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San Francisco's solution to everything seems to be to just keep raising taxes, and throwing money at things which don't work. At some point you have to realize

San Francisco's solution to everything seems to be to just keep raising taxes, and throwing money at things which don't work. At some point you have to realize that more money isn't always the solution, you actually have to fix your beurocracy. It's insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy population can't figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? Or get some form of functioning public transit? Pretty pathetic.

burlesona 6y ago
It's much harder to repeal laws, remove committees, stop wasteful procedures etc. than it is to introduce those things. This is a big problem at all levels of government, but particularly in California where the voters can (and do) directly create policies and programs via propositions. If we were half as good at removing unhelpful laws and programs as we were at creating them, we'd all be a lot happier.
dheera 6y ago
> a small city with an incredibly wealthy population can't figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? The wealthy people avoid walking through the Tenderloin. They spend their time in the Battery and the Modernist. They have no incentive to fix the situation there. None. Zero. This isn't Europe where wealthy people enjoy a stroll downtown, and have some incentive to want to keep their downtown nice. The wealthy people in SF just go to Napa and take their stroll in a vineyard over there instead. > Or get some form of functioning public transit? The wealthy people don't use public transit, they just drive everywhere or Uber everywhere. Again, they have zero incentive. To be clear, I really want these issues to be fixed, just stating the facts of the situation.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  It is understandable that you want these issues fixed. But do you think those who don’t use these services should be burdened with the cost of fixing them? In Europe, social costs are borne by the middle class to provide a safety net for the middle class. In the USA, we expect the wealthy to provide for all of society. It is highly irrational.
  - dheera 6y ago
    > But do you think those who don’t use these services should be burdened with the cost of fixing them? Yes. In /most/ cases, the wealthy are only wealthy because they have (directly or indirectly) profited from the middle class. The wealthy should be paying a fair share of taxes in return, for upkeep of the public services the middle class use, and which the wealthy are perfectly entitled to also use. The middle class should pay their fair share of taxes as well, of course, but for the most part, they do. They pay less taxes than the wealthy, because a significant fraction of their income does go toward basic necessities, whereas for the wealthy, basic necessities is a negligible fraction of income.
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      The middle classes are getting goods and services in return. The jobs for the middle class is also being provided by the big companies. Thereby creating a tax base for a govt whose only job is to maintain law and order, build infrastructure and maintain public utilities while conducting fair elections. But we see so much bloat that they can’t ever get out of a deficit. That only keeps growing. A hungry maw that never shuts without ever solving any problem. If 350 million dollars spent over 12 months can’t solve homelessness in SF. How much will it take? 600 million? 1 billion? 1.5 billion? What’s that “magic” number?
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      In a capitalist economy, we create Capital. It is capital that funds industry. You can’t take capital and make it spending money. What do you think the wealthy spend their money on other than ‘basic necessities’? Why would anyone be wealthy and only spend on basic necessities? They spend on luxury. They spend on high living and expensive things. So there are resorts. And staff that work in resorts. There are sports cars and people who work in those factories and mechanics who specialize in fixing them. There are private planes. And so pilots, stewardess, fancy cheese plates and catering services. If the wealthy aren’t allowed to be wealthy, we won’t have a whole swath of jobs. If we want a healthy middle class, we should stop guilting the wealthy. We should allow them to spend their millions. It’s their money. Let’s hope and pray that they spend it and spend it well and spend it in all the stupid and obscene and wasteful ways. Because that would create a healthy working middle class. Just allow CA zillionaires BE zilloinaires and watch the job markets flourish. Equality doesn’t mean everyone is equal, it simply means that everyone in their category is equal to each other. If we had economic equality for all, we’d be Cuba, not CA. Instead of punishing the wealthy with higher taxes that go into Big Govt’s Maw, if we let them actually spend it...we’d have more circulation of money in the economy. Inequality of wealth occurs because there isn’t enough circulation.
trentnix 6y ago
Government is a beast whose appetite is never satiated. Such is the consequence of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.
rcpt 6y ago
Luckily a San Franciscan figured it all out over one hundred years ago so we don't have to wonder about this: > THE GREAT PROBLEM IS SOLVED. We are able to explain social phenomena that have appalled philanthropists and perplexed statesmen all over the civilized world. We have found the reason why wages constantly tend to a minimum, giving but a bare living, despite increase in productive power: > As productive power increases, rent tends to increase even more — constantly forcing down wages. > Advancing civilization tends to increase the power of human labor to satisfy human desires. We should be able to eliminate poverty. But workers cannot reap these benefits because they are intercepted. Land is necessary to labor. When it has been reduced to private ownership, the increased productivity of labor only increases rent. Thus, all the advantages of progress go to those who own land. Wages do not increase — wages cannot increase. The more labor produces, the more it must pay for the opportunity to make anything at all. A land value tax fixes our problems but Californians went and voted in Prop 13 which is about as far from that as you can get. http://www.henrygeorge.org/pchp23.htm http://www.henrygeorge.org/pchp23.htm
- huevosabio 6y ago
  Everyone works but the empty lot. I was not aware that Henry George was from San Francisco.
  - LVTfan 6y ago
    HG was born in Philadelphia (1839); arrived in San Francisco by 1860 or so, and lived in California until early 1880. He wrote "Our Land and Land Policy" and "Progress and Poverty" during that period, as well as owning and editing the SF Daily Evening Post for 4 years between those books. He then moved to NYC, where he lived until his death in 1897. For an introduction to his ideas, see wealthandwant.com. For more contemporary references, see https://schalkenbach.org/introductionto-the-ideas-ofhenry-george/ https://schalkenbach.org/introductionto-the-ideas-ofhenry-ge... and that entire site.
- ponker 6y ago
  Most visible in restaurants. They came in and made a dangerous neighborhood a trendy hotspot and then got booted out because VC and law firms outbid them on rent.
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
Big Govt thrives on bloat. All unionized public sector employees rely on unfunded pension liabilities after their retirement. To continue with the pyramid scheme, you need more people to keep voting tax increases. That group is cultivated in public schools from when they are kids and then with social programs for the youth. If we socialize education and then young people and then the middle aged who can’t find affordable homes and yet need to be home owners and then the retired public sector community. And then special groups. Who is left? I guess the ones who are actually paying more into the system than they are taking out. It’s like the oxen that plows an entire field with the poor farmer whipping it’s hide. Why not? All the jobs out there except a handful are fluff jobs with no real production value. Yes, I am glad someone is making my latte at Starbucks but at the end of the day, I am also paying for that. To maintain jobs so that everyone can be employed. As the pandemic proved, we can do without Starbucks. The value of most of the non productive job is to provide the public a wage so they can be consumers to purchase from the producers. Like smart phones. Or a car. See the pattern? So all this cultivated vote base need to be cared for and fed. This is when you bleed the tiny tech community by injecting them with guilt and self loathing for being b productive and wealthy. This is usually done with clickbaitey articles and outrage porn publishing farms and social justice yellers. Now you have a large vote bank that will keep voting yes to taxing the tiny little taxable sector(many of whom probably don’t even vote if tech employees come as immigrants and are not voting citizens). San Francisco keeps throwing money at problems that don’t get solved because it’s not their money. When there are 12 people in the room and the vote is yes or no for taxing just the top two wage earners in the group, why should it be surprising that it’s at least 10-12 for YES on taxation.
- reverend_gonzo 6y ago
  Jesus. There is a lot of elitism embedded in here. For one, you’re not paying the Starbucks employee so they can be consumers out of the goodness of your heart. They’re charging what you’ll pay because that is capitalism. If you don’t want to pay the Starbucks employee, you don’t have to. You can go brew your own coffee, but you probably figure $2 isn’t worth your time so instead you’d rather just pay them for the convenience. The other great thing about all this is if you don’t like how San Francisco wants to tax you, you can leave. And it’s not even like leaving the country or even leaving the state. You don’t actually even lost anything of substance.
closeparen 6y ago
As upper-middle-class professionals we tend to assume that city institutions are here to serve us, and that the things we find unpleasant must be failures. The ability to pitch a tent almost anywhere, free from police harassment, is pretty great if you’re homeless. Likewise the public transit system is pretty great if you’re a transit worker, or someone who wants an indoor third space but whose appearance/behavior/smell would tend to get you thrown out of Starbucks, or if your best alternative is to walk. San Francisco isn’t failing. It just values these people and their needs a lot more than it values the comfort and convenience of tech workers. If you don’t like it, vote for a moderate instead of a progressive in your next BoS election.
- danans 6y ago
  > Likewise the public transit system is pretty great if you’re a transit worker, or someone who wants an indoor third space but whose appearance/behavior/smell would tend to get you thrown out of Starbucks, or if your best alternative is to walk. A public transit system is a huge advantage for upper middle class professionals, and even more so when them homeless are housed. This can be seen in developed countries that have good public transit systems.
primitivesuave 6y ago
I used to live in the Tenderloin in 2013 and it has actually improved a lot since marijuana was legalized and public restrooms added in - back then, there was a guy on every street corner trying to sell you something, and certain alleyways/corners where there was daily cleaning for piles of human waste. It's become much less dangerous but still quite depressing to walk through. I started talking to people living on the streets and my opinion is that the problem can't be fixed by throwing money at it. Some people don't want to get free treatment, a shelter bed, or transitionary housing because of drug addiction, mental illness, a dog who can't accompany them, etc. A lot of them travel to SF because of how much we spend on homeless people, and it used to be pretty common to find people reselling food bank donations on the street for a fraction of grocery-store prices. If it was up to me, I would tell people that they either need to accept help to get back on their feet (I've witnessed the Homeless Outreach Team doing great work) or leave the city. However, espousing a "get tough on homelessness" attitude would be vilified by our political climate, so it won't ever be up to me.
- rriepe 6y ago
  I'll vote for you. Setting up a welfare magnet for the homeless in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country is cruelty, not compassion.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - hevelvarik 6y ago
    Excellent point
  - primitivesuave 6y ago
    If I ever campaign for something you'll know it's me after recognizing that cruelty/compassion line ;)
- subsubzero 6y ago
  > "get tough on homelessness" attitude would be vilified by our political climate, so it won't ever be up to me. You and me both, the solution is really straightforward. I feel like homeless in general falls into 4 camps: camp 1 - drug addiction, this one would be to get people off the streets, Open rehab clinics, get them clean, and back into a functioning society. camp 2 - mental illness, This one would be opening mental institutions(Reagan closed these in the 70's which led to our current culture of homelessness in alot of large california cities). Money would go towards either medication to get people in a functioning state or full time commitment based on severity. camp 3 - Those down on their luck, this one would be the easiest as job skills could be taught along with temporary free housing and counselors to ease the individual back into a job, once a job is found a stipend towards rent can be given until the person is fully independent again. camp 4 - Those that want to stay homeless. This is the most difficult group to deal with, and having them escorted out of the city would most likely be the only solution.
jm_l 6y ago
I think this is a common line of thinking that doesn't actually reflect the reality of how much the city is spending per year. SF's spending in 2019 was 12b dollars (roughly $12,000 per resident). Of that, 1.6b went to MTA ($1600 per resident, or 13% of total spending) and 360m went to addressing homelessness ($360 per resident, or 3% of total spending) Comparatively, SF's GDP was 500b (500,000 per resident). To conclude that we're spending all our money on this and getting no results seems wrong when we're spending so little of our budget, and our budget is so little comparatively to the economic activity. *(these numbers are from http://openbook.sfgov.org/portalpagehelp.html#sfopenbook http://openbook.sfgov.org/portalpagehelp.html#sfopenbook 2019 spending)
- primitivesuave 6y ago
  One number you're missing there is the total homeless population estimated in 2019 to be around 8000 people [1], which works out to around $45k per homeless resident. 1. https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDReport_SanFrancisco_FinalDraft-1.pdf https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep...
  - jm_l 6y ago
    Yes the point-in-time count is 8000, but a lot of homelessness services go to preventing people who are on the edge of homelessness. If you use the estimate here (https://sf.curbed.com/2019/11/20/20973811/sf-homeless-count-department-public-health-san-francisco https://sf.curbed.com/2019/11/20/20973811/sf-homeless-count-...) that 18,000 people are homeless at some time in a given year then the figure goes down to 20,000 per homeless. Also consider that an additional estimated 9,500 each year would be homeless if not for SF's existing supportive housing services (https://sf.curbed.com/2020/3/4/21152501/san-francisco-homeless-nhip-count-supportive-housing https://sf.curbed.com/2020/3/4/21152501/san-francisco-homele...) Plus people being evicted. In 2019 there were 1600 eviction notices (https://sfrb.org/sites/default/files/Document/Statistics/18-19%20Annual%20Eviction%20Report.pdf https://sfrb.org/sites/default/files/Document/Statistics/18-...). If we assume that even just 25% of those are 4-person families, that's bringing us to around 10k a year per homeless/at-risk resident (and that's not even counting those who are at-risk of eviction but did not get evicted thanks to SF's existing eviction prevention resources.
ponker 6y ago
Part of the problem is the rich people don’t use the city services the way they do in New York. City services serve the underclass and the professional class uses private vendors.
victor106 6y ago
I agree. And also in general I am not sure if it makes sense to tax millionaires or billionaires at the city or state. They'll just move some place else. Just ask New York[1]. After NY imposed a tax on the uber rich. All of them moved to Miami and maintain two residences. One in NYC and one in Florida. IF you tax its best to do it at the country level https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/nyregion/wealth-tax-budget-billionaires.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/nyregion/wealth-tax-budge...
- LVTfan 6y ago
  If instead of taxing wages, we collect the rental value of the land on which their residences and businesses are located, it is highly unlikely that the land will leave town.
- flaque 6y ago
  This isn’t a tax on the CEO’s individually, it’s a tax on the businesses that have high paid CEOs.
lesdeuxmagots 6y ago
An institution can both grow revenues and increase efficiency at the same time. The ideal solution to being more efficient is also usually not by cutting budgets. Fixing policy issues especially doesn’t come from changing budgets.
ransom1538 6y ago
"It's insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy population can't figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? Or get some form of functioning public transit? Pretty pathetic." SF resident for 15 years until I left. I walked around and talked to homeless. From the dozens I have talked with: 1. They are not from SF. 2. They were homeless somewhere else and it sucked. 3. Pan handling cash is easy. $100+ a day. 4. The SF programs kick ass. Suboxone clinics, Free cell phones, free bus passes, monthly stipends $$, even occasional housing 5. The police do not hassle much, you can shoot up on the street no problem. It is a system designed to create more homelessness.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  well, a system designed to attract the homeless to sf anyway
- smsm42 6y ago
  So we have: 1. A lot of rich residents and rich companies which supply the city budget with sweet sweet tax money 2. A lot of programs and NGOs that draw large budgets to helping the homeless 3. Political climate that encourages spending money on helping the homeless without requiring anything from them, basically free money 4. Generous programs providing various freebies for homeless people, and no consequences for any behavior short of major robbery (yes, shoplifting is allowed too unless it's over $900) 5. Mild weather that makes living on the street possible year around And we're wondering why homelessness has not disappeared? There's nobody that is interested in it disappearing, that's why. Well, at least nobody whose opinion matters, anyway. There's a lot of people interested in allocating and spending budgets on fighting homelessness, these aren't people interested in doing something that will make it stop once and for all.
  - runarberg 6y ago
    I downvoted this because as someone that has been what many consider homeless in San Francisco, I am a little insulted by this attitude. It comes across as someone that has never lived this life claiming that it is a good life and generalizing over the homeless population as freebies and criminals. If there exists a complicated social problem that involves thousands of human beings and someone on the internet claims to have an explanation for it in 10 paragraphs or less, that explanation is probably overly simplistic.
runarberg 6y ago
I for one is not content with my city having enough money to build and maintain expensive infrastructure. I care more about living in an equal society where the rich don’t constantly dunk on the less fortunate, where the rich don’t hold disproportionate power and are frequently causing issues that disproportional effect people like me. I want to tax the hell out of the rich, not just to get money to manage our shared spaces, but also to take their money away from them. In my eyes they don’t deserve this money. Me and my fellow laborers worked for that money, but they get to keep it. For me this is unfair, and unjust. In my perfect world the rich would not only pay marginally higher taxes, but they would pay most of their income in taxes. A person making a million a month should receive less after taxes then a person that makes a thousand. That for me is a fair economy. And that is the reason why I—and many like me—want to see the tax rate of rich CEO raised to 100%.
- Infinitesimus 6y ago
  How much will you be willing to see your tax rate go up?
  - runarberg 6y ago
    If I make the mean wage I wouldn’t mind seeing it go to 50%, provided that if someone that makes one standard deviation above the mean wage go up to 73.1058579%. I hope you see which taxation function I prefer from this ;)
    - haxney 6y ago
      You can always pay more in "taxes" if you want. The government is not going to refuse your money. If you want to donate money to the city and county of San Francisco, go here: http://sfgov.org/give2sf http://sfgov.org/give2sf
      - runarberg 6y ago
        To reiterate: “I want to tax the hell out of the rich, not just to get money to manage our shared spaces, but also to take their money away from them”
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
acadien 6y ago
"Just solve homelessness" - GhostVII Why didn't we think of that?! Thanks GhostVII we'll get right on that.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
digitaltrees 6y ago
Who buys products when 1% of the population has most of the resources? Henry Ford was a capitalist, be he recognized that production required buyers. Buyers need money. Income inequality concentrates that money. I am excited to see a new generation of corporate leaders rediscover stakeholder capitalism and reject shareholder primacy. Pay employees more, reduce leadership pay and watch markets expand as a result.
rorykoehler 6y ago
It's this way because American individualism is a cult of selfishness. People are dogmatic when they need to be logical.
nvader 6y ago
Once, there was a French city planning department that couldn't decide what to do with all the fresh water that they had. So they voted to BURy the WATER, which was CRAzy. Bur + eau + cracy
forgotmypw17 6y ago
I once spoke with a woman who grew up in SF, and she told me about a warming shelter they spent a lot of money building for outdoors people. Once the money was spent, the building developed a crack, was closed down and never repaired or reopened...
joemazerino 6y ago
I pay more in taxes than most of my friends and SF has little to show for it. How many times does one have to call 311 to have garbage cleaned up or a disturbance investigated?
qgrgergfqgfev 6y ago
I keep hearing this, but I live in SF and I never felt that the taxes were that annoying, and considering the misery in the streets I'd be willing to pay much much more for things to improve. People need to see taxes as a monthly subscription that makes life around you better
mola 6y ago
Why is homeless people in the tenderloin so bad? Is there a safety issue? Do they Rob or murder? (Genuinely asking) If not, than why is it so bad? Because you don't like seeing the poor? I mean sure people forced to homelessness is a problem from their view point. This is usually related to their upbringing and could be avoided if you have a strong welfare state that don't let children grow in crappy situations with bad education and poverty, with a sense of security in the future. When you don't have that, most of the time, you'll grow up and be homeless, or your kids will be. But the homeless of today are just a symptom of deep rooted problems, throwning money on taking care of them now won't make them disappear.
- smilekzs 6y ago
  > Do they Rob or murder? Yes they do. Have you ever parked on the streets of SF?
ponker 6y ago
Have you considered that the non-homeowner population might be voting for policies that increase the tent cities and open drug use, in the hopes of making the city unlivable for the rich and getting them to flee and put their properties on the market?
socmedia99 6y ago
This isn’t rocket science. When taxes were high American Main Street did well. What’s pathetic is social media’s projecting ignorance and air gapped criticism. I see little to no alternative options offered, despite all the economic huff and puff and engineering wisdom supposedly possessed by that community. Same banal political speak. A little less “Monday Morning quarterback” and a bit more connection to facts would be great. America is a bit into sitting on its butt complaining at the screen though. IMO that’s the real credibility issue in this nation; so called exceptional, gritty people sitting around complaining about systems from afar. You think they can’t figure it out? Or do you think more people are pushing protectionism of their luxury. Portugal showed us how to deal with a number is drug issues. Where are the sustainable programs? Mired in American identity of absolute free choice, despite a heavily gerrymandered electorate.
- mlrtime 6y ago
  How come the residents of CA voted to legalize drug use?
  - socmedia99 6y ago
    Years after other states and nations. Exceptional. Gritty. Mercia.

burlesona 6y ago

It's much harder to repeal laws, remove committees, stop wasteful procedures etc. than it is to introduce those things. This is a big problem at all levels of government, but particularly in California where the voters can (and do) directly create policies and programs via propositions. If we were half as good at removing unhelpful laws and programs as we were at creating them, we'd all be a lot happier.

dheera 6y ago

> a small city with an incredibly wealthy population can't figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? The wealthy people avoid walking through the Tenderloin. They spend their time in the Battery and the Modernist. They have no incentive to fix the situation there. None. Zero. This isn't Europe where wealthy people enjoy a stroll downtown, and have some incentive to want to keep their downtown nice. The wealthy people in SF just go to Napa and take their stroll in a vineyard over there instead. > Or get some form of functioning public transit? The wealthy people don't use public transit, they just drive everywhere or Uber everywhere. Again, they have zero incentive. To be clear, I really want these issues to be fixed, just stating the facts of the situation.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
It is understandable that you want these issues fixed. But do you think those who don’t use these services should be burdened with the cost of fixing them? In Europe, social costs are borne by the middle class to provide a safety net for the middle class. In the USA, we expect the wealthy to provide for all of society. It is highly irrational.
- dheera 6y ago
  > But do you think those who don’t use these services should be burdened with the cost of fixing them? Yes. In /most/ cases, the wealthy are only wealthy because they have (directly or indirectly) profited from the middle class. The wealthy should be paying a fair share of taxes in return, for upkeep of the public services the middle class use, and which the wealthy are perfectly entitled to also use. The middle class should pay their fair share of taxes as well, of course, but for the most part, they do. They pay less taxes than the wealthy, because a significant fraction of their income does go toward basic necessities, whereas for the wealthy, basic necessities is a negligible fraction of income.
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    The middle classes are getting goods and services in return. The jobs for the middle class is also being provided by the big companies. Thereby creating a tax base for a govt whose only job is to maintain law and order, build infrastructure and maintain public utilities while conducting fair elections. But we see so much bloat that they can’t ever get out of a deficit. That only keeps growing. A hungry maw that never shuts without ever solving any problem. If 350 million dollars spent over 12 months can’t solve homelessness in SF. How much will it take? 600 million? 1 billion? 1.5 billion? What’s that “magic” number?
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    In a capitalist economy, we create Capital. It is capital that funds industry. You can’t take capital and make it spending money. What do you think the wealthy spend their money on other than ‘basic necessities’? Why would anyone be wealthy and only spend on basic necessities? They spend on luxury. They spend on high living and expensive things. So there are resorts. And staff that work in resorts. There are sports cars and people who work in those factories and mechanics who specialize in fixing them. There are private planes. And so pilots, stewardess, fancy cheese plates and catering services. If the wealthy aren’t allowed to be wealthy, we won’t have a whole swath of jobs. If we want a healthy middle class, we should stop guilting the wealthy. We should allow them to spend their millions. It’s their money. Let’s hope and pray that they spend it and spend it well and spend it in all the stupid and obscene and wasteful ways. Because that would create a healthy working middle class. Just allow CA zillionaires BE zilloinaires and watch the job markets flourish. Equality doesn’t mean everyone is equal, it simply means that everyone in their category is equal to each other. If we had economic equality for all, we’d be Cuba, not CA. Instead of punishing the wealthy with higher taxes that go into Big Govt’s Maw, if we let them actually spend it...we’d have more circulation of money in the economy. Inequality of wealth occurs because there isn’t enough circulation.

trentnix 6y ago

Government is a beast whose appetite is never satiated. Such is the consequence of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

rcpt 6y ago

Luckily a San Franciscan figured it all out over one hundred years ago so we don't have to wonder about this: > THE GREAT PROBLEM IS SOLVED. We are able to explain social phenomena that have appalled philanthropists and perplexed statesmen all over the civilized world. We have found the reason why wages constantly tend to a minimum, giving but a bare living, despite increase in productive power: > As productive power increases, rent tends to increase even more — constantly forcing down wages. > Advancing civilization tends to increase the power of human labor to satisfy human desires. We should be able to eliminate poverty. But workers cannot reap these benefits because they are intercepted. Land is necessary to labor. When it has been reduced to private ownership, the increased productivity of labor only increases rent. Thus, all the advantages of progress go to those who own land. Wages do not increase — wages cannot increase. The more labor produces, the more it must pay for the opportunity to make anything at all. A land value tax fixes our problems but Californians went and voted in Prop 13 which is about as far from that as you can get. http://www.henrygeorge.org/pchp23.htm http://www.henrygeorge.org/pchp23.htm

huevosabio 6y ago
Everyone works but the empty lot. I was not aware that Henry George was from San Francisco.
- LVTfan 6y ago
  HG was born in Philadelphia (1839); arrived in San Francisco by 1860 or so, and lived in California until early 1880. He wrote "Our Land and Land Policy" and "Progress and Poverty" during that period, as well as owning and editing the SF Daily Evening Post for 4 years between those books. He then moved to NYC, where he lived until his death in 1897. For an introduction to his ideas, see wealthandwant.com. For more contemporary references, see https://schalkenbach.org/introductionto-the-ideas-ofhenry-george/ https://schalkenbach.org/introductionto-the-ideas-ofhenry-ge... and that entire site.
ponker 6y ago
Most visible in restaurants. They came in and made a dangerous neighborhood a trendy hotspot and then got booted out because VC and law firms outbid them on rent.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago

Big Govt thrives on bloat. All unionized public sector employees rely on unfunded pension liabilities after their retirement. To continue with the pyramid scheme, you need more people to keep voting tax increases. That group is cultivated in public schools from when they are kids and then with social programs for the youth. If we socialize education and then young people and then the middle aged who can’t find affordable homes and yet need to be home owners and then the retired public sector community. And then special groups. Who is left? I guess the ones who are actually paying more into the system than they are taking out. It’s like the oxen that plows an entire field with the poor farmer whipping it’s hide. Why not? All the jobs out there except a handful are fluff jobs with no real production value. Yes, I am glad someone is making my latte at Starbucks but at the end of the day, I am also paying for that. To maintain jobs so that everyone can be employed. As the pandemic proved, we can do without Starbucks. The value of most of the non productive job is to provide the public a wage so they can be consumers to purchase from the producers. Like smart phones. Or a car. See the pattern? So all this cultivated vote base need to be cared for and fed. This is when you bleed the tiny tech community by injecting them with guilt and self loathing for being b productive and wealthy. This is usually done with clickbaitey articles and outrage porn publishing farms and social justice yellers. Now you have a large vote bank that will keep voting yes to taxing the tiny little taxable sector(many of whom probably don’t even vote if tech employees come as immigrants and are not voting citizens). San Francisco keeps throwing money at problems that don’t get solved because it’s not their money. When there are 12 people in the room and the vote is yes or no for taxing just the top two wage earners in the group, why should it be surprising that it’s at least 10-12 for YES on taxation.

reverend_gonzo 6y ago
Jesus. There is a lot of elitism embedded in here. For one, you’re not paying the Starbucks employee so they can be consumers out of the goodness of your heart. They’re charging what you’ll pay because that is capitalism. If you don’t want to pay the Starbucks employee, you don’t have to. You can go brew your own coffee, but you probably figure $2 isn’t worth your time so instead you’d rather just pay them for the convenience. The other great thing about all this is if you don’t like how San Francisco wants to tax you, you can leave. And it’s not even like leaving the country or even leaving the state. You don’t actually even lost anything of substance.

closeparen 6y ago

As upper-middle-class professionals we tend to assume that city institutions are here to serve us, and that the things we find unpleasant must be failures. The ability to pitch a tent almost anywhere, free from police harassment, is pretty great if you’re homeless. Likewise the public transit system is pretty great if you’re a transit worker, or someone who wants an indoor third space but whose appearance/behavior/smell would tend to get you thrown out of Starbucks, or if your best alternative is to walk. San Francisco isn’t failing. It just values these people and their needs a lot more than it values the comfort and convenience of tech workers. If you don’t like it, vote for a moderate instead of a progressive in your next BoS election.

danans 6y ago
> Likewise the public transit system is pretty great if you’re a transit worker, or someone who wants an indoor third space but whose appearance/behavior/smell would tend to get you thrown out of Starbucks, or if your best alternative is to walk. A public transit system is a huge advantage for upper middle class professionals, and even more so when them homeless are housed. This can be seen in developed countries that have good public transit systems.

primitivesuave 6y ago

I used to live in the Tenderloin in 2013 and it has actually improved a lot since marijuana was legalized and public restrooms added in - back then, there was a guy on every street corner trying to sell you something, and certain alleyways/corners where there was daily cleaning for piles of human waste. It's become much less dangerous but still quite depressing to walk through. I started talking to people living on the streets and my opinion is that the problem can't be fixed by throwing money at it. Some people don't want to get free treatment, a shelter bed, or transitionary housing because of drug addiction, mental illness, a dog who can't accompany them, etc. A lot of them travel to SF because of how much we spend on homeless people, and it used to be pretty common to find people reselling food bank donations on the street for a fraction of grocery-store prices. If it was up to me, I would tell people that they either need to accept help to get back on their feet (I've witnessed the Homeless Outreach Team doing great work) or leave the city. However, espousing a "get tough on homelessness" attitude would be vilified by our political climate, so it won't ever be up to me.

rriepe 6y ago
I'll vote for you. Setting up a welfare magnet for the homeless in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country is cruelty, not compassion.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hevelvarik 6y ago
  Excellent point
- primitivesuave 6y ago
  If I ever campaign for something you'll know it's me after recognizing that cruelty/compassion line ;)
subsubzero 6y ago
> "get tough on homelessness" attitude would be vilified by our political climate, so it won't ever be up to me. You and me both, the solution is really straightforward. I feel like homeless in general falls into 4 camps: camp 1 - drug addiction, this one would be to get people off the streets, Open rehab clinics, get them clean, and back into a functioning society. camp 2 - mental illness, This one would be opening mental institutions(Reagan closed these in the 70's which led to our current culture of homelessness in alot of large california cities). Money would go towards either medication to get people in a functioning state or full time commitment based on severity. camp 3 - Those down on their luck, this one would be the easiest as job skills could be taught along with temporary free housing and counselors to ease the individual back into a job, once a job is found a stipend towards rent can be given until the person is fully independent again. camp 4 - Those that want to stay homeless. This is the most difficult group to deal with, and having them escorted out of the city would most likely be the only solution.

jm_l 6y ago

I think this is a common line of thinking that doesn't actually reflect the reality of how much the city is spending per year. SF's spending in 2019 was 12b dollars (roughly $12,000 per resident). Of that, 1.6b went to MTA ($1600 per resident, or 13% of total spending) and 360m went to addressing homelessness ($360 per resident, or 3% of total spending) Comparatively, SF's GDP was 500b (500,000 per resident). To conclude that we're spending all our money on this and getting no results seems wrong when we're spending so little of our budget, and our budget is so little comparatively to the economic activity. *(these numbers are from http://openbook.sfgov.org/portalpagehelp.html#sfopenbook http://openbook.sfgov.org/portalpagehelp.html#sfopenbook 2019 spending)

primitivesuave 6y ago
One number you're missing there is the total homeless population estimated in 2019 to be around 8000 people [1], which works out to around $45k per homeless resident. 1. https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDReport_SanFrancisco_FinalDraft-1.pdf https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep...
- jm_l 6y ago
  Yes the point-in-time count is 8000, but a lot of homelessness services go to preventing people who are on the edge of homelessness. If you use the estimate here (https://sf.curbed.com/2019/11/20/20973811/sf-homeless-count-department-public-health-san-francisco https://sf.curbed.com/2019/11/20/20973811/sf-homeless-count-...) that 18,000 people are homeless at some time in a given year then the figure goes down to 20,000 per homeless. Also consider that an additional estimated 9,500 each year would be homeless if not for SF's existing supportive housing services (https://sf.curbed.com/2020/3/4/21152501/san-francisco-homeless-nhip-count-supportive-housing https://sf.curbed.com/2020/3/4/21152501/san-francisco-homele...) Plus people being evicted. In 2019 there were 1600 eviction notices (https://sfrb.org/sites/default/files/Document/Statistics/18-19%20Annual%20Eviction%20Report.pdf https://sfrb.org/sites/default/files/Document/Statistics/18-...). If we assume that even just 25% of those are 4-person families, that's bringing us to around 10k a year per homeless/at-risk resident (and that's not even counting those who are at-risk of eviction but did not get evicted thanks to SF's existing eviction prevention resources.

ponker 6y ago

Part of the problem is the rich people don’t use the city services the way they do in New York. City services serve the underclass and the professional class uses private vendors.

victor106 6y ago

I agree. And also in general I am not sure if it makes sense to tax millionaires or billionaires at the city or state. They'll just move some place else. Just ask New York[1]. After NY imposed a tax on the uber rich. All of them moved to Miami and maintain two residences. One in NYC and one in Florida. IF you tax its best to do it at the country level https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/nyregion/wealth-tax-budget-billionaires.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/07/nyregion/wealth-tax-budge...

LVTfan 6y ago
If instead of taxing wages, we collect the rental value of the land on which their residences and businesses are located, it is highly unlikely that the land will leave town.
flaque 6y ago
This isn’t a tax on the CEO’s individually, it’s a tax on the businesses that have high paid CEOs.

lesdeuxmagots 6y ago

An institution can both grow revenues and increase efficiency at the same time. The ideal solution to being more efficient is also usually not by cutting budgets. Fixing policy issues especially doesn’t come from changing budgets.

ransom1538 6y ago

"It's insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy population can't figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? Or get some form of functioning public transit? Pretty pathetic." SF resident for 15 years until I left. I walked around and talked to homeless. From the dozens I have talked with: 1. They are not from SF. 2. They were homeless somewhere else and it sucked. 3. Pan handling cash is easy. $100+ a day. 4. The SF programs kick ass. Suboxone clinics, Free cell phones, free bus passes, monthly stipends $$, even occasional housing 5. The police do not hassle much, you can shoot up on the street no problem. It is a system designed to create more homelessness.

gameswithgo 6y ago
well, a system designed to attract the homeless to sf anyway
smsm42 6y ago
So we have: 1. A lot of rich residents and rich companies which supply the city budget with sweet sweet tax money 2. A lot of programs and NGOs that draw large budgets to helping the homeless 3. Political climate that encourages spending money on helping the homeless without requiring anything from them, basically free money 4. Generous programs providing various freebies for homeless people, and no consequences for any behavior short of major robbery (yes, shoplifting is allowed too unless it's over $900) 5. Mild weather that makes living on the street possible year around And we're wondering why homelessness has not disappeared? There's nobody that is interested in it disappearing, that's why. Well, at least nobody whose opinion matters, anyway. There's a lot of people interested in allocating and spending budgets on fighting homelessness, these aren't people interested in doing something that will make it stop once and for all.
- runarberg 6y ago
  I downvoted this because as someone that has been what many consider homeless in San Francisco, I am a little insulted by this attitude. It comes across as someone that has never lived this life claiming that it is a good life and generalizing over the homeless population as freebies and criminals. If there exists a complicated social problem that involves thousands of human beings and someone on the internet claims to have an explanation for it in 10 paragraphs or less, that explanation is probably overly simplistic.

runarberg 6y ago

I for one is not content with my city having enough money to build and maintain expensive infrastructure. I care more about living in an equal society where the rich don’t constantly dunk on the less fortunate, where the rich don’t hold disproportionate power and are frequently causing issues that disproportional effect people like me. I want to tax the hell out of the rich, not just to get money to manage our shared spaces, but also to take their money away from them. In my eyes they don’t deserve this money. Me and my fellow laborers worked for that money, but they get to keep it. For me this is unfair, and unjust. In my perfect world the rich would not only pay marginally higher taxes, but they would pay most of their income in taxes. A person making a million a month should receive less after taxes then a person that makes a thousand. That for me is a fair economy. And that is the reason why I—and many like me—want to see the tax rate of rich CEO raised to 100%.

Infinitesimus 6y ago
How much will you be willing to see your tax rate go up?
- runarberg 6y ago
  If I make the mean wage I wouldn’t mind seeing it go to 50%, provided that if someone that makes one standard deviation above the mean wage go up to 73.1058579%. I hope you see which taxation function I prefer from this ;)
  - haxney 6y ago
    You can always pay more in "taxes" if you want. The government is not going to refuse your money. If you want to donate money to the city and county of San Francisco, go here: http://sfgov.org/give2sf http://sfgov.org/give2sf
    - runarberg 6y ago
      To reiterate: “I want to tax the hell out of the rich, not just to get money to manage our shared spaces, but also to take their money away from them”

deleted 6y ago

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acadien 6y ago

"Just solve homelessness" - GhostVII Why didn't we think of that?! Thanks GhostVII we'll get right on that.

deleted 6y ago
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digitaltrees 6y ago

Who buys products when 1% of the population has most of the resources? Henry Ford was a capitalist, be he recognized that production required buyers. Buyers need money. Income inequality concentrates that money. I am excited to see a new generation of corporate leaders rediscover stakeholder capitalism and reject shareholder primacy. Pay employees more, reduce leadership pay and watch markets expand as a result.

rorykoehler 6y ago

It's this way because American individualism is a cult of selfishness. People are dogmatic when they need to be logical.

nvader 6y ago

Once, there was a French city planning department that couldn't decide what to do with all the fresh water that they had. So they voted to BURy the WATER, which was CRAzy. Bur + eau + cracy

forgotmypw17 6y ago

I once spoke with a woman who grew up in SF, and she told me about a warming shelter they spent a lot of money building for outdoors people. Once the money was spent, the building developed a crack, was closed down and never repaired or reopened...

joemazerino 6y ago

I pay more in taxes than most of my friends and SF has little to show for it. How many times does one have to call 311 to have garbage cleaned up or a disturbance investigated?

qgrgergfqgfev 6y ago

I keep hearing this, but I live in SF and I never felt that the taxes were that annoying, and considering the misery in the streets I'd be willing to pay much much more for things to improve. People need to see taxes as a monthly subscription that makes life around you better

mola 6y ago

Why is homeless people in the tenderloin so bad? Is there a safety issue? Do they Rob or murder? (Genuinely asking) If not, than why is it so bad? Because you don't like seeing the poor? I mean sure people forced to homelessness is a problem from their view point. This is usually related to their upbringing and could be avoided if you have a strong welfare state that don't let children grow in crappy situations with bad education and poverty, with a sense of security in the future. When you don't have that, most of the time, you'll grow up and be homeless, or your kids will be. But the homeless of today are just a symptom of deep rooted problems, throwning money on taking care of them now won't make them disappear.

smilekzs 6y ago
> Do they Rob or murder? Yes they do. Have you ever parked on the streets of SF?

ponker 6y ago

Have you considered that the non-homeowner population might be voting for policies that increase the tent cities and open drug use, in the hopes of making the city unlivable for the rich and getting them to flee and put their properties on the market?

socmedia99 6y ago

This isn’t rocket science. When taxes were high American Main Street did well. What’s pathetic is social media’s projecting ignorance and air gapped criticism. I see little to no alternative options offered, despite all the economic huff and puff and engineering wisdom supposedly possessed by that community. Same banal political speak. A little less “Monday Morning quarterback” and a bit more connection to facts would be great. America is a bit into sitting on its butt complaining at the screen though. IMO that’s the real credibility issue in this nation; so called exceptional, gritty people sitting around complaining about systems from afar. You think they can’t figure it out? Or do you think more people are pushing protectionism of their luxury. Portugal showed us how to deal with a number is drug issues. Where are the sustainable programs? Mired in American identity of absolute free choice, despite a heavily gerrymandered electorate.

mlrtime 6y ago
How come the residents of CA voted to legalize drug use?
- socmedia99 6y ago
  Years after other states and nations. Exceptional. Gritty. Mercia.