from where I'm sitting, on the steps at 7th & Union, it's already here.
Take a step back and make your eyes go out of focus, squint a bit and you can view the messenger industry as gage of the economy. We don’t just have our fingers on the pulse of Seattle’s economy, we’ve got our fists wrapped around the rectal thermometer of Seattle’s economy.
Seattle is a bit different from the national average in terms of unemployment, housing costs, and quality of life issues. But I smell some recession muffins cooking right here at home. The construction boom downtown is huge and it appears that when that pendulum stops swinging there will be some surplus office space and condos on the market. I have personally noticed a big decrease in the number of real estate documents I’ve been taking to the Recorder’s office. Take a look at that and then look at the Seattle housing market.
If you carefully compiled data over a 25 or 30 year span of Seattle’s messenger history you would see trends that correspond directly with what was going on in Seattle in terms of construction both commercial and residential, housing prices, commercial rent dollars per square foot, dot-com bubbles, electronic court filings, Boeing burps, Paul Schell’s term in office, all of it. All of that and more.
The number of messengers on the road, the number of messenger companies in the yellow pages, the number of tags pulled down per day, the number on the far right of my pay check, the number of messengers sitting around looking at each other and saying with a smile, “it’s a dying industry…”
It’s a rush pick up.
You’re looking for an economic stimulus package from The Man.
If it’s not ready when you get there, keep track of wait time.
He said it may not be ready until June.
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