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

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

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 754 posts

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

#381

Post by nerfhammer »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #377
macspoofing wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we've had the opposite problem: lots of highly paid tech firms moving into SF. Quite the problem ... the kind of problem that multitudes of cities and regions in the world are desperately trying to recreate. >This has changed the nature of San Francisco in a way that many dislike, including me. This is where progressives don't live up to their name. The nature of cities is constant change. Meanwhile the activists ar…

I have never seen a high density city have low rents. Mumbai, Hong Kong, London, NYC. Is there any factual and proven example of a city that has increased density and housing became affordable and cheaper as a result of more units?

Tokyo

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

#382

Post by jelliclesfarm »

swiley wrote: post #168
macspoofing wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>we've had the opposite problem: lots of highly paid tech firms moving into SF. Quite the problem ... the kind of problem that multitudes of cities and regions in the world are desperately trying to recreate. >This has changed the nature of San Francisco in a way that many dislike, including me. This is where progressives don't live up to their name. The nature of cities is constant change. Meanwhile the activists ar…

>Rents will drop if you increase density ... but that would mean building higher density housing and thereby accepting that the character of cities and neighborhoods change. I keep hearing proponents of strict exclusionary zoning laws arguing that they don't like the risk of having the value of their investment decrease because of this. SF will be a great example of how change happens weather you like it or not and a…

I have never seen rents drop due to high density. If anything, rents are cheaper in sparsely populated areas. Examples abound. Rents won’t become cheaper if we build more. However, building more will certainly mean more property taxes for the government.

San Francisco gets several millions of dollars to spend from which they spend a measly amount on the homeless(and that’s over 350 million/annum)..where is the rest? Even the money spent on homeless solutions is mostly going to contracted non profits(look at their board..probably has ex-city employees as board members) or more public sector employees.

With 350 million, I would have created a new sustainable village to house 1000 people with jobs inside. Instead, SF still huffs and puffs and spends tax dollars on piffle and squat.

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

#383

Post by jelliclesfarm »

nerfhammer wrote: post #381
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never seen a high density city have low rents. Mumbai, Hong Kong, London, NYC. Is there any factual and proven example of a city that has increased density and housing became affordable and cheaper as a result of more units?

Tokyo

Japan has falling birth rate.

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

#384

Post by dheera »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #368
dheera wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It is understandable that you want these issues fixed. But do you think those who don’t use these services should be burdened with the cost of fixing them? In Europe, social costs are borne by the middle class to provide a safety net for the middle class. In the USA, we expect the wealthy to provide for all of society. It is highly irrational.

> But do you think those who don’t use these services should be burdened with the cost of fixing them?

Yes. In /most/ cases, the wealthy are only wealthy because they have (directly or indirectly) profited from the middle class. The wealthy should be paying a fair share of taxes in return, for upkeep of the public services the middle class use, and which the wealthy are perfectly entitled to also use.

The middle class should pay their fair share of taxes as well, of course, but for the most part, they do. They pay less taxes than the wealthy, because a significant fraction of their income does go toward basic necessities, whereas for the wealthy, basic necessities is a negligible fraction of income.

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

#385

Post by primitivesuave »

jm_l wrote: post #376
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…

I think this is a common line of thinking that doesn't actually reflect the reality of how much the city is spending per year. SF's spending in 2019 was 12b dollars (roughly $12,000 per resident). Of that, 1.6b went to MTA ($1600 per resident, or 13% of total spending) and 360m went to addressing homelessness ($360 per resident, or 3% of total spending) Comparatively, SF's GDP was 500b (500,000 per resident). To conc…

One number you're missing there is the total homeless population estimated in 2019 to be around 8000 people [1], which works out to around $45k per homeless resident.

1. https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep...

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

#387

Post by jelliclesfarm »

dheera wrote: post #384
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is understandable that you want these issues fixed. But do you think those who don’t use these services should be burdened with the cost of fixing them? In Europe, social costs are borne by the middle class to provide a safety net for the middle class. In the USA, we expect the wealthy to provide for all of society. It is highly irrational.

> But do you think those who don’t use these services should be burdened with the cost of fixing them? Yes. In /most/ cases, the wealthy are only wealthy because they have (directly or indirectly) profited from the middle class. The wealthy should be paying a fair share of taxes in return, for upkeep of the public services the middle class use, and which the wealthy are perfectly entitled to also use. The middle clas…

The middle classes are getting goods and services in return. The jobs for the middle class is also being provided by the big companies. Thereby creating a tax base for a govt whose only job is to maintain law and order, build infrastructure and maintain public utilities while conducting fair elections.

But we see so much bloat that they can’t ever get out of a deficit. That only keeps growing. A hungry maw that never shuts without ever solving any problem.

If 350 million dollars spent over 12 months can’t solve homelessness in SF. How much will it take? 600 million? 1 billion? 1.5 billion? What’s that “magic” number?

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

#388

Post by adjkant »

cheriot wrote: post #138
kmtrowbr wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have lived in San Francisco since 2005. Over the time I've lived here, we've had the opposite problem: lots of highly paid tech firms moving into SF. This has changed the nature of San Francisco in a way that many dislike, including me. I was initially attracted to San Francisco because, it was chill, it was beautiful, and it had a lot of eccentric, really interesting people. Many of our good friends had to leave o…

I've seen people take that position and I see a fundamental mistake. Look at rust belt cities. Look at NYC in the 70s. When employers leave the people left behind are not better off. This doesn't mean we need to kiss big tech ass, but we have a city where getting a job is a solved problem. Very few places on earth have that. Rent prices are the underlying problem pushing people out. Underlying _that_ problem is a lac…

> we have a city where getting a job is a solved problem.

This is the case for the tech industry, not categorically. Important distinction there.

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

#389

Post by danans »

closeparen wrote: post #363
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…

As upper-middle-class professionals we tend to assume that city institutions are here to serve us , and that the things we find unpleasant must be failures. The ability to pitch a tent almost anywhere, free from police harassment, is pretty great if you’re homeless. Likewise the public transit system is pretty great if you’re a transit worker, or someone who wants an indoor third space but whose appearance/behavior/s…

> Likewise the public transit system is pretty great if you’re a transit worker, or someone who wants an indoor third space but whose appearance/behavior/smell would tend to get you thrown out of Starbucks, or if your best alternative is to walk.

A public transit system is a huge advantage for upper middle class professionals, and even more so when them homeless are housed. This can be seen in developed countries that have good public transit systems.

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

#390

Post by pochamago »

jm_l wrote: post #376
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…

I think this is a common line of thinking that doesn't actually reflect the reality of how much the city is spending per year. SF's spending in 2019 was 12b dollars (roughly $12,000 per resident). Of that, 1.6b went to MTA ($1600 per resident, or 13% of total spending) and 360m went to addressing homelessness ($360 per resident, or 3% of total spending) Comparatively, SF's GDP was 500b (500,000 per resident). To conc…

What do you think is the right amount of local revenue for a city to collect? SF by your numbers is collecting 2.4% of its local GDP which is about double what my cityseems to be doing. I also feel like having high state taxes would squeeze out what localities can justify collecting.
Post reply on HN