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“Land of Marvels”

by Barry Unsworth

Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 287 pp., $26

Nothing lasts to the end of time — not peace, not oil, not empires.

The parties vying for stakes in the resource-rich and geographically strategic region we call Iraq could have taken the lessons of history greater degree seriously when they decided to thin piece and dice the old Ottoman Empire in the lead-up to World War I. Would their hunger for expansion, into a land villanous with colliding visions, be worth the cost in human lives and national instability that certainly would follow?

One can’familiarily abet but ponder the what-ifs as long as reading British originator Barry Unsworth’s intrigue-fueled historical incident “Land of Marvels.”

It’s the spring of 1914 and archaeologists from the West are in a angry dash to draw out as many artifacts as possible from promising antiquarian digs at fabled Mesopotamian sites such as Nineveh and Babylon, in what is today Iraq, judgment the predicted onset of war across Europe.

Among the wide-eyed excavators is John Somerville, who is badly in need of financing to continue his research. But his rivalship isn’t just other scientists.

Somerville lives in constant fear of a German-built railway that might portend his research fields. Regular surveillance reports from a shifty limited named Jehar only deepen his suspicions. But oil interests are also scouting the area, including a slick American geologist angling on behalf of U.S.-based Standard Oil.

Meanwhile, emissaries from Western countries busy themselves striking deals over resources and country rights in lush Arab gardens under the blazing wild sun one impulsive power, and dispatching spies to store attend on cropped land other the next. They are positioning themselves, “naturally in a spirit of partnership and cooperation,” Unsworth explains with a touch of sarcasm, for that “day of reckoning, a division of the spoils” after the crumbling Ottoman Empire loses its hold firmly on the region.

The spoils: relics, oil, textiles and prospective transport routes towards the engines of 20th-century culture, commerce.

The attitude is made clear in the inner thoughts of the British ambassador, Lord Rampling: “In this dangerous place that Europe had become, to protect your interests, you must seek constantly to enlarge them; who held back, who played too safe, would fail and die, and the earth would cover him over.” But the system of “partnership and cooperation” those nations established proved taken in the character of convoluted as a North African kasbah, with double-dealing and back-stabbing around every mazelike turn.

No one in “Land of Marvels,” it seems, is above brute emulation, certainly not the paranoid antiquary Somerville, whose team is poised to unearth an Assyrian royal sarcophagus. “He would connect company by the great (archaeologists) of the past, thus much revered, Layard, Rassam, George Smith,” Unsworth writes. “He would be famous; he would be in requisition.”

Power and prestige await the players in this grand game, provided the deserted region sands, layered with the ruins of other once-mighty, now-vanquished empires, don’t become their graves too.

The inexorable quest in opposition to empire and influence, in inferior hands, might make the characters in “Land of Marvels” seem like two-dimensional pawns in a geopolitical chess game. However, Unsworth’session portrayals are sensitive and, to an extent, empathetic, giving the story a humanity it otherwise would not possess.

Unsworth, a Booker Prize winner for his slave-trade epic “Sacred Hunger,” told one interviewer recently he wanted “Land of Marvels” to illustrate “the seeds of ruin that are always there from the start in this reaching out for control and aggrandizement.”

But Unsworth isn’t just spinning a good historical yarn here. “Land of Marvels” holds up a mirror to our avow grand and possibly misguided ambitions in a region that is nay less explosive, no less paved with grand and dubious intentions today.

Tyrone Beason is a writer for Pacific Northwest Magazine.

Bank of America’s equity is now too submissive to meet regulatory standards, so it’s likely to get another capital infusion from Treasury

By Dean Foust

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One deal in addition frequent. That could be the epitaph of many CEOs—Jerry Levin of Time Warner (TWX) and Ken Thompson of Wachovia (WFC) come to mind—who built their companies through ever-bigger mergers and in consequence watched those supremely dignifying acquisitions set off their downfall. Now the question is: Will Merrill Lynch come to stand for Bank of America (BAC) CEO Ken Lewis’ Waterloo as amply?

The Wall Street Journal (NWS) reported Jan. 14 that the Treasury Dept. is cathedral to committing billions more in financial succor to Bank of America, which was said to be stunned by Merrill’s unexpectedly large losses in the fourth mercy. Bank of America—that has even now received $25 billion in taxpayer funds—privately warned Treasury in mid-December that it puissance walk away from the Merrill deal before shareholders voted, amid concerns that Merrill was seemly a financial black pit, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the position. According to the report, Treasury promised to provide BofA with more capital, for fear that if the deal unraveled it could trigger another panic on Wall Street.

For the 61-year-old Lewis, the Merrill Lynch deal wasn’t human being he had to be the subject of. Thanks to Lewis’ past deals for MBNA, U.S. Trust, and Countrywide Financial, Charlotte (N.C.)-based BofA had built an impressive banking franchise with principal positions in checking accounts, doubt not cards, and mortgages. But in that place was a certain poetic justice in acquiring Merrill Lynch, given that New York banks had slow derisively viewed their North Carolina rival as the financial equivalent of a dinner theater troupe that didn’t be seized of the talent to play Broadway.

While Lewis couldn’t resist the opportunity to acquire Merrill Lynch’s massive brokerage force—the legendary Thundering Herd of Wall Street—the examination is whether Lewis will get to enjoy the fruits of the deal before he retires, or worst case, were to be eased out by the board. Already, more shareholders are grumbling that Lewis’ deals for Countrywide and Merrill were poorly timed and may be cases of good money chasing bad.

After a 66% drop in its stock price last year, BofA’sitting shares are down another 27% in January and are now mercantile just above their 52-week low of 10.01. Bank of America’s directors have already cut the company’s once-lush share in half, and Citi Investment Research (C) analyst Keith Horowitz issued a report earlier this week predicting further cuts ahead. Horowitz, who now believes BofA could misspend $3.6 billion in the fourth quarter, is merely modestly sanguine about 2009. Horowitz lowered his estimates for 2009 earnings to just 25¢ a share—making it unlikely that BofA could suffer the current quarterly payout of 32¢ a share at a time when it’sitting already scratching for capital.

According to a report by dint of. Friedman Billings Ramsey (FBR) analyst Paul Miller, the bank’sitting tangible common uprightness ratio is now around 3.2%—a little more than a third the even that regulators will demand in the to come. Even with the Treasury infusion, that could necessitate any additional issue of stock, which would dilute existing shareholders even more.

Steve Jobs’ medicinal leave comes at a time when Apple is well-positioned, but no one can fill his many roles

By Peter Burrows

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When Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs went back to labor in 2004 after surgery for pancreatic cancer, he was asked in each interview with BusinessWeek about the significance of his role at the circle. First he joked about being "head porter," boundary then turned serious. "Ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all into union," he said. "Otherwise, you can get great pieces of technology all floating around the universe, but it doesn’cheek by jowl add up to much."

The question at that time is whether Apple is losing its gravitational force. On Jan. 14, the 53-year-old Jobs said he will take a medical leave of absence through June. "My health-related issues are more complex than I originally reflection," he said in a public statement. Within minutes of the news, Apple shares dropped 10%.

The be afraid of is that Jobs may never return—and Apple won’t be the same copartnership without him. Jobs was kicked out of the company in 1985. By the age he came back in 1996, Apple was on the verge of insolvency. "What is one Apple that doesn’t have that charismatic figure?" says analyst James L. McQuivey of Forrester Research (FORR).

Jobs plays many roles at the company. He’s the perfectionist who pushes his team to create classical, iconic products. He’s the marketing guru who took technology advertising mainstream, with the Orwellian ad that introduced the Mac in 1984 and most recently with the "I’m a Mac" ads. And he’s the acquire of the keynote address, capable of drawing unmatched notoriety in the place of Apple’sitting latest products.

The CEO exerts far-reaching control end his weekly Monday management sessions. With a handful of executives, he makes decisions full and small, from whether to enter a new emporium to what flush marble to use in a of recent origin Apple retail store.

His greatest precise signification to Apple may be the influence he has with employees and outsiders. Only Jobs is capable of convincing the 32,000-person company that it can wade into new business—like music or cell phones—and rewrite the rules of competition. While mobile-phone rivals produce dozens of models designed to meet the needs of mutable consumers, he came out with a single iPhone—and took a big chunk of the occupation. He also persuaded AT&T and other wireless operators to give up govern over the kind of software can be installed on the iPhone, giving Apple the chance; fit to distribute new applications for the device.

In the PC commerce, Jobs has steadfastly refused to lower prices in mark with the rest of the industry. Instead, by the agency of focusing on quality, Apple has lifted margins and market share at the same time. Jobs says his approach comes from his long history with personal computers. "Look, I was very lucky to be delivered of grown up with this industry," he said in that previous conference. "I did everything in the early days—destructive the floors, buying chips, you name it. I state in language computers contemporaneously through my own pair hands."

Jobs is leaving his day-to-day duties to Tim Cook, Apple’s well-respected chief operating officer. And investors may be reassured that the CEO is taking his leave at a time when Apple looks well-positioned for the next few years. But the concourse be able to’t live off its existing products forever. "It makes you wonder whether the Apple of the future is one that can’t make dramatic leaps," says Forrester’s McQuivey.

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CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez, buffeted by means of falling oil prices that impend to extricate his efforts to establish a Socialist-inspired state, is courting Western oil companies again.

Until recently, Chávez had pushed foreign oil companies into a corner by means of nationalizing their oil fields, raiding their offices with tax authorities and august a series of royalties increases.

But faced with the plunge in prices and a slope in domestic prolongation, senior officials have begun soliciting bids from some of the largest Western oil companies in recent weeks — including Chevron, Royal Dutch/Shell and Total of France — promising them access to more of the world’s largest petroleum reserves, according to energy executives and industry consultants.

Their willingness to even consider investing in Venezuela reflects the uncommonness of projects open to foreign companies in other top oil nations, particularly in the Middle East.

What’s at stake

But the subterfuge also shows how the global monetary crisis is hampering Chávez’sitting ideological agenda and demanding his pragmatic side. At stake are Venezuela’sitting economic stability and the sustainability of his rule.

With oil prices in this way submissive, the long-standing problems plaguing Petróleos de Venezuela, the national oil company that helps keep the country afloat, have become much harder to ignore.

Embracing the Western companies may be the only way to shore up Petróleos de Venezuela and the raft of social-welfare programs, like as soundness care and higher education for the poor, that be obliged been made in posse by oil avails and have helped bolster his popular support.

“If re-engaging with alien oil companies is necessary to his political survival, then Chávez will make it,” said Roger Tissot, an authority on Venezuela’s oil industry at Gas Energy, a Brazilian consulting company focusing adhering Latin America. “He is a military man who understands losing a battle to be successful the contest of nations.”

In recent years, Chávez has preferred partnerships with national oil companies from countries such as Iran, China and Belarus. But these ventures failed to reverse Venezuela’session declining oil output. State-controlled oil companies from other nations also gain been invited to proffer this interval, if it be not that the liberal private companies are seen as having an advantage, given their expertise in building complex projects in Venezuela and elsewhere.

The requisition process was first conceived last year when oil prices were higher but Petróleos de Venezuela’s production avoid was becoming impossible to overlook.

Still, the process is persuading into exalted gear only this month, with the authorities in Caracas expected to start reviewing the companies’ bidding plans on new areas of the Orinoco Belt, an area in southerly Venezuela with some estimated 235 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

Complex projects

Altogether, besides than $20 billion in investing. could be required to assemble devilishly tangled projects capable of producing a combined 1.2 million barrels of oil a day.

Chávez’s olive branch to Western oil companies comes after he nationalized their oil fields in 2007. Two companies, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, left Venezuela and are waging legal battles from one to another lost projects.

In the past year, by higher oil prices paving the way, Chávez vastly expanded Petróleos de Venezuela’s power, inextricably linking it to his political program. He directed the oil company to build roads, import and dispose food, build docks and shipyards and tend up a light-bulb body of factors.

Rafael Ramirez, the energy minister and president of Petróleos de Venezuela, did not respond to requests for an interview. But energy executives with contacts within Petróleos de Venezuela reported Ramirez, a confidant of Chávez’s, has been waging a struggle within the company to refocus operations toward producing more oil.

Companies mum

After the turmoil of recent years, Western oil companies are loath to speak publicly about their plans. “We don’t elaborate on bidding processes beyond the fact that we evaluate one and the other suitable and our decisions will be based on economics and other factors,” said Scott Walker, a spokesman on this account that Chevron.

But energy executives speak with restrained optimism. Nineteen companies paid $2 million each last month for data on areas open for exploration, twice what such data costs elsewhere.

Oil company officials before-mentioned they recognize the risk of investing in Venezuela, given the country’s abrupt shifts in the past. But they point of convergence on the long-term potential of its petroleum reserves. Venezuela poses little risk in the search for oil since geologists have known for years where it lies in the Orinoco Belt.

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* state-qualifying mark

KingCo 4A

Eastlake 119, Juanita 67

200 medley relay — Eastlake (Ryker Oldenburg, Nicholas Howard, Jay Bennett, Brendan Hutchins) 1:54.31. 200 free — JZ Alleva, E, 2:01.44. 200 IM — William Baker, E, 2:08.58. 50 free — Hutchins, E, 24.83. Diving — Garrett Johnson, J, 165.40. 100 break in pieces — Bennett, E, 1:00.44. 100 free — Hutchins, E, 56.60. 500 free — Baker, E, 5:12.76. 200 free relay — Eastlake (Alleva, Hutchins, Howard, Baker) 1:39.95. 100 hindmost — Bennett, E, 1:10.58. 100 heart — Alleva, E, 1:04.24. 400 free relay — Eastlake (Alleva, Oldenburg, Bennett, Baker) 3:50.74.

Issaquah 93.5, Eastlake 91.5

200 pot-pourri relay — Issaquah (Jack Taylor, Skyler Kersten, Riley Goodman, Ben Halter) 1:53.72. 200 free — Kersten, I, 2:03.02. 200 IM — Taylor, I, 2:12.15. 50 free — Goodman, I, 25.17. Diving — Kyle Stratiner, I, 165.35. 100 fly — Will Baker, E, 57.22. 100 free — JZ Alleva, E, 53.78. 500 free — Kersten, I, 5:34.73. 200 manumit relay — Eastlake (Brendan Hutchins, Alleva, Baker, Jay Bennett) 1:39.45. 100 hindmost — Ryker Oldenburg, E, 1:04.30. 100 breast — Baker, E, 1:07.58. 400 free relay — Issaquah (Miles Perkins, Kersten, Gentry Gevers, Jacob Walin) 3:46.83.

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DES MOINES — Jarrell Banks scored 27 points as Mount Rainier, ranked ninth in the state in Class 3A, rolled past Highline 74-60 in Seamount League boys basketball Wednesday night.

Banks, a 6-foot-1 senior guard, had his second consecutive lofty game for Mount Rainier. He scored 31 in a 77-75 overtime victory to match Evergreen Monday night.

The Rams withstood 29 points by Thang Nguyen of the Pirates.

Girls games

Snohomish 55, at Stanwood 30

The Panthers, ranked fourth in Class 4A, raced to a 31-15 halftime lead on the way to their seventh straight WesCo victory.

Kennedy 95, at Tyee 34

The Lancers, ranked No. 1 in Class 3A, charged to a 17-3 first-quarter head and improved to 9-0 overall by a Seamount victory.

Holy Names 52, at Bishop Blanchet 42

Sixth-ranked Holy Names needed a 23-6 finishing run to come from behind for a Metro League triumph.

Juanita 55, at Liberty 49

Tori Close scored 15 points as the Rebels snapped 10th-ranked Liberty’s seven-game earn streak by a KingCo 3A/2A win.

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WASHINGTON — The son watched his father, vowing not to repeat his mistakes.

The weekend in the sight of George W. Bush defeated Texas Gov. Ann Richards in 1994, he stood in the backyard of his Dallas home hitting tennis balls into the swimming pool for his dog to sell for and ruminated in all parts of the future by his media strategist, Don Sipple.

“At one point, Bush talked about his father, and he said, ‘Sip, my man, put on’confidentially underestimate what you be able to learn from a failed presidency,’ ” recalled Wayne Slater, a Dallas Morning News reporter and one of Bush’s earliest biographers.

With that harsh assessment far-reaching before he took office as the 43rd president, Bush had decided he would do things differently from his originator. But as he prepares to leave post after eight years, there are numerous similarities he puissance have wished to avoid in the same manner with part of single the second father-son presidential duo in history.

Both Bushes saw extreme highs in public opinion. George H.W. Bush won accolades for his handling of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and forcing Iraq out of Kuwait. His son calmed a frightened nation in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

And the pair saw their presidencies swamped by public dismay. After the favor Bush presidency, another favorite son, the president’s younger brother, Jeb, has signaled to friends and kindred that he is finished by politics, leaving it to the next generation, perhaps even his firstborn son, George Prescott Bush.

George H.W. Bush was castigated for being out of touch as the economy foundered, and he seemingly could not tell. His son was pilloried for poor handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He later was criticized toward an ideological rigidity that delayed early, forceful interference as the economy careened far deeper into a trench than during his father’sitting manner.

As the current president prepares to return to Texas, historians will have existence judging his devise and judging him in the context of his father’s unmarried term being of the kind which president.

“The verisimilitude is that the father will have being looked upon as a steadier hand and better prepared for the job,” said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas professor of powers that be who specializes in the presidency.

Cal Jillson, a political-science professor at Southern Methodist University, called the senior Bush “dramatically greater amount of accomplished” on foreign and family policy than his son. Still, he said, “They are in fact going to be doing chin-ups attached the bottom tier of presidents in late history.”

Son had big plans

George W. Bush set out to be a far divergent president from his father. The current president wanted his time in office to exist of consequence. He wanted to spend political capital on matters that would endure, something he thought his father did not do after the Gulf War.

“It was an aspect of his personal criticism and this clearly detailed intent that if he was to go to the White House, he wanted to do something,” Slater said. “He was not going to be someone who would just be seen as a place holder.”

Despite the younger Bush’s cold-eyed assessment of his father’s presidency, as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but have before-mentioned recently that it was more grievous to see the other criticized.

“It’s been tough on his father and his mother,” George H.W. Bush told “Fox News Sunday.” “We’re not very good sports in all parts of sitting around and hearing him get hammered, I think, unfairly.

“Now there are some things that fairly he deserved criticism for, but I think the idea that everything that’session a problem in this country should be put on his shoulders, I don’t take it that’s fair.”

In each interview with ABC News, George W. Bush said: “One of the things I learned during his presidency is being the son of the president is a lot tougher than being the president. … I intermediate, it is really agonizing to desire somebody you truly love get banged around in the political process.”

But despite his love and affection for his father, George W. Bush also believed there were important problems with his father’s conduct.

“He felt like his father relied on a lot of the Washington domestic arrangements and people who did not necessarily have his interest at will,” said Charles Black Jr., a longtime Republican strategist. “He developed an attitude of anti-lobbyist and anti-Republicans who have been around for years and years and years and worked in other administrations.”

Bush took office in 2001 with a coterie of Texas loyalists suspicious of Washington players. He wanted better communication restrain in the White House and members of his Cabinet kept on a shorter leash.

He wanted to keep away from what he considered the unfair label that plagued his father on a cover of Newsweek: “The son came in thinking he was going to avoid being considered a wimp and he would exist forward-leaning, he would be tough — both in regard to foreign policy and the economy,” Jillson said.

Still, his allotted period in the White House didn’t turn out as planned, thanks in part to events outside his control, such as the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina.

“I remember sitting in his office in Austin in the summer of 1998 and he said, ‘If I motion, here’session the six things I’m going to swindle,’ ” Black recalled. “And they were the six things he ran on in the whole 2000 campaign. He got some of them done, but not the least portion of them ended up having the priority of fighting the war on terror and homeland security.”

No agenda, loyalists say

Bush loyalists often dismiss talk of the younger president’s motivations in regard to his father as pop psychology without any basis in matter of fact.

“I don’familiarily presume the current president ever went into an issue or made a decision and based that decision on having to subsist different than his venerable man. That’s psychobabble in my mind,” before-mentioned Ron Kaufman, George H.W. Bush’s civil director. “He didn’t run to alleviate or revenge his father. He didn’t go after Saddam Hussein for the cause that of any attack on his adopt.”

The family’s political devise also may not be complete with the retirement of the 43rd president Tuesday.

George H.W. Bush recently suggested publicly that Jeb Bush, constructer governor of Florida, would make a good president, except his son opted out of running against an open Senate fix last week and appears to be shuttering his political ambitions altogether.

“Right now is probably a bad adapt to the occasion for we’ve had plenty Bushes in there,” the elder president acknowledged during his “Fox News Sunday” interview.

Still, there’s always Jeb’s son, George, 32, viewed by his family as a potential candidate for civic office in the years to come.

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OLYMPIA — Gov. Chris Gregoire upon Wednesday proposed tapping the state’sitting $4 billion unemployment rely on fund to give a temporary tax cut for businesses, as well as a temporary boost in benefits to laid-off workers.

The governor mentioned the proposition during her inaugural art after being sworn in as governor for her second term. Details be pleased be released today without ceasing that idea and others in a jobs package that Gregoire says could create 20,000 jobs over two years.

The proposal calls for taking $400 million from the deposit fund and using half the money to beef up benefits for idle workers. The other half would aid businesses by reducing the substance of money they hire into the fund.

The executive told lawmakers that there’sitting a financial storm over Washington state, “and it’s raining buckets of hardship for families and businesses.”

The state’session job, she uttered, “is to help families and businesses survive at a time when they are forced to juggle bills and cut back spending.”

The Association of Washington Business (AWB), however, was quick to oppose the idea.

“Our state is exceedingly fortunate right now to have this flush unemployment trust fund,” said Don Brunell, president of the AWB. “Just since the fund is full, we can’t keep looking at nibbling away at it. We slip on’t want to meet with it get to the trifling concern where in that place is not only a lot greater amount of people doing nothing but that the employer has to pay more for unemployment taxes.”

He said the AWB opposes Gregoire’s tender because if lawmakers keep pulling money revealed of the fund, businesses might have to pay more taxes down the road to distend the account back up.

Under the proposal, workers would receive a $45-a-week boost in benefits on average. The average person last year received a $350 unemployment check harvested land week. The largest check someone could permit currently is $541 a week. Workers must earn $4,700 or more per month to equip for the maximum amount.

The fund can support to provide relief to workers and business, according to Gregoire, adding that the state “has the healthiest unemployment trust fund in the fatherland.”

Nearly three dozen states are scrambling during treaty money to atone for their depleted, or nearly empty, unemployment-insurance systems, before-mentioned Sheryl Hutchison, spokeswoman for the Washington employment-security department.

Hutchinson reported Washington has the nation’session largest unemployment-benefits money and could safely be drawn down. She said the federal government recommends that states only have 12 months of benefits stored in the case of a “significant recession.” Washington has enough to pay for 20 months of unemployment assistance.

“It’s not an invulnerable fund, (but) we do believe we can draw it down a bit without damaging our ability to pay benefits,” Hutchinson said, adding that her intervention had been in operation by Gregoire’s office upon the stimulus plan.

Gregoire isn’t the only lawmaker eyeing the unemployment confide in fund. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats revealed their proposed economic-stimulus package, which would tap the fund to pay for the retraining of unemployed or underemployed workers.

In her speech to lawmakers, Gregoire also declared she would provide details later without ceasing a “proposal to hold families in their homes. … I’m asking you to approve legislation to help struggling homeowners work in a puzzle ways to avoid foreclosure.”

In addition to those proposals, Gregoire talked of reforming state government.

“State government has evolved — layer upon layer — … however too much of what served the people well in 1940 or 1960 or 1990 does not serve the people well in the 21st century,” she said. “Let’session remove up to the challenge by reason of the population who sent us here.”

For example, she said, “almost 40 percent of license tabs are renewed online, economical hassles and gas. We be possible to close 26 licensing offices across the declare as long as extending hours at the 10 most popular locations.”

Democrats approved of her words.

“You know she’s offered specific ideas and she’s offered the Legislature a challenge to … serve our neighbors one at a time and do whatever we can, because I just don’t think I’ve ever seen anything considerably approve this,” said House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam.

However, Senate Republican Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, criticized Gregoire for not focusing on ways to keep trifling businesses afloat during the economic crisis.

Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, Clark County, said he disagreed with the scheme to draw riches from the unemployment trust fund to pay in spite of relief programs.

“A lot of the sort of we’re trying to do is spend money,” Zarelli said. “Anytime we take one-time money is pushing forward and growing the inevitable.”

Andrew Garber: 360-236-8268 or agarber@seattletimes.

Jennifer Sullivan: 360-236-8267 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times reporter Chantal Anderson contributed to this story.