> There has been a rise in Seattle restaurant prices, but that was clearly due to the many new burdens placed on them by the city government. Not clearly. Much

> There has been a rise in Seattle restaurant prices, but that was clearly due to the many new burdens placed on them by the city government. Not clearly. Much of the Seattle boom had a lot to do with Chinese investment. This recently took a downturn, with new Chinese politics and policies. Investment crashed, along with a bunch of luxury services and businesses (within the last year). Now you have areas that were traditionally high income, fueled by a combination of high-tech, medical, foreign investment, etc and fewer and fewer jobs and opportunities. The areas like Bellevue are struggling to keep expanding the high income standards without collapsing under the low-income needs and with fewer resources to power the bubble. Talking about AMZ is an abstract, since anyone blaming AMZ has a misunderstanding of the economics, for a partisan fairy tale. A high tide caused prices (and taxes) to rise and not all of them have fallen with the economic churn. While some of it is the govt, not all of it, imo.