251–260 of 325 posts
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You are no more entitled to keeping it as whatever idealistic version you have in your head as they are making it into theirs.
Also, I'll note that trying to sow discord between groups of people in the US, and very specifically promoting the secession of California, is a known Russian active measures tactic.[1]
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Schwab isn’t exactly competing for the “tech” talent pool so there isn’t anything particularly special about staying in SF vs elsewhere for them.
Why not? Billions in assets. Automated investment and market prediction projects. Extremely well built Web UI- you can tell they're hiring industry UI/UX people by the interface they are beta-ing- upgrade in functionality but major downgrade in usability.
> The company said Monday that “a small percentage of roles may move from San Francisco to Westlake over time, either through relocation or attrition. The vast majority of San Francisco-based roles, however, are not anticipated to be impacted by this decision. Schwab expects to continue hiring in San Francisco and retain a sizable corporate footprint in the city.” Doesn't sound like they are leaving San Francisco, ju…
That's what they always say but overtime they "integrate" more of the operations to the new headquarters and then eventually they want everyone under the same roof.
Many companies head quartered outside of the bay area create and hold parts of their company in the bay area. Not just companies from other states, but companies from other countries too. They do this, because they know how hard it is to get smart and talented employees doing difficult and cutting edge tech work outside of the Bay Area.
Now if you're an accountant or are in sales, ... yah you're going to TX or finding a new job.
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The problem with housing in California is that we do not build it because regulations prohibit new housing. Look at a zoning map in San Francisco. Housing is illegal.
I believe the full reasoning is that (1) if property owners paid property taxes on the full market value of their property, then (2) they would lobby for (or at least cease opposition against) upzoning for density, and (3) more dense housing would be legalized and built.
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Part of the problem with housing prices in California is that property taxes are too low. Prop 13 means existing homeowners are shielded from higher property taxes, so growing property values are only good for them, no matter how high. Thus, there's no incentive to increase housing supply, which could lower prices.
So if we want to tax illiquid assets and wealth instead of income, why stop at houses? Why not tax equity held in companies? Why don’t we tax employees based on the amount and value of equity they have in a company? Every time there is a new round of funding that increases the value of equity, impose a higher tax.
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The idea that California property taxes are too low is completely wrong, they are too high. In Vancouver, my family’s house was paying around $6000/yr in property taxes and the house was worth 1.4M only because the housing market in Vancouver has been crazy for decades. My friend in Toronto pays $3800 on her $700k single family home. My house in the Bay Area I bought for $1M and my taxes were $12,000 and in the last…
So that's your anecdote - and now mine: the building I live in is worth well over $5 million, and the property tax is currently $3500 a year. Edit: just to add - I don't know where people get the idea that we need to evict people from their homes over property taxes. Just put a lien on the property for the tax bill. This isn't rocket science.
If house prices go up, the state profits when the house changes hands, or the state owns all of the house and then needs to evict people.
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Tax avoidance "scam". Moving to Texas to reduce taxes, especially SF taxes which are basically useless to the payer [1], [2] is a "scam"? What's the legal framework preventing moves out of SF? Is it indentured slavery to the city council if you ever open an office in SF? [1]: https://www.newsweek.com/san-francisco-district-attorney-pub... [2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2019/04/15/map...
The problem is perception. If a company seems to only move their headquarters in name only (IOW most of the staff still stays in SF), then that seems sketchy. If they make a clean separation and shutdown their SF presence, that doesn't appear as dodgy. And these companies are not just moving to Texas. I live in Oakland, CA and many of these companies are relocating here. I don't care if they leave SF, but if they're…
1. SF levies taxes on companies headquartered in SF. The message: “Pay us for the privilege of being in SF”.
2. SF companies move their headquarters but promise not to cut jobs in SF. The message: “We already provide lots of middle-class jobs in your city, providing tax revenues. It is not in your interest for those jobs to go away.”
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It's going to be funny in 5-10 years when the major Texas cities become the next SF because none of them are planning for any sort of large population growth. Austin already suffers from horrific traffic and poor infrastructure. City planning here is a joke.
Austin really is a small town, tho. You can see all of downtown from your hotel room, and the rest is just suburbs.
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Yeah, commercial property makes no sense either, especially if you consider the original intent of the law, but it bothers me less than residences as at least those properties, in theory, are doing something productive for society.
Long-term residents are also doing something productive for society -- they are providing stable communities around which longer-term plans can be made, in which cultural memory of e.g. local climatological risks can be preserved, etc. Housing is definitely way too expensive in the bay area, but calling existing residents "unproductive" is pretty astonishingly, callously, selfishly offensive.