7 ms·

Ive been in NYC 18 years (half my life now) and I truly believe it’s the greatest place on earth for me. It is however becoming harder to defend. The tax rates

Ive been in NYC 18 years (half my life now) and I truly believe it’s the greatest place on earth for me. It is however becoming harder to defend. The tax rates are out of control high, the quality of life is getting lower (subway infrastructure is disgusting; homeless out of control), apartment maintenance fees are ridiculous and it’s more dangerous than ever (while I lived here). Add to that the “you’re not paying you’re fair share attitude” which I’m definitely getting... there are days I feel like I should move our company to Florida or Texas. I can’t see myself living in a city that isn’t happy to have me.

sacomo 6y ago
NY should rescind the Stock Transfer tax rebates. They are losing out on ~$16 billion in tax revenue annually.
- jasode 6y ago
  >NY should rescind the Stock Transfer tax rebates. They are losing out on ~$16 billion in tax revenue annually. I wasn't the one that downvoted your comment but as fyi... Increasing taxes doesn't automatically mean government gets increased revenue because the economic actors affected can _change_ their behaviors to circumvent that tax. So NYC probably would not get $16 billion in extra revenue. E.g. An excerpt from an article[1] about that real life game theory playing out: >In recent weeks, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ have both discussed moving their data processing centers out of New Jersey in response to reports that New Jersey may impose a stock transfer tax. Technology has made processing trades away from New York’s physical trading floors simple, and the tax may provide incentive to shift stock transfers from one exchange to another. Nations such as Sweden and Germany experienced business relocation and diminished trading levels after enacting a stock transfer tax, subsequently leading them to repeal their taxes. EDIT reply to : >They didn't have the political power to outright abolish it. What should happen now is that rebate should be removed. Yes, you had already mentioned that proposal in your first message but your next message really didn't explain why stock owners and exchanges would simply pay the extra tax instead of changing their behavior to avoid the tax*. [1] https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/opinion/opinion/dont-bring-back-stock-transfer-tax.html#:~:text=New%20York's%20stock%20transfer%20tax,coffers%20to%20be%20later%20refunded https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/opinion/opinion/dont....
  - sacomo 6y ago
    No worries. The STT was first imposed in 1909. They started rebating it at 100% in the 80s. They didn't have the political power to outright abolish it. What should happen now is that rebate should be removed. The STT is a 0.5% sales tax on the value of stock trades, 0.1% on debt and 0.005% on derivatives.
  - Applejinx 6y ago
    This argument (real life game theory) seems to be like: "I'm taking this (goods, property, residence in a place) and I'm going to give you this (payment, lease, rent, tax) for it" "Okay. As the owner, the price of (goods, property, residence in a place) is this." "That's nice of you to think that but I'm not going to pay it. I'm giving you what I said I was going to. Maybe you should be nice, or I'll take the thing and give you even LESS for it" I think in some contexts that's called extortion, not 'game theory'. Seems like the bottom line is the question of whether the owner of a thing has any property rights over the thing through owning it. If in practical terms they are obligated to sell at whatever terms the buyer demands, they're not much of a property owner.
    - fennecfoxen 6y ago
      I have tried, but I am not able to meaningfully relate the situations described in this comment to taxes on the operation of a stock exchange. Who owns the property? Who is buying and selling it? Is the property the stock exchange? Is the state the owner of something and individuals are buying it? Is the state the buyer?
    - pc86 6y ago
      Seconding fennecfoxen's confusion on this one. Are the goods in this example NYSE's processing of data? Are you saying that, for example, the NYSE/NASDAQ should not be able to move data processing out of NJ in the event NJ implement a stock transfer tax?
    - Chris2048 6y ago
      > or I'll take the thing How does this happen? Usually the threat is getting the "thing" from somewhere else.
hahahahe 6y ago
Entitled much?
smt88 6y ago
> it’s more dangerous than ever (while I lived here) I agree that QoL in NYC is awful, but it's not "more dangerous than ever". Like in every other US city, the crime rate is near an all-time low[1]. Murders spiked during Covid, but they're still low compared to previous decades. > Add to that the “you’re not paying you’re fair share attitude” which I’m definitely getting Where do you get this attitude? I have never experienced that in the city. In fact, it's one of the places where the rich seem to be the least scrutinized, because most of them pay lip service to liberal values while still being 100,000x richer than a middle-class person living a few neighborhoods away. 1. https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/giulianis-misleading-attack-on-de-blasio-and-crime/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/giulianis-misleading-attac...
- negzero7 6y ago
  I'd be interested to see the crime stats from the last year to today - from the sentiment I've seen on social media it appears violence has been increasing since the Jul 2 your source article was posted. Add to that they slashed the police budget on Jul 1[1] I think the OP may have a valid point. -------- [1] - https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/us/new-york-budget-nypd-1-billion-cut-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/us/new-york-budget-nypd-1-bil...
  - pc86 6y ago
    10 months of increases does not negate two decades of decreases. And that's even assuming there is an increase, since "the sentiment on social media" may very well be incorrect as is the comment purporting a more dangerous NYC.
- lefstathiou 6y ago
  Re crime, the parenthetical in my OP was my sloppy attempt to clarify it’s the most dangerous it’s been while I have lived here (18 years). Re where I get the attitude, our mayor and local representatives (like AOC) have both said this. There’ve been numerous marches down 6th Ave and the West Side Highway as well.
  - 6y ago
endisneigh 6y ago
> Add to that the “you’re not paying you’re fair share attitude” which I’m definitely getting... there are days I feel like I should move our company to Florida or Texas. I can’t see myself living in a city that isn’t happy to have me. Hidden within this comment (in my reading) is the implicit assumption that you are paying your fair share. How exactly are you calculating this?
- cltby 6y ago
  The burden of proof isn’t on the rich to show that they’re doing their part; it’s on confiscationists to show that they’re not.
  - discreteevent 6y ago
    If you pay for a burger did the seller confiscate your money?
    - fennecfoxen 6y ago
      I assume the intellectual basis for this is the "you didn't build that" philosophy. It's a garbage philosophy. Would that I should find paying my taxes was such a voluntary transaction as eating a burger! It does not justify charging businesses a blanket amount regardless of whether they use those services, and bundle in a bunch of unrelated spending and priorities, and calling that their "fair share." If the problem was really that people who build businesses were taking advantage of public services, the answer would be to charge them for the services rendered (and when possible, give them the opportunity to obtain them elsewhere). Yeah, there's a few public goods (in the strict economic sense) that this doesn't work for, like national security the like, but if you're just talking fire protection and tractor-trailer access to roads and the like, assessments for these are eminently straightforward. There are much better ways to justify the existence of taxes on businesses.
    - thrill 6y ago
      No, and neither did the wealthy pay 100x as much for the same product.
JohnTHaller 6y ago
You know that the homicide rate in all the large cities in both Florida and Texas is double, triple, or quadruple what it is in NYC, right? Similar with property crime (except Tampa and El Paso).
- tarboreus 6y ago
  I think wealthy people have an easier time avoiding crime in these places, since you just drive around everywhere. In NYC you have billionaires sharing the street with homeless people, which, honestly, is probably better for society, or at least seems more human.
nonameiguess 6y ago
Grass is always greener, man. My wife is from New York and every now and then I try to convince her we should move back there. Concern about finding a job is always her worry, but I think she vastly underestimates herself. I've been in Texas over a decade now and presently live in Dallas. The homelessness problem is just as bad. Train infrastructure is probably worse consider there are only five lines in the entire city, and the interiors often have puke and shit all over the seats. Combine above ground power lines with constant high winds and we get power outages probably once a week, at least once a month. The city never fixes sidewalks or potholes. A quarter inch of rain results in half the traffic lights going out. I live within spitting distance of AT&T world headquarters and still can't broadband service from anyone but Spectrum, which is terrible (they once shut down my service and terminated my account because someone else gave them the wrong address and claimed to be moving into my house). Code inspectors literally sleep on the job and shoddy contractors and builders are all over the place, so you need to be extremely careful shopping for a place to live and you can expect to be making some extremely expensive repairs and upgrades within a few years of moving in, somewhat negating the advantage of lower purchase price. It's a bit of a cultural wasteland, too, which many people won't care about, but if you're from New York, you're probably going to miss it. Dallas is thankfully pretty good for live music if you're into 70s through 90s era punk/metal/industrial type stuff, which thankfully I am, but if you're more artsy, well, the city tried to build an arts district after losing out on Boeing headquarters 20 years ago supposedly because executives wives didn't want to live in a city with no culture, but I can't say it worked out well. Space is the saving grace. The one thing I still love about this city compared to New York is I've got a downtown townhouse five times the interior floor area as my sister-in-law in Queens at about a quarter the price of her place. But again, we've also sunk a ton of money into fixing nonsense poor craftsmanship that would have never gotten past a city that does real building inspection. My neighbor successfully sued the city for his furnace being installed upside down because the inspector was 84 and he was somehow able to prove the guy was unwilling to walk up the stairs to actually look at what he was signing off on. I'm not trying to say it's terrible here or anything or that New York is paradise (which I wouldn't know anyway since I've only visited and never lived there). Just beware. Low taxes aren't the end all be all of life. The government still manages to be terrible in a lot of other ways besides, largely with horrible infrastructure and no maintenance, but also in smaller ways like selling your information when you register to vote or get a driver's license, making it effectively impossible to not be slammed with nonstop spam no matter how careful you otherwise are about privacy hygiene.
tootie 6y ago
This story has been told a thousand times. It was an annual tradition for Bear Sterns to threaten to leave the city over taxes. They went out of business before they could do it. If you've been here 18 years, crime is still way below what it was when you arrived. We're at about the level we were 10 years ago. Not great but not the worst we've seen. I've been here since the 90s and it was pretty bonkers then but people flooded in anyway. Also I'm hoping this tax rise is a prelude to statewide single-payer healthcare which is also on the legislative agenda. You can move your business to Florida or Texas and you'll be sending your tax dollars to Covid-deniers and insurrectionists.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  The last paragraph of this comment reminds me of the New Yorker cover, "View of the World from 9th Avenue." Just add a judicious "insurrectionists" label on the far side of "New Jersey".
  - tootie 6y ago
    Hey, I resemble that remark!. But seriously I'm specifically thinking of the state governments of Florida and Texas as being two of the worst. Both in terms of poor government and their impact on the nation as a whole. I don't think it's an unreasonable point of view either when you see the reactions of even Fortune 500 companies to the nonsense in Georgia.
- cltby 6y ago
  Better than sending them to grievance peddlers and commie sympathizers!
jakelazaroff 6y ago
As someone who is “tech salary rich” (so, “rich” without quotes to most New Yorkers) but not “VC rich”, I don’t really relate to this comment. The MTA’s decline is largely caused by it weirdly being run by the state rather than the city, and constant bickering between Cuomo and de Blasio (which has caused lots of other problems, too). Homelessness is an issue, but high income people also very aggressively resist sheltering people in their neighborhoods [1]. And while murders rose last year (as they did in most US cities) crime in NYC has been steadily falling for decades. [1] https://www.curbed.com/2020/11/upper-west-side-homeless-hotels-lucerne-nyc.html https://www.curbed.com/2020/11/upper-west-side-homeless-hote...
- Chris2048 6y ago
  > high income people also very aggressively resist sheltering people in their neighborhoods perhaps b/c they think it would make the problem worse, not better - there is a trend whereby places with better facilities for homeless will attract more homeless (ala San-fran). NY has as such payed homeless to relocate elsewhere. The fact that the MTA is so poorly maintained is perhaps evidence that shelters are likely to be poorly run too?
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    I might be more swayed by that hypothesis were the NIMBYs not referring to the homeless as "trash", "scum", "thugs", hanging nooses and advocating violent assault. Here are some actual quotes [1] from people organizing against sheltering homeless people in their neighborhoods: > I think at this point if anyone sees anyone doing this behavior the person witnessing it should run up to them while they're squatting and start kicking them as hard as they possibly can. Maybe if people start being super aggressive and act very violently these vagrants will stop, or at least realize they may get attacked. And I don't mean just kick, I mean kick with bad intentions and they [sic] intent to injure. Kick them in front of a bus if possible. > Forget pepper spray or mace. Use Hornet Spray and shoot at the eyes. Will give you time to run away. [1] https://gothamist.com/news/angry-upper-west-siders-wanted-homeless-scum-out-their-neighborhood-de-blasio-took-their-side https://gothamist.com/news/angry-upper-west-siders-wanted-ho...
Chris2048 6y ago
> Add to that the “you’re not paying you’re fair share attitude” Funnily enough, "fair" is often subjective. Consider this article: https://www.thejournal.ie/guess-how-many-irish-tax-exiles-have-paid-the-new-rich-tax-273724-Nov2011/ https://www.thejournal.ie/guess-how-many-irish-tax-exiles-ha... that quotes "refusing to pay tax like ordinary citizens" - yet the tax they are not paying is explicitly not one that ordinary citizens pay in the first place. The truth is some places behave like anyone with money obtained that money only with assistance from their place of residence, when a lot of the time the assistance was minimal. When people relocate, this proves that point, but it's a shame it has to be that way.
- LeanderK 6y ago
  It does not prove a point. Assume there's a startup hotspot due to e.g. a famous university, which costs a lot of money to run. Then a few startup founders move away because they feel like they are paying more taxes than it's fair (but I doubt it's about fairness, it's about the inconvenience to move), then it's not proving any point. They might not need the ongoing assistance, but the enabling factor was still there (and maybe the initial assistance). I think those tax statistics about the few rich residents contributing a great share says more about inequality than unfairly high taxes.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    So what costs a lot of money to run? The university, or the hotspot? b/c it seems the startup special sauce are the founders, not the cafe they meet up in. And other than a meeting place, how else do they benefit from the university, without the university having some stake? Even if they are students, they pay for the privilege. > maybe the initial assistance initial assistance in the form of a loan? Or something more subjective? > the enabling factor The local water company also enabled those founders to meet, but I don't expect their compensation to go further than the cost of the water bill. What kind of skin-ion-the-game do you expect the local government to have? Also, if a bunch of founders foster a startup culture ultimately benefits the area, are they owed compensation, or is culture free for the state? > says more about inequality than unfairly high taxes Unless you inspect the reason why that inequality exists, it says nothing beyond raw speculation.
silicon2401 6y ago
Tangential, but it's fascinating to me how different people's preferences can be. Every time I'm in NYC I feel like I'm going to go crazy if I stay more than a couple of days because of how dense and artificial it is (concrete, metal, etc). I hope people flock back to cities if the pandemic ever ends so that countryside prices can go down and I can find a place to be away from humans and around trees and animals

sacomo 6y ago

NY should rescind the Stock Transfer tax rebates. They are losing out on ~$16 billion in tax revenue annually.

jasode 6y ago
>NY should rescind the Stock Transfer tax rebates. They are losing out on ~$16 billion in tax revenue annually. I wasn't the one that downvoted your comment but as fyi... Increasing taxes doesn't automatically mean government gets increased revenue because the economic actors affected can _change_ their behaviors to circumvent that tax. So NYC probably would not get $16 billion in extra revenue. E.g. An excerpt from an article[1] about that real life game theory playing out: >In recent weeks, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ have both discussed moving their data processing centers out of New Jersey in response to reports that New Jersey may impose a stock transfer tax. Technology has made processing trades away from New York’s physical trading floors simple, and the tax may provide incentive to shift stock transfers from one exchange to another. Nations such as Sweden and Germany experienced business relocation and diminished trading levels after enacting a stock transfer tax, subsequently leading them to repeal their taxes. EDIT reply to : >They didn't have the political power to outright abolish it. What should happen now is that rebate should be removed. Yes, you had already mentioned that proposal in your first message but your next message really didn't explain why stock owners and exchanges would simply pay the extra tax instead of changing their behavior to avoid the tax*. [1] https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/opinion/opinion/dont-bring-back-stock-transfer-tax.html#:~:text=New%20York's%20stock%20transfer%20tax,coffers%20to%20be%20later%20refunded https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/opinion/opinion/dont....
- sacomo 6y ago
  No worries. The STT was first imposed in 1909. They started rebating it at 100% in the 80s. They didn't have the political power to outright abolish it. What should happen now is that rebate should be removed. The STT is a 0.5% sales tax on the value of stock trades, 0.1% on debt and 0.005% on derivatives.
- Applejinx 6y ago
  This argument (real life game theory) seems to be like: "I'm taking this (goods, property, residence in a place) and I'm going to give you this (payment, lease, rent, tax) for it" "Okay. As the owner, the price of (goods, property, residence in a place) is this." "That's nice of you to think that but I'm not going to pay it. I'm giving you what I said I was going to. Maybe you should be nice, or I'll take the thing and give you even LESS for it" I think in some contexts that's called extortion, not 'game theory'. Seems like the bottom line is the question of whether the owner of a thing has any property rights over the thing through owning it. If in practical terms they are obligated to sell at whatever terms the buyer demands, they're not much of a property owner.
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    I have tried, but I am not able to meaningfully relate the situations described in this comment to taxes on the operation of a stock exchange. Who owns the property? Who is buying and selling it? Is the property the stock exchange? Is the state the owner of something and individuals are buying it? Is the state the buyer?
  - pc86 6y ago
    Seconding fennecfoxen's confusion on this one. Are the goods in this example NYSE's processing of data? Are you saying that, for example, the NYSE/NASDAQ should not be able to move data processing out of NJ in the event NJ implement a stock transfer tax?
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    > or I'll take the thing How does this happen? Usually the threat is getting the "thing" from somewhere else.

hahahahe 6y ago

Entitled much?

smt88 6y ago

> it’s more dangerous than ever (while I lived here) I agree that QoL in NYC is awful, but it's not "more dangerous than ever". Like in every other US city, the crime rate is near an all-time low[1]. Murders spiked during Covid, but they're still low compared to previous decades. > Add to that the “you’re not paying you’re fair share attitude” which I’m definitely getting Where do you get this attitude? I have never experienced that in the city. In fact, it's one of the places where the rich seem to be the least scrutinized, because most of them pay lip service to liberal values while still being 100,000x richer than a middle-class person living a few neighborhoods away. 1. https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/giulianis-misleading-attack-on-de-blasio-and-crime/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/giulianis-misleading-attac...

negzero7 6y ago
I'd be interested to see the crime stats from the last year to today - from the sentiment I've seen on social media it appears violence has been increasing since the Jul 2 your source article was posted. Add to that they slashed the police budget on Jul 1[1] I think the OP may have a valid point. -------- [1] - https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/us/new-york-budget-nypd-1-billion-cut-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/us/new-york-budget-nypd-1-bil...
- pc86 6y ago
  10 months of increases does not negate two decades of decreases. And that's even assuming there is an increase, since "the sentiment on social media" may very well be incorrect as is the comment purporting a more dangerous NYC.
lefstathiou 6y ago
Re crime, the parenthetical in my OP was my sloppy attempt to clarify it’s the most dangerous it’s been while I have lived here (18 years). Re where I get the attitude, our mayor and local representatives (like AOC) have both said this. There’ve been numerous marches down 6th Ave and the West Side Highway as well.
- 6y ago

endisneigh 6y ago

> Add to that the “you’re not paying you’re fair share attitude” which I’m definitely getting... there are days I feel like I should move our company to Florida or Texas. I can’t see myself living in a city that isn’t happy to have me. Hidden within this comment (in my reading) is the implicit assumption that you are paying your fair share. How exactly are you calculating this?

cltby 6y ago
The burden of proof isn’t on the rich to show that they’re doing their part; it’s on confiscationists to show that they’re not.
- discreteevent 6y ago
  If you pay for a burger did the seller confiscate your money?
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    I assume the intellectual basis for this is the "you didn't build that" philosophy. It's a garbage philosophy. Would that I should find paying my taxes was such a voluntary transaction as eating a burger! It does not justify charging businesses a blanket amount regardless of whether they use those services, and bundle in a bunch of unrelated spending and priorities, and calling that their "fair share." If the problem was really that people who build businesses were taking advantage of public services, the answer would be to charge them for the services rendered (and when possible, give them the opportunity to obtain them elsewhere). Yeah, there's a few public goods (in the strict economic sense) that this doesn't work for, like national security the like, but if you're just talking fire protection and tractor-trailer access to roads and the like, assessments for these are eminently straightforward. There are much better ways to justify the existence of taxes on businesses.
  - thrill 6y ago
    No, and neither did the wealthy pay 100x as much for the same product.

JohnTHaller 6y ago

You know that the homicide rate in all the large cities in both Florida and Texas is double, triple, or quadruple what it is in NYC, right? Similar with property crime (except Tampa and El Paso).

tarboreus 6y ago
I think wealthy people have an easier time avoiding crime in these places, since you just drive around everywhere. In NYC you have billionaires sharing the street with homeless people, which, honestly, is probably better for society, or at least seems more human.

nonameiguess 6y ago

Grass is always greener, man. My wife is from New York and every now and then I try to convince her we should move back there. Concern about finding a job is always her worry, but I think she vastly underestimates herself. I've been in Texas over a decade now and presently live in Dallas. The homelessness problem is just as bad. Train infrastructure is probably worse consider there are only five lines in the entire city, and the interiors often have puke and shit all over the seats. Combine above ground power lines with constant high winds and we get power outages probably once a week, at least once a month. The city never fixes sidewalks or potholes. A quarter inch of rain results in half the traffic lights going out. I live within spitting distance of AT&T world headquarters and still can't broadband service from anyone but Spectrum, which is terrible (they once shut down my service and terminated my account because someone else gave them the wrong address and claimed to be moving into my house). Code inspectors literally sleep on the job and shoddy contractors and builders are all over the place, so you need to be extremely careful shopping for a place to live and you can expect to be making some extremely expensive repairs and upgrades within a few years of moving in, somewhat negating the advantage of lower purchase price. It's a bit of a cultural wasteland, too, which many people won't care about, but if you're from New York, you're probably going to miss it. Dallas is thankfully pretty good for live music if you're into 70s through 90s era punk/metal/industrial type stuff, which thankfully I am, but if you're more artsy, well, the city tried to build an arts district after losing out on Boeing headquarters 20 years ago supposedly because executives wives didn't want to live in a city with no culture, but I can't say it worked out well. Space is the saving grace. The one thing I still love about this city compared to New York is I've got a downtown townhouse five times the interior floor area as my sister-in-law in Queens at about a quarter the price of her place. But again, we've also sunk a ton of money into fixing nonsense poor craftsmanship that would have never gotten past a city that does real building inspection. My neighbor successfully sued the city for his furnace being installed upside down because the inspector was 84 and he was somehow able to prove the guy was unwilling to walk up the stairs to actually look at what he was signing off on. I'm not trying to say it's terrible here or anything or that New York is paradise (which I wouldn't know anyway since I've only visited and never lived there). Just beware. Low taxes aren't the end all be all of life. The government still manages to be terrible in a lot of other ways besides, largely with horrible infrastructure and no maintenance, but also in smaller ways like selling your information when you register to vote or get a driver's license, making it effectively impossible to not be slammed with nonstop spam no matter how careful you otherwise are about privacy hygiene.

tootie 6y ago

This story has been told a thousand times. It was an annual tradition for Bear Sterns to threaten to leave the city over taxes. They went out of business before they could do it. If you've been here 18 years, crime is still way below what it was when you arrived. We're at about the level we were 10 years ago. Not great but not the worst we've seen. I've been here since the 90s and it was pretty bonkers then but people flooded in anyway. Also I'm hoping this tax rise is a prelude to statewide single-payer healthcare which is also on the legislative agenda. You can move your business to Florida or Texas and you'll be sending your tax dollars to Covid-deniers and insurrectionists.

fennecfoxen 6y ago
The last paragraph of this comment reminds me of the New Yorker cover, "View of the World from 9th Avenue." Just add a judicious "insurrectionists" label on the far side of "New Jersey".
- tootie 6y ago
  Hey, I resemble that remark!. But seriously I'm specifically thinking of the state governments of Florida and Texas as being two of the worst. Both in terms of poor government and their impact on the nation as a whole. I don't think it's an unreasonable point of view either when you see the reactions of even Fortune 500 companies to the nonsense in Georgia.
cltby 6y ago
Better than sending them to grievance peddlers and commie sympathizers!

jakelazaroff 6y ago

As someone who is “tech salary rich” (so, “rich” without quotes to most New Yorkers) but not “VC rich”, I don’t really relate to this comment. The MTA’s decline is largely caused by it weirdly being run by the state rather than the city, and constant bickering between Cuomo and de Blasio (which has caused lots of other problems, too). Homelessness is an issue, but high income people also very aggressively resist sheltering people in their neighborhoods [1]. And while murders rose last year (as they did in most US cities) crime in NYC has been steadily falling for decades. [1] https://www.curbed.com/2020/11/upper-west-side-homeless-hotels-lucerne-nyc.html https://www.curbed.com/2020/11/upper-west-side-homeless-hote...

Chris2048 6y ago
> high income people also very aggressively resist sheltering people in their neighborhoods perhaps b/c they think it would make the problem worse, not better - there is a trend whereby places with better facilities for homeless will attract more homeless (ala San-fran). NY has as such payed homeless to relocate elsewhere. The fact that the MTA is so poorly maintained is perhaps evidence that shelters are likely to be poorly run too?
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  I might be more swayed by that hypothesis were the NIMBYs not referring to the homeless as "trash", "scum", "thugs", hanging nooses and advocating violent assault. Here are some actual quotes [1] from people organizing against sheltering homeless people in their neighborhoods: > I think at this point if anyone sees anyone doing this behavior the person witnessing it should run up to them while they're squatting and start kicking them as hard as they possibly can. Maybe if people start being super aggressive and act very violently these vagrants will stop, or at least realize they may get attacked. And I don't mean just kick, I mean kick with bad intentions and they [sic] intent to injure. Kick them in front of a bus if possible. > Forget pepper spray or mace. Use Hornet Spray and shoot at the eyes. Will give you time to run away. [1] https://gothamist.com/news/angry-upper-west-siders-wanted-homeless-scum-out-their-neighborhood-de-blasio-took-their-side https://gothamist.com/news/angry-upper-west-siders-wanted-ho...

Chris2048 6y ago

> Add to that the “you’re not paying you’re fair share attitude” Funnily enough, "fair" is often subjective. Consider this article: https://www.thejournal.ie/guess-how-many-irish-tax-exiles-have-paid-the-new-rich-tax-273724-Nov2011/ https://www.thejournal.ie/guess-how-many-irish-tax-exiles-ha... that quotes "refusing to pay tax like ordinary citizens" - yet the tax they are not paying is explicitly not one that ordinary citizens pay in the first place. The truth is some places behave like anyone with money obtained that money only with assistance from their place of residence, when a lot of the time the assistance was minimal. When people relocate, this proves that point, but it's a shame it has to be that way.

LeanderK 6y ago
It does not prove a point. Assume there's a startup hotspot due to e.g. a famous university, which costs a lot of money to run. Then a few startup founders move away because they feel like they are paying more taxes than it's fair (but I doubt it's about fairness, it's about the inconvenience to move), then it's not proving any point. They might not need the ongoing assistance, but the enabling factor was still there (and maybe the initial assistance). I think those tax statistics about the few rich residents contributing a great share says more about inequality than unfairly high taxes.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  So what costs a lot of money to run? The university, or the hotspot? b/c it seems the startup special sauce are the founders, not the cafe they meet up in. And other than a meeting place, how else do they benefit from the university, without the university having some stake? Even if they are students, they pay for the privilege. > maybe the initial assistance initial assistance in the form of a loan? Or something more subjective? > the enabling factor The local water company also enabled those founders to meet, but I don't expect their compensation to go further than the cost of the water bill. What kind of skin-ion-the-game do you expect the local government to have? Also, if a bunch of founders foster a startup culture ultimately benefits the area, are they owed compensation, or is culture free for the state? > says more about inequality than unfairly high taxes Unless you inspect the reason why that inequality exists, it says nothing beyond raw speculation.

silicon2401 6y ago

Tangential, but it's fascinating to me how different people's preferences can be. Every time I'm in NYC I feel like I'm going to go crazy if I stay more than a couple of days because of how dense and artificial it is (concrete, metal, etc). I hope people flock back to cities if the pandemic ever ends so that countryside prices can go down and I can find a place to be away from humans and around trees and animals