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> Also slightly amusing: Jack doesn't think that this is the "best" way to solve homelessness. Whats the best way, since clearly he knows about it, and why isn'

by Kalium 8y ago

> Also slightly amusing: Jack doesn't think that this is the "best" way to solve homelessness. Whats the best way, since clearly he knows about it, and why isn't he doing it? I mean, it's pretty obvious that the best way to address homelessness involves having homes so that the most vulnerable of our friends and neighbors can stop being homeless by being in homes. This idea has given rise to an approach called Housing First. Which, by an odd twist of fate, has actually been shown to work! This being San Francisco, this is utterly impossible. Nothing makes San Francisco politics break out in furious community meetings and protests and CEQA complaints like the prospect of building things. There's nothing Jack can do about that, even with all his money. As near as I can tell, San Francisco doesn't actually want to solve this problem. Instead, it wants to feel good about how kind and compassionate its policies are without actually accepting change into the city's fabric.

rchaud 8y ago
> Jack doesn't think that this is the "best" way to solve homelessness. Whats the best way, since clearly he knows about it, and why isn't he doing it? This is by far the most irritating thing about reading CEO's "success story" profiles. It's always about going to market with the MVP, because if you wait long enough to make it perfect, the opportunity is lost to a competitor. But when it comes to tax policy, the plan has to be perfect and not annoy anyone and anything less should be rejected outright.
- Kalium 8y ago
  For my part, I think it's worth considering that how perfect a plan has to be to implement should be a function of how readily it can be adjusted to match changing requirements. An MVP SaaS product is pretty tunable. It's possible that local tax policies, particularly as mandated by and only changeable by plebiscite, might be slightly more difficult to adjust (win an election, get one chance every two years) to changing requirements or to handle undesirable effects.
  - rchaud 8y ago
    You're right, it's far from a perfect analogy. And the electoral cycle means that the tax might not be in place long enough for it to make a measurable impact. My comment was more about the way in which taxes are discussed in American political discourse; there is this implication of a rigid permanence, as though such policies can never be reversed. They absolutely can; as you pointed out, incumbents can lose to candidates who promise to repeal the tax.
    - Kalium 8y ago
      I don't know how familiar you are with Prop C (the subject here) and California governance, so please pardon me if I belabor something you already know in an effort to clarify. I'm not talking about candidates. We're literally talking about tax policy set and enacted via plebiscite. Elected officials don't get to tinker with it. As slow and complex as it is to change policies via representative democracy, it's far worse when you have to hold another plebiscite to fix glaring issues. Which has happened more than once in California political history. That's what's at hand here. Tax policy enacted via a means that elected politicians don't actually get to work with. The issue you so correctly and wisely point to is messy enough - just imagine how much worse this particular Californian mess is. For all that you're completely right about the apparently insane way tax policy is treated in American discourse, I think it might be worth considering that it could be encoded wisdom. Political attention spans tends to be short, inertia is real, and any policy creates winners who want to preserve it. Never mind questions of actually being reasonably sure about effects. With all that in mind, treating tax policy as something you might not get to reform in a reasonable timeframe might not be the silliest of ideas. There's a good chance that it might be closer to the truth than expecting a calm, collected, non-partisan, informed debate aimed at making the policy work as intended once it's been shown to be in need of improvement.

by Kalium 8y ago

rchaud 8y ago

> Jack doesn't think that this is the "best" way to solve homelessness. Whats the best way, since clearly he knows about it, and why isn't he doing it? This is by far the most irritating thing about reading CEO's "success story" profiles. It's always about going to market with the MVP, because if you wait long enough to make it perfect, the opportunity is lost to a competitor. But when it comes to tax policy, the plan has to be perfect and not annoy anyone and anything less should be rejected outright.

Kalium 8y ago
For my part, I think it's worth considering that how perfect a plan has to be to implement should be a function of how readily it can be adjusted to match changing requirements. An MVP SaaS product is pretty tunable. It's possible that local tax policies, particularly as mandated by and only changeable by plebiscite, might be slightly more difficult to adjust (win an election, get one chance every two years) to changing requirements or to handle undesirable effects.
- rchaud 8y ago
  You're right, it's far from a perfect analogy. And the electoral cycle means that the tax might not be in place long enough for it to make a measurable impact. My comment was more about the way in which taxes are discussed in American political discourse; there is this implication of a rigid permanence, as though such policies can never be reversed. They absolutely can; as you pointed out, incumbents can lose to candidates who promise to repeal the tax.
  - Kalium 8y ago
    I don't know how familiar you are with Prop C (the subject here) and California governance, so please pardon me if I belabor something you already know in an effort to clarify. I'm not talking about candidates. We're literally talking about tax policy set and enacted via plebiscite. Elected officials don't get to tinker with it. As slow and complex as it is to change policies via representative democracy, it's far worse when you have to hold another plebiscite to fix glaring issues. Which has happened more than once in California political history. That's what's at hand here. Tax policy enacted via a means that elected politicians don't actually get to work with. The issue you so correctly and wisely point to is messy enough - just imagine how much worse this particular Californian mess is. For all that you're completely right about the apparently insane way tax policy is treated in American discourse, I think it might be worth considering that it could be encoded wisdom. Political attention spans tends to be short, inertia is real, and any policy creates winners who want to preserve it. Never mind questions of actually being reasonably sure about effects. With all that in mind, treating tax policy as something you might not get to reform in a reasonable timeframe might not be the silliest of ideas. There's a good chance that it might be closer to the truth than expecting a calm, collected, non-partisan, informed debate aimed at making the policy work as intended once it's been shown to be in need of improvement.