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The market more than doubled since 2005. An increase in the city budget from $5.3b to $9b is not that impressive in that context. They would get that if they si
by soyiuz 11y ago
The market more than doubled since 2005. An increase in the city budget from $5.3b to $9b is not that impressive in that context. They would get that if they simply held an unmanaged index fund. You would expect more growth in the bay area and better redistribution of the tax revenue.
Mismanagement of public funds is bad, agreed.
- khuey 11y agoThe city budget is a yearly flow of cash. You can't directly compare that to equity markets, when equity pricing is at its simplest the discounted future cash flow for eternity.
- soyiuz 11y agoGood point. Still, the city budget is in some sense tied to the market. The unemployment rate almost halved since 2010. Per capita income almost doubled since 2000. Apple revenues alone tripled in the last five years. You'd expect the local municipalities to cash in on the taxes.
- wbl 11y agoCities can't impose local income taxes as it is politically difficult.. Prop 13 means they can't get money from increases in rents, and they don't want to build more anyway. As a result cities don't see the gains from booms in the way they would in other regions of the country.