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

latimes.com

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

#441

Post by smsm42 »

ransom1538 wrote: post #422
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…

"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 population can't figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? Or get some form of functioning public transit? Pretty pathetic." SF resident for 15 years until I left. I walked around and talked to homeless. From th…

So we have:

1. A lot of rich residents and rich companies which supply the city budget with sweet sweet tax money

2. A lot of programs and NGOs that draw large budgets to helping the homeless

3. Political climate that encourages spending money on helping the homeless without requiring anything from them, basically free money

4. Generous programs providing various freebies for homeless people, and no consequences for any behavior short of major robbery (yes, shoplifting is allowed too unless it's over $900)

5. Mild weather that makes living on the street possible year around

And we're wondering why homelessness has not disappeared? There's nobody that is interested in it disappearing, that's why. Well, at least nobody whose opinion matters, anyway. There's a lot of people interested in allocating and spending budgets on fighting homelessness, these aren't people interested in doing something that will make it stop once and for all.

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

#442

Post by typ »

bhupy wrote: post #429
rcpt wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A pet crusade of mine: California can pass a 100% (or close to that) land appreciation tax (capital gains tax on land), and that wouldn't violate Prop 13. High land appreciation taxes are essentially indistinguishable from Georgist LVT. China taxes land appreciation between 30-60%.

No, they are different.

Unlike LVT, an appreciation tax is a transaction tax, which can be shifted to the purchasers.

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

#443

Post by newsclues »

enahs-sf wrote: post #427
subsubzero wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "get tough on homelessness" attitude would be vilified by our political climate, so it won't ever be up to me. You and me both, the solution is really straightforward. I feel like homeless in general falls into 4 camps: camp 1 - drug addiction, this one would be to get people off the streets, Open rehab clinics, get them clean, and back into a functioning society. camp 2 - mental illness, This one would be opening…

I wonder what the distribution is between these four camps? My hunch is solving for the first three camps as you've described would lead to a much higher quality of living for the average city dweller.

1,2,4 have a lot of overlap or are the same group (you need to be mentally ill to want to be homeless and drug addiction is a symptom of trauma that’s basically untreated mental illness).

Need to find ways to help the mentally ill, and shovelling pills won’t cut it, we need comprehensive programs.

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

#444

Post by jelliclesfarm »

dheera wrote: post #413
rland wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most money that wealthy people have is not spent on consumer goods. It is plowed into more investment. Who spends more of their income? A paycheck-to-paycheck worker, or a wealthy person? The wealthy person puts most of their money into retirement accounts, college accounts, real estate equity, investment accounts, trusts, tax havens, shell companies... If you have 5 million paycheck-to-paycheck workers they will spe…

Let's also not forget that many wealthy people only pay at most 15% on taxes because the tax structure has more or less been lobbied by the wealthy in favor of the wealthy. Most middle class people pay 25-35%, and have neither time nor resources to lobby otherwise.

15% on a million net is more than taxes from middle class wage which actually goes towards negative tax if one takes the benefits of a living in an incorporated city and if there are children using public schools etc.

Money taxed from capital gains isn’t really the same as taxes levied on wages. This is very fundamental tax logic. Would you like me to explain why?

[..] The justification for a lower tax rate on capital gains relative to ordinary income is threefold: it is not indexed for inflation, it is a double tax, and it encourages present consumption over future consumption. ... Finally, a capital gains tax, like nearly all of the federal tax code, is a tax on future consumption.[..]

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

#445

Post by vondur »

mrits wrote: post #397
rcpt wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You can purchase a 5K sqft lot outside of Austin for $2,200 and we still have a growing homeless problem. I'd look more into providing mental health, relocation, and incentives to stay off heavy drugs.

SF has a $360 million dollar a year budget for addressing the homeless situation. I'm not sure what funding they may also get in addition from the County and State Level.

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

#446

Post by runarberg »

ransom1538 wrote: post #422
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…

"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 population can't figure out how to keep the tenderloin from being full of tents and open drug use? Or get some form of functioning public transit? Pretty pathetic." SF resident for 15 years until I left. I walked around and talked to homeless. From th…

Speaking as someone that lived in van in SF for 6 month before I left for immigration reasons:

1. I’m not from SF, I came there to live with my partner who was in school there but we couldn’t afford a place to rent.

2. I’ve never been homeless anywhere else and I wouldn’t have been homeless in SF if rent was fair.

3. I’ve never pan handled, but I didn’t need to. Dumpster diving is easy, there is plenty of free food options (including free farm stand with organic vegetables; I also cooked for food not bombs but that was more for the fun then the food).

4. Didn’t get any free phones, paid for my own bus fairs (or just jumped the muni).

5. Police never hassled me too much. Only one time when I parked near Dolores Park too see if they had their porta potties open all night (they didn’t). Police advised us to stay out of this neighborhood. We did and moved back to a friendlier neighborhood in the lower mission.

6. Showering is impossible for the homeless. I could really only shower and shave once a week. I had to wait in a line for a ticket at a charity and then wait there for an hour or two at a cramped space for my turn. Sometimes I would sneak at my the campus of my partner’s school and steal a shower.

Speaking from experience the only thing that is creating the homelessness in SF is lack of reasonable, affordable, and accessible housing options.

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

#447

Post by albacur »

toast0 wrote: post #77
textech wrote: post #31

San Francisco is the 16th largest city by population and has a budget of around 14 billion which is like 6 or 7 times larger than many cities with much bigger population. This is just a badly run city and throwing more money at their problems isn't going to help them.

San Francisco is a combined city and county (the only one in California), so its budget includes things that would be in county budgets for places like Los Angeles and San Jose. For example, SF MTA is part of the SF budget, but LA MTA is a county agency, and isn't part of the LA city budget.

Even accounting for MTA, SF’s per-capita spending remains much higher than most other US cities. DC is the only other city that is comparable.

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

#448

Post by s3r3nity »

bhupy wrote: post #429
rcpt wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A pet crusade of mine: California can pass a 100% (or close to that) land appreciation tax (capital gains tax on land), and that wouldn't violate Prop 13. High land appreciation taxes are essentially indistinguishable from Georgist LVT. China taxes land appreciation between 30-60%.

> China taxes land appreciation between 30-60%.

If you want support for your causes in the US, you probably don’t want to compare it to a communist regime that scares the crap out of people.

Unless this was sarcastic...?

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

#449

Post by NoRagrets »

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #408
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big Govt thrives on bloat. All unionized public sector employees rely on unfunded pension liabilities after their retirement. To continue with the pyramid scheme, you need more people to keep voting tax increases. That group is cultivated in public schools from when they are kids and then with social programs for the youth. If we socialize education and then young people and then the middle aged who can’t find afford…

Jesus. There is a lot of elitism embedded in here. For one, you’re not paying the Starbucks employee so they can be consumers out of the goodness of your heart. They’re charging what you’ll pay because that is capitalism. If you don’t want to pay the Starbucks employee, you don’t have to. You can go brew your own coffee, but you probably figure $2 isn’t worth your time so instead you’d rather just pay them for the co…

Yes. I think more people should strive to be elite than ordinary. Or not. It is the elite and the wannabe elites and those who want to be wealthy and powerful that make the world go round. Ambition that drives people to stand out is why they are motivated to Create. That’s why we are not an equal nation of peasants.

There is a reason tax havens exist. And why socialist Europe has Riviera and why we have Jackson Hole. It’s this jealousy towards elitism that’s creating WIDE gaps in inequality.

There will always be inequality. What we need to offer is opportunity for the willing and ambitious. Slamming it as ‘elitism’ is shaming the ones have what we don’t.

This is ruinous. We should instead create a more driven and ambitious society. Not one that wants a piece of someone else’s cake. Starting with..stop shaming the rich. And stop taxing them.

I want the rich to love obscene gorgeous insanely hedonistic lives. Because such a lifestyle will infuse spending and profit back into our economy.

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

#450

Post by bhupy »

typ wrote: post #442
bhupy wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pet crusade of mine: California can pass a 100% (or close to that) land appreciation tax (capital gains tax on land), and that wouldn't violate Prop 13. High land appreciation taxes are essentially indistinguishable from Georgist LVT. China taxes land appreciation between 30-60%.

No, they are different. Unlike LVT, an appreciation tax is a transaction tax, which can be shifted to the purchasers.

I would argue that as a transaction tax, it reduces the demand for the land. The net effect is the same: curbing land speculation.
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