131–140 of 533 posts
I'm sorry but this is so f*cking stupid. As a Bay Area resident my priorities are the cost of housing, cleaning our dirty streets and alleviating traffic congestion. This is an example of progressivism gone awry. Solving the basics is incredibly important. Our quality of life is in decline (in the bay area) and this is the best our politicians can do? I'm enraged.
I'm sorry but this is so f*cking stupid. As a Bay Area resident my priorities are the cost of housing, cleaning our dirty streets and alleviating traffic congestion. This is an example of progressivism gone awry. Solving the basics is incredibly important. Our quality of life is in decline (in the bay area) and this is the best our politicians can do? I'm enraged.
If all tech workers went out for lunch every day that would be a huge boon to the local low skill labor market.
I'm sorry but this is so f*cking stupid. As a Bay Area resident my priorities are the cost of housing, cleaning our dirty streets and alleviating traffic congestion. This is an example of progressivism gone awry. Solving the basics is incredibly important. Our quality of life is in decline (in the bay area) and this is the best our politicians can do? I'm enraged.
If all tech workers went out for lunch every day that would be a huge boon to the local low skill labor market.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, really. Big tech companies, come down here to Texas. With your well-above-market-average salaries and free food.
Austin is already a pretty big tech hub
I'm sorry but this is so f*cking stupid. As a Bay Area resident my priorities are the cost of housing, cleaning our dirty streets and alleviating traffic congestion. This is an example of progressivism gone awry. Solving the basics is incredibly important. Our quality of life is in decline (in the bay area) and this is the best our politicians can do? I'm enraged.
Ah, but you see, it is also difficult!
"Dirty streets" and "traffic congestion" are big, messy problems, requiring careful planning, managing projects and contractors, adversarial factors, etc.
By contrast, passing laws that apply to corporations is so easy! They are generally law abiding, so you just tell them "no more free food for you!", and they obey.
Until, you know, they skip town and you are left with nothing. But that will likely happen after my tenure in the local legislative body, so my utility horizon is rather shorter term...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, it's not quite 'economy 101'. Or rather, 'economy 101' is that anyone with enough leverage, will use monopoly powers in one area, to take control of an adjacent economy. American Oil empires were not built on some new amazing way to get at oil, it was because some had control of the railroads, and charged their competitors a little more to transport therefore putting them out of business (through aggressi…
> an alternative could be 'they buy up all the restaurants in the area and make them exclusively available for FB staff'. If Facebook is willing to pay substantial amounts of money for a restaurant, while at the same time guaranteeing customers to those who refuse to sell, it would seem the number of public restaurants in the area will explode.
If there are ten restaurants and one of them is pretty much the default choice for 25% of the people, that leaves the rest of the restaurants with an effective 75% of the market, which shrinks their customer base quite a lot.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If all tech workers went out for lunch every day that would be a huge boon to the local low skill labor market.
What about all the employees that work in the cafeterias at Facebook?
> The ban wouldn't be retroactive, however, so on-site food at companies like Google and Twitter would still be available Cool, so start-ups lose a potential hiring perk to the incumbents. (Does anyone know the story behind this bill? Which politicians and restaurants supported it? I’d like to avoid the latter going forward.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My employer gives me free health care. Your health care is not “free” it’s part of your compensation where the employer gets to choose how you’re compensated. I get healthcare via my wife’s insurance and I would much rather have the money. In a sane society, your health care wouldn’t be tied to your employer.
It's "free" in the same sense that the food is.