union strike and production delays have pushed back its maiden flight, Boeing's 787 Dreamliner is still favored at 1-2 odds over Airbus's A400M military transport plane, sitting with an underdog's line of 6-4.

Logic says you're never going to make a good return on your investment by taking action on the heavily-favored Boeing. But logic's cousin reason also says that if you're gambling away your grocery money with Irish bookies, you probably have larger problems best addressed by extensive therapy.

Topics: Business and Money

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Mountlake Terrace Rejects Pot Shop

Posted Nov. 16 at 6:05 am by Caleb Hannan

Flickr

Don't expect to see this in Mountlake anytime soon.

​Todd Madison and Aaron Panagoss have spent nearly a year selling medical marijuana out of their homes. The next logical step, they figured, was to open up a store.

But the duo's dream of opening Botanical Urban Dispensary Service, their cleverly-titled pot shop, has now been seriously harshed by the Mountlake Terrace city officials who rejected their business application.

The city says that the law doesn't allow for storefront shops. Madison and Panagoss, meanwhile, say they got a license from the state and are threatening to sue if not allowed to open. Unfortunately for everyone involved, both parties have a rightful claim to the high ground.

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Topics: Money

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Seattle Blogs: Washington Is Number One...for Troubled Banks

Posted Nov. 13 at 1:15 pm by Caleb Hannan

Flipping off the banks doesn't help matters. But it sure makes ya feel good.

​A short spin around the Seattle blogosphere.

- Seattle Bubble says one out of every four banks in Washington is in danger of failing or already has. As always, it's best to blame WaMu.

- Schadenfreude with bullet points! Strange Bedfellows breaks down all the different ways in which Tim Eyman and I-1033 got their clock cleaned by voter's this year.

- Hotdog & Friends has video of a pitcher throwing a no-hitter while on LSD. Why? Because it's Friday, that's why.

Topics: Money

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Seattle Blogs: Bill Gates Thinks Wall Street Is Overpaid

Posted Nov. 12 at 3:36 pm by Caleb Hannan

Gordon Gecko: Not fan of the World's Richest Man.

​The best of the Seattle blogosphere.

- Bill Gates thinks Wall Street bankers make too much money, says TechFlash. Billionaire fight!

- PubliCola takes a look back at T-Mobile executive Joe Mallahan's campaign for mayor and dubs it "atrocious." But he did so well with the Africans!

- SeattleCrime reports that accused killer Christopher Monfort might have shot another cop if he'd only remembered to cock his gun first.

Topics: Money

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Seattle's Blue Nile, Ruler of Online Diamond Retailing, Outflanked by Israelites at the Courthouse

Posted Nov. 2 at 1:57 pm by Mark Fefer

Are they real—or enhanced?

​When the big company goes after the smaller fry in court, it's usually the latter crying for mercy. Not so in the case of Seattle's Blue Nile, the dominant diamond-seller on the Internet.

The company is faced with a gloating adversary today, in the wake of an unfavorable jury verdict.

Continue reading "Seattle's Blue Nile, Ruler of Online Diamond Retailing, Outflanked by Israelites at the Courthouse"

Topics: Business, Law & Courts, and Money

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There's One Little Thing Some Parking Lot Signs Neglect to Mention: 20 Percent in Taxes

Posted Oct. 13 at 2:37 pm by Nina Shapiro

Not all parking lots are this honest

​How many people realize that they're paying nearly 20 percent in taxes when they patronize a parking lot? Not me—until one day recently when I parked at a lot near Safeco Field that advertises a $7-a-day, early-bird rate. But as I popped my credit card into the machine, the screen told me that I'd instead be paying $8.37. How could that be? A close look at my receipt revealed that the city charges 10 percent in taxes, and the state 9.5 percent.

Turns out we've had these hefty taxes for some time, although the city rate went up in July from 7.5 percent, according to mayoral spokesperson Alex Fryer. The money is designated for transportation improvements. But many parking lots include those taxes in the rate they advertise - like the one at Pier 48 I parked at today. Others like the Diamond Parking lot near the stadium do not, suggesting a lower rate than is the case. Buyer beware.

Topics: Money

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Gates Leads the Pack, Bezos in the Back: It's Forbes' 400 Richest Americans Time!

Posted Oct. 2 at 9:22 am by Damon Agnos

Congratulations on all your success; you smell terrific!

​Granted, the first wave of Washingtonians are hitting the end of their unemployment benefits. And unemployment continues to climb. But the Forbes Richest 400 Americans list must go on! And local billionaires once again make a strong showing.

Topping the list is of course the godfather himself, Bill Gates. Net worth: $50 billion. Rhree other local tech kings crack the top 30: Steve Ballmer is 14th with $13.3 billion; Paul Allen is 17th with $11.5 billion; and Jeff Bezos is 28th with $8.8 billion.

After that, it's a long drop to the next local baller. Seattle boat-building magnate John Orin Edson is 371st with a net worth of an even $1 billion. While it might sound hard to live in the shadows of the men who precede him on the list, Edson apparently isn't sweating it. Says Forbes, "Spends days flying helicopters, skiing, cruising in 164-foot yacht, Evviva." Perhaps accompanied by T-Pain.

Topics: Business, Money, and Technology

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"I Flipped Him a Benjamin"

Posted Aug. 10 at 10:43 am by Damon Agnos

​Imagine a workplace where you casually toss your boss $100 for giving an assignment to a co-worker. So it went in the Mariners' clubhouse this weekend.

The M's took 2 of 3 games from a vastly superior Tampa Bay Rays team, moving within 4.5 games of the Red Sox for the Wildcard playoff spot. It started with Ryan Langerhans' dramatic walk-off home run Friday night and ended with a masterful performance by Ryan Rowland-Smith (hereafter RRS) yesterday, which spawned this entertaining anecdote:

RRS has lately wanted to throw 100 pitches in a game, so team captain Mike Sweeney offered manager Don Wakamatsu $100 if he let RRS hit the century mark. Yesterday, RRS was throwing rocks, as The Big Lebowski's Donny might have put it, so Wakamatsu left him in—obviously because RRS was pitching well, and not because of the offer, which is mere pocket change to MLB-ers.

Nevertheless, after the game, Sweeney swung by Wakamatsu's office and "flipped him a Benjamin." Not to pick on Sweeney, who is noted for his philanthropy, but the flippant (no pun intended) exchange of large sums of money among professional athletes never ceases to amaze.

Topics: Money and Sports

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Anna Nicole Smith Case Comes to Seattle

Posted June 9 at 4:20 pm by Rick Anderson

The traveling road show known as the Anna Nicole Smith case comes to Seattle in two weeks, with oral arguments set before a panel of U.S. 9th Circuit Court judges here. The late Playboy Playmate of the Year and reality TV star lost her bid to grab millions from the estate of her late husband J. Howard Marshall II, starting in a Texas probate court in 1995. She died in 2007 but the case has a life of its own, having traveled through federal bankruptcy court in California, the 9th Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Now it's baaack before the 9th Circuit for a new hearing and coincidentally has been scheduled to be heard by the court's own traveling panel of judges on their regular June 25 stop here.

Writer and legal commentator Horace Cooper says the case, Marshall v. Marshall, has serious precedent-setting implications for the future of estate planning and the law, but there will be the likely sideshow of tabloid media hot on the heels of Smith's survivors, Howard K. Stern and Larry Birkhead and his daughter Dannielynn, who are seeking a cut of Howard Marshall's assets. "This may be normal in LA, but Seattle is not that kind of town," thinks Cooper. "The media should be more focused on the lengths Smith's legal team has taken to try to squeeze a dime from [Marshall's] estate. He left the estate to his son Pierce and never promised Smith anything in his written will. He gave her millions of dollars in homes and gifts before he died."

Topics: Money

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Seattle Loves Its Celebrity Dish

Posted April 30 at 12:27 pm by Mark Fefer

Tom Robbins once told Tim Egan of the New York Times that one of the reasons he likes the Pacific Northwest is because "it lacks a celebrity culture." Well, maybe. But it turns out, we sure do love us some celebrity dish.

Seattle Rep just announced that Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking —which our reviewer Kevin Phinney said serves up celebrity obsession and public meltdown "by the metric ton"—is heading to Broadway. And not only that, Fisher's performance, which closes on Sunday, has given the Rep "its strongest sales since Lily Tomlin brought her one-woman show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, to the theatre in 2000."

Yeah, the most literate city in America may pretend it's too busy reading Tom Robbins to lap up the celebrity slop. But the ticket sales say otherwise!

Topics: Arts & Culture and Money

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Are You Ready for National Tourism Week?

Posted April 29 at 4:35 pm by Mark Fefer

Well, so is the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau! (It starts Sat. May 9.) They've got a form letter all set up for you to send to your state and local elected officials, letting them know how critically important tourism is to our local economy. The bureau has also put up wall-size versions of its "Why Tourism Matters" advertising campaign, launched last year, in the window displays of the now-empty Adidas store at 5th and Pike.

Continue reading "Are You Ready for National Tourism Week?"

Topics: Economy, Money, and Port of Seattle

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As New Orleans Learns, Paul Allen Is Most Definitely ON A BOAT!

Posted April 22 at 4:01 pm by Damon Agnos

Tatoosh, a favorite party spot of the Globe. Photo by Oxam Hartog (CC License 2.5)

Actually, at 301 feet, it's technically a yacht (I guess there's a difference), but that doesn't fit the song. Brier Dudley directs us to an entertaining article (with a great slide show) on how Paul Allen's super-yacht, Tatoosh, is creating a big ruckus in the Big Easy. Apparently, tourists and locals are crowding the banks of the Mississippi to gawk at the massive pleasure craft.

Tatoosh is only the world's 26th largest super-yacht; by contrast, the Allen-owned Octopus ranks 8th, and third among those privately owned. (The others belong to heads of state). Still, Tatoosh has its own movie theater, lobster tank, swimming pool, and helicopter landing pad. But it's not yet complete; Allen said he's still waiting on the city for its streetcar.

Topics: Money

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