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Schwab Leaves San Francisco for Texas

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Re: Schwab Leaves San Francisco for Texas

#271

Post by scurvy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #173
pjg wrote: post #106

Am I the only one who thinks nobody is talking about the elephant in the room ? i.e. the cause and effect. Fintech companies like Robinhood have popularized the concept of (a) zero fee trading and (b) better UI/UX and just better service/offering on highly scalable platforms that allow them to introduce new products/services, which are virtually impossible for legacy providers like Schwab. Seems like that is the sing…

> the traditionals haven't been able to survive the second wave of disruption Pretty much all major American brokerages now offer zero-commission equities trading. It’s been a long time since retail equities traders depended on commissions to butter its bread. This merger was driven, in part, by the greater fraction of revenues commissions represented ex ante for Ameritrade versus Schwab.

This ^^

Most brokerages make the lion's share of their profits on carried interest in cash accounts, not trading. Robinhood isn't forcing this merger at all. TDA was ripe for the taking considering its nice overlap with Schwab demos (tons of small retail and some active traders with ThinkOrSwim). TDA fits better with Schwab than Fidelity, Vanguard, etc.

I'm honestly surprised that MS or BofA didn't make a play here. The influx just might save those two dying market players.

Re: Schwab Leaves San Francisco for Texas

#272

Post by scurvy »

sdnlafkjh34rw wrote: post #101
CydeWeys wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And traffic out the wazoo, and few good alternatives to driving.

The traffic in Texas is significantly better than SF and LA. My parents live in a suburb that is 25 miles from the Houston and it takes 45 minutes to get to downtown during commute hours. My girlfriend has an equivalent commute in the Bay which takes around 75-90 minutes during commute hours. The public transit is terrible in Texas so I expect it will be worse than the Bay in a decade or two if they refuse to build u…

Dallas is terribad. At least it was in 1999 when I lived there. I can't believe that there are fewer people on the road and less traffic now than then.

Fun trivia tip: the opening scene of "Office Space" with the old person and walker going faster than traffic was filmed in Las Colinas (where I worked at the time).

Re: Schwab Leaves San Francisco for Texas

#273

Post by scurvy »

bsagdiyev wrote: post #54
munin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Dallas and it is the only place I've lived where people would scream homophobic slurs at me in the street. I wouldn't say I'd never move back, but the situation would have to be dire for me to consider it. Definitely cut your hair if you visit.

That's not unique to Texas, just assholes. I've seen it here in San Diego while walking through Hillcrest.

It happened to me in Chicago, twice in one weekend. All I did was wear a pink shirt and walk down the street. That was enough to garner homophobic slurs.

I'm not gay and when I mentioned it to one of my Chicago friends, and he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yeah."

tl;dr jerks are everywhere

Re: Schwab Leaves San Francisco for Texas

#274

Post by scurvy »

lykr0n wrote: post #99
undefined3840 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They don't pay very well. They can't compete for top talent like other companies can.

Re: Schwab Leaves San Francisco for Texas

#275

Post by scurvy »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #141
scurvy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must not live in the Bay Area and are merely reaching for talking points. Everyone in CA knows that property tax money goes straight to the state and is divvied up there. It's collected locally, then sent straight to the state. CA gets first crack at spending it, then it goes down to the local level. The social services are paid for mostly by bond measures, which are immune to real estate prices. Other things are…

Didn't know property taxes go to the state first but the overall point remains that if there is an exodus of wealth from the Bay Area, that will affect the resources available for social programs. Also stories about companies and workers leaving the state beyond the Bay Area are hardly in short supply though some might be overdone for clickbait or political purposes.

Social programs are almost entirely funded through voter approved bond sales. Their funding won't take a hit if there's an exodus of wealth. The bonds are already sold.

Completely agree with you on the overdone clickbait!

Re: Schwab Leaves San Francisco for Texas

#276

Post by fountainofage »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #256
fountainofage wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a great idea, especially if they don't evict people, but just take a chunk of the house that is the state's now if they don't pay taxes. 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.

Again, no need to evict people. The state will get its money someday. For shorter term expense needs, they can issue bonds referencing that lien as the collateral. Everyone dies eventually.

Re: Schwab Leaves San Francisco for Texas

#277

Post by atombender »

lykr0n wrote: post #267
atombender wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What beta products are you referring to?

They're working on a new research UI. So you plugin a symbol like SPY and you get a bunch of information on the stock. There is a banner for a beta redesign

Oh, that. I've used it, and didn't find it very impressive, certainly not what I'd expect from top UI/UX talent. Schwab's site isn't terrible, just very old-fashioned (and a little buggy).

Re: Schwab Leaves San Francisco for Texas

#278

Post by ausjke »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #265
ausjke wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People make the state as it is today, so those people are exactly the reason what made CA is becoming. No they don't want to do just 25%, they want to own it and do 100+% their way wherever they migrate to, it's called Stockholm Syndrome. After they destroy a new place, they will move on to yet another state, which is why I call epidemic.

You're assuming that, in bulk, the people who leave are the same as the people who stay. That's possible, but I suspect that it is not actually true.

I deduced it based on all the people I know who moved from CA to TX, I can tell you there are quite a lot of them. The pattern is quite obvious to me. Over time I adapted to it somehow by reminding myself to stay absolutely politically correct when I communicate with them, which also means, there is no way to develop any friendship at all when you have to act like a politician.

Re: Schwab Leaves San Francisco for Texas

#279

Post by jimmaswell »

refurb wrote: post #197
jimmaswell wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friendly if you're the right political party and orientation, I hear.

Spoken like some who has never visited!

based off the experience of soem of the LGBT people from there who've talked about it on Discord servers I'm in. Some areas are better than others but even someone from Dallas in this thread experienced issues.
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