Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

citylab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 133 posts

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#11

Post by losteric »

ohthehugemanate wrote: post #8

Very interesting read. When we discuss inequality, I think there are a lot of assumptions made that make it hard to really judge. For example, TFA trots out the high number of people on minimum wage, and the high percentage of people below the poverty line. This is misleading, because it misses out on some key ways that "capitalism raises all boats," which are tricky to measure. Off the top of my head... The first is…

12% is 40 million people in poverty. 40,000,000.

Progress is good, but it's not victory. America is far from healthy.

Medical costs have skyrocketted beyond reason, housing is rising, food costs are rising, and now we're starting a trade war with the nation that supplies cheap consumer goods possible.

Netflix is cheap - so what? People in poverty were not complaining about boredom.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#12

Post by aresant »

The principal issue, full stop, in the Bay Area and most of California is housing.

There are two solutions to this:

1) Build more. But this is outrageously difficult due to a well-meaning political view of safety / fairness / etc. These restrictions employ an awful lot of bureaucrats for enforcement but add $10s of thousands in fees and delays for builders, that are IRR driven and would rather concentrate their efforts in more favorable markets (1)

2) Prop 13. For those unfamiliar this essentially locks in property taxes at the owner's basis (with a maximum 2% adjustment for inflation). Meaning if in Silicon Valley you bought a house for $250,000 in the 1990s that's now worth $2,000,000 you're paying about $3,000 a year on taxes instead of $30,000 a year in taxes your next door neighbor is paying that just bought in. Oh and if you sell your house, and then buy a new house that's less than you sold your old house for, you get to transfer the low tax basis! This was put into law due to the "sentiment that older Californians should not be priced out of their homes through high taxes" which I think is noble, but it's also not realistic or fair. In many Bay Area neighborhoods you have a bizarre composition of young families hanging by their fingernails to pay for these "entitlements" for the retirees, and then the retirees that have a gigantic financial incentive to stay put which minimizes inventory and inflates home prices.

- - - -

1 - http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/housing-costs/hou...

2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(197...

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#13

Post by dev_dull »

aresant wrote: post #12

The principal issue, full stop, in the Bay Area and most of California is housing. There are two solutions to this: 1) Build more. But this is outrageously difficult due to a well-meaning political view of safety / fairness / etc. These restrictions employ an awful lot of bureaucrats for enforcement but add $10s of thousands in fees and delays for builders, that are IRR driven and would rather concentrate their effor…

They can also do things like re-zoning, or ending absurd and antiquated setback rules which require me to keep 700 sqft of dead grass in front of my house instead of more home.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#15

Post by bigdubs »

aresant wrote: post #12

The principal issue, full stop, in the Bay Area and most of California is housing. There are two solutions to this: 1) Build more. But this is outrageously difficult due to a well-meaning political view of safety / fairness / etc. These restrictions employ an awful lot of bureaucrats for enforcement but add $10s of thousands in fees and delays for builders, that are IRR driven and would rather concentrate their effor…

Some extra color on Prop 13; a more sinister view is that it was a time bomb designed to "starve the beast" and limit tax revenues in the future.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#16

Post by omegaworks »

lainga wrote: post #10
omegaworks wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we can't talk on here about how we have a President now that sees fit to strip away people's citizenship? https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/uscis-starting-denaturaliz... We can't talk about how he's rolling back promises to soldiers to score political points? https://apnews.com/amp/38334c4d061e493fb108bd975b5a1a5d How his DHS is conveniently losing documentation on children they've forcibly separated from their pa…

I'm a Canadian, so no to your 5th question.

If it can happen to us, it can happen to you. Please keep abreast of what's happening in Ontario.

https://ricochet.media/en/2217/why-canadas-white-supremacist...

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#17

Post by astebbin »

ohthehugemanate wrote: post #8

Very interesting read. When we discuss inequality, I think there are a lot of assumptions made that make it hard to really judge. For example, TFA trots out the high number of people on minimum wage, and the high percentage of people below the poverty line. This is misleading, because it misses out on some key ways that "capitalism raises all boats," which are tricky to measure. Off the top of my head... The first is…

Relative to income, it may be true that most people can now buy cheaper, better TVs (for example). This is small consolation if most people are also paying more for less in terms of housing, healthcare, and education. These costs also dwarf what most people spend on consumer goods. The quality of housing, healthcare, and education also, I would argue, has a much greater impact on quality of life than the size of your TV.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#18

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

aresant wrote: post #12

The principal issue, full stop, in the Bay Area and most of California is housing. There are two solutions to this: 1) Build more. But this is outrageously difficult due to a well-meaning political view of safety / fairness / etc. These restrictions employ an awful lot of bureaucrats for enforcement but add $10s of thousands in fees and delays for builders, that are IRR driven and would rather concentrate their effor…

There's a third option which is encouraging people to move elsewhere.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#19

Post by pascalxus »

aresant wrote: post #12

The principal issue, full stop, in the Bay Area and most of California is housing. There are two solutions to this: 1) Build more. But this is outrageously difficult due to a well-meaning political view of safety / fairness / etc. These restrictions employ an awful lot of bureaucrats for enforcement but add $10s of thousands in fees and delays for builders, that are IRR driven and would rather concentrate their effor…

And, to add insult to injury: the ones paying 3000 a year in taxes rather than 30k, are the ones who made millions of dollars in equity off the gain. That's extremely Regressive and completely the opposite of what CA supposedly stands for: Progressive income taxes.

Re: The Bay Area’s tech boom in historical and social context

#20

Post by jjeaff »

bigdubs wrote: post #15
aresant wrote: post #12

The principal issue, full stop, in the Bay Area and most of California is housing. There are two solutions to this: 1) Build more. But this is outrageously difficult due to a well-meaning political view of safety / fairness / etc. These restrictions employ an awful lot of bureaucrats for enforcement but add $10s of thousands in fees and delays for builders, that are IRR driven and would rather concentrate their effor…

Some extra color on Prop 13; a more sinister view is that it was a time bomb designed to "starve the beast" and limit tax revenues in the future.

California doesn't seem very interested in starving the beast overall. So it seems unlikely the motivation of this prop was that.
Post reply on HN