Bruce Ramsey

Bruce Ramsey was a business reporter and columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in the 1980s and 1990s and from 2000 to his retirement in 2013 was an editorial writer and columnist for the Seattle Times. He is the author of The Panic of 1893: The Untold Story of Washington State’s first Depression, and his most recent book is "Seattle in the Great Depression". He lives in Seattle with his wife, Anne.
Business

A New State Income Tax? Added to all our other Taxes?

Having no state income tax has been a commercial asset for Washington, and not just for high rollers like Bezos and Gates.
blog

Going Back to the Hippie Trail

Rick Steves’ presentation in Edmonds was about his new book, "On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer." The book is an edited version of his journals of 1978, when he set out with his friend Gene Openshaw to travel the Trail through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India to the fabled city of Kathmandu, Nepal.
Business

What New Taxes on High Earners would mean to Washington

Amazon has responded to the new Seattle payroll tax by moving several thousand employees from Seattle to Bellevue.
Business

Why Costco is Taking on Trump

How to explain the boldness of Costco? The DNA of its unusual founder, Jim Sinegal, is part of it. Another answer, from a stock analyst, was that the Issaquah company has developed a “cult following.”
Politics

The Coming Settlement in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine is remarkably similar to Josef Stalin’s war against Finland — the Winter War of 1939-1940 — which began on November 30, 1939, 86 years...
Books

96 Years ago, the Stock Market Crashed. It Broke the Nation

“This is not a story about those who endured the fallout. t’s about those who helped set it in motion, because that’s where the responsibility lies, and where the lessons remain.”
Environment

For the Environment: Why are we Really Banning Plastic Bags?

Rhetorically, “the environment” is a vague and spacious box that contains things that are hugely important, plus things of everyday importance and things mostly banned for looks. By boxing them together, you can avoid having to justify each one. But each proposal does need to be justified.
Histories

The Black Ball Line and Birth of Washington State Ferries

Frequent strikes sour the public on the private ferry company. In the 1937 strike, Seattle Mayor John Dore demands that Governor Clarence Martin seize and operate the ferries.
Business

Is Seattle in a Recession? Let’s Do the Numbers

The latest two-year revenue forecast for state government, released in September, is down by $903 million since the budget passed in the spring. In a $78-billion budget, $903 million not a huge amount, and it’s a decline in the expected rate of growth.
Politics

Jimmy’s Back. But the Threat to Free Speech hasn’t Passed

Some people will want to let this go, because ABC is taking Kimmel back. But the whole episode is ominous for the freedom of broadcasting. This will go down in media history — and it’s not clear that it’s over.
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