San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#331

Post by cody3222 » Thu, Nov 05, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

jameslk wrote: post #285

cody3222 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a good point. It's as if the argument is that more taxes is good no matter what rather than knowing what/why you're taxing in the first place.

Yes exactly, it's like everyone is arguing past each other with different assumptions about how taxes will be used. Take this quote from the article: > “We need the wealth that has been generated in the city to be shared more broadly with workers and residents” This person seems to assume the taxes will be shared with the workers and residents. Would they still support these taxes if that were not the case? Others (i…

I absolutely love the historic example of taxes that Benjamin Franklin talks about in his biography: he says he went to all his neighbors' houses and asked if they wanted to chip in a nickel a week and have one of the neighborhood boys sweep the street for everyone's benefit every week. Most said yes and paid the fee. This is literally what tax is in the most simplistic form (let's pool our money to get something we couldn't otherwise have - military, roads, other infrastructure).

Unfortunately, now we live in a world where we just talk about taxation for the sake of putting money into the pot and have no real idea or influence over how that pot of money is spent. A government that can move towards this Benjamin Franklin kind of simplicity of taxes would make its country such a better place.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#332

Post by dheera » Thu, Nov 05, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

GhostVII wrote: post #309

San Francisco's solution to everything seems to be to just keep raising taxes, and throwing money at things which don't work. At some point you have to realize that more money isn't always the solution, you actually have to fix your beurocracy. It's insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy populat…

> a small city with an incredibly wealthy population can't figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use?

The wealthy people avoid walking through the Tenderloin. They spend their time in the Battery and the Modernist. They have no incentive to fix the situation there. None. Zero.

This isn't Europe where wealthy people enjoy a stroll downtown, and have some incentive to want to keep their downtown nice. The wealthy people in SF just go to Napa and take their stroll in a vineyard over there instead.

> Or get some form of functioning public transit?

The wealthy people don't use public transit, they just drive everywhere or Uber everywhere. Again, they have zero incentive.

To be clear, I really want these issues to be fixed, just stating the facts of the situation.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#333

Post by LinuxBender » Thu, Nov 05, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

RangerScience wrote: post #152

LinuxBender wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A law firm I use has been in SF for over 20 years. They just moved to a rough part of Oakland. The move was challenging for them and I know they would not have done it if they didn't have to.

Why did they have to move? This new law, or something else?

This was in the middle of Covid, around the time many businesses and renters were leaving SF. They would not give me specifics, but I assume it no longer made financial sense to be in that expensive high-rise, as all the parking was locked down, forcing all the customers to take BART. I am not sure what affect this new law will have for those that remain.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#334

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, Nov 05, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

d33lio wrote: post #238

stvswn wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really agree with you characterization of where our taxes go -- federally, 64% of the government budget is related to mandatory spending, almost all of which is social security, medicare, and medicaid. 15% of the budget goes to the military. That makes the U.S. the largest military spender in the world. 15% of the budget may seem expensive, but it's not fair to compare it to Western Europe. NATO is a big reas…

"mandatory spending" - right I take a bigger issue with programs like student loan debt forgiveness which would be a slap in the face to poor people like myself who worked their way through college in order to no longer be burdened by loans. Not to mention the fact that without a refresh of regulation on universities (specifically graduate degrees) loan forgiveness would just further embolden universities to increase…

> I take a bigger issue with programs like student loan debt forgiveness which would be a slap in the face to poor people like myself who worked their way through college in order to no longer be burdened by loans

This is like saying that a cheap cure for cancer would be a slap in the face to people who drained their life savings battling cancer, and to the families of those who lost.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#335

Post by trentnix » Thu, Nov 05, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

GhostVII wrote: post #309

San Francisco's solution to everything seems to be to just keep raising taxes, and throwing money at things which don't work. At some point you have to realize that more money isn't always the solution, you actually have to fix your beurocracy. It's insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy populat…

Government is a beast whose appetite is never satiated. Such is the consequence of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#336

Post by whakim » Thu, Nov 05, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #322

whakim wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to keep in mind is that most of our primary sources are incredibly hostile towards the merchant class. (For much of history, the merchant class had an incredible stigma attached to them.)

Maybe there's a good reason for that? (and not anti-semitism)

Well, there is a reason for that. The vast majority of primary sources were written by members of a nobility who inherited their wealth, and the nobility viewed wealth that wasn't inherited as ill-gotten. There's also the fact that pre-modern societies didn't have modern economic theories to help them understand exactly what value the merchant class was providing to society.

I'm not necessarily siding with the nobility here. Simply pointing out that when our aristocratic sources write about the terrible upheaval that occurred when people outside the nobility acquired great wealth, we should be pretty skeptical.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#337

Post by 908B64B197 » Thu, Nov 05, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #2

Sounds like business will be booming for temp agencies as well as janitorial and facilities maintenance contractors. Whatever the net positive here is wholly negated by the number of stable long term jobs that are going to go away and be replaced by whoever the body shop chooses to send that day. Working for these middle men really sucks compared to working for whoever the service is being provided for (and I say tha…

Wait until a commercial robot-vacuum/robot cook provider comes along and underbids the temp agency.

You can rent a robotic fry cook for 1'500$ a month from Miso Robotics [0]. I know somewhere someone is looking at a commercial-grade surface cleaner and trash-picking robot.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/6/21503892/miso-robotics-fl...

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#338

Post by standardUser » Thu, Nov 05, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #115

standardUser wrote: post #111

This is a small tax and should be considered a pilot program for an idea that's been around a long time. Are all of the criticism on here valid? We'll find out soon enough. Will a tax like this actually change behavior in desired ways, or provide a useful amount of revenue? We'll find that out, too. But what this tax will not do is change the very nature of San Francisco or dramatically alter its business environment…

> But what this tax will not do is change the very nature of San Francisco or dramatically alter its business environment. Businesses are already leaving SF. If they haven't seen the writing on the wall, they're ignorant. SF has itself to blame. They squandered revenue, didn't fix real issues, and pandered to land owners. Businesses will move to more business friendly cities, and they will become more distributed - i…

"Businesses are already leaving SF"

San Francisco has been a global epicenter of new business creation in the past couple decades. Some of the most massive corporations on the planet have come to and expanded in SF in that time. Office rents have skyrocketed as a result, as has new office construction.

You're entitled to your own opinion, but don't lie.

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#339

Post by rcpt » Thu, Nov 05, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

GhostVII wrote: post #309

San Francisco's solution to everything seems to be to just keep raising taxes, and throwing money at things which don't work. At some point you have to realize that more money isn't always the solution, you actually have to fix your beurocracy. It's insane to me that the city with so many rich people and incredibly valuable companies is such a mess, your telling me that a small city with an incredibly wealthy populat…

Luckily a San Franciscan figured it all out over one hundred years ago so we don't have to wonder about this:

> THE GREAT PROBLEM IS SOLVED. We are able to explain social phenomena that have appalled philanthropists and perplexed statesmen all over the civilized world. We have found the reason why wages constantly tend to a minimum, giving but a bare living, despite increase in productive power:

> As productive power increases, rent tends to increase even more — constantly forcing down wages.

> Advancing civilization tends to increase the power of human labor to satisfy human desires. We should be able to eliminate poverty. But workers cannot reap these benefits because they are intercepted. Land is necessary to labor. When it has been reduced to private ownership, the increased productivity of labor only increases rent. Thus, all the advantages of progress go to those who own land. Wages do not increase — wages cannot increase. The more labor produces, the more it must pay for the opportunity to make anything at all.

A land value tax fixes our problems but Californians went and voted in Prop 13 which is about as far from that as you can get. http://www.henrygeorge.org/pchp23.htm

Re: San Francisco voters approve taxes on highly paid CEOs, big businesses

#340

Post by danans » Thu, Nov 05, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

qppo wrote: post #246

danans wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What this does is, it collects money from today's FAANGs while disincentivizing future startups from starting here. How many startups are there where the executives make 100x to 200x the median employee pay? That only happens via stock-based compensation at public companies. If that's the case, they're not a startup.

Is the tax assessed on options/grants even if there isn't a market to sell them?

If there is no market, either because it is pre-IPO or unvested then the value is unrealized, and therefore not a form of compensation, so no. You don't own equity that haven't vested. They are just a contract between you and the employer to transfer them to you upon vest, which either party can probably walk back on if they choose to.