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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

#501

Post by hevelvarik »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #480
runarberg wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downvoted this because as someone that has been what many consider homeless in San Francisco, I am a little insulted by this attitude. It comes across as someone that has never lived this life claiming that it is a good life and generalizing over the homeless population as freebies and criminals. If there exists a complicated social problem that involves thousands of human beings and someone on the internet claims…

I downvoted you because I am insulted by this attitude. As someone who comes from a country of starvation deaths, I can easily see how the homeless in SF would be considered the 1% of the world. If the milk of human kindness is all about spreading the wealth..how about spreading the wealth to other countries? Why should I pay for the homeless in SF when they live in the richest country in the world when I can send th…

I downvoted you because I am insulted by your being insulted by his attitude while being insulted. (I didn’t really downvote you)

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

#502

Post by runarberg »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #486
runarberg wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one is not content with my city having enough money to build and maintain expensive infrastructure. I care more about living in an equal society where the rich don’t constantly dunk on the less fortunate, where the rich don’t hold disproportionate power and are frequently causing issues that disproportional effect people like me. I want to tax the hell out of the rich, not just to get money to manage our shared…

How much will you be willing to see your tax rate go up?

If I make the mean wage I wouldn’t mind seeing it go to 50%, provided that if someone that makes one standard deviation above the mean wage go up to 73.1058579%.

I hope you see which taxation function I prefer from this ;)

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

#503

Post by diogenescynic »

I lived in SF from 2009 to 2019 and just moved out of the Bay Area entirely. SF is about to kill its golden goose. Tech companies don't have to be in SF Bay Area anymore and now that there's a mass exodus fleeing the area due to cost of living and quality of life, SF government is going to hit a massive budget crunch. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. Chesa Boudin and the rest of the ideological extremists who sabotaged the city will finally get what they wanted.

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

#504

Post by sushid »

runarberg wrote: post #472
smsm42 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I downvoted this because as someone that has been what many consider homeless in San Francisco, I am a little insulted by this attitude. It comes across as someone that has never lived this life claiming that it is a good life and generalizing over the homeless population as freebies and criminals. If there exists a complicated social problem that involves thousands of human beings and someone on the internet claims…

Yes, people from all walks of life may end up homeless but I'm tired of hearing stories of my friends being robbed at gunpoint/knifepoint or straight up assaulted for a phone and a wallet. People walk into stores and steal without impunity, shoot up drugs, shit in the middle of a street, etc. It's truly appalling. As far as being homeless goes, the homeless here are free to fuck things up for the rest of us.

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

#505

Post by elevenoh »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #241
sethammons wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or just use hollywood accounting. You have a parent company with high paid employees. You have a separate company with low paid employees. Or move. Or change title.

There are rules such as Common Ownership or Common Control that prevent that kind of avoidance. I'm sure SF can come up with something similar. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.414(c)-4 https://healthcareexchange.com/article/common-ownership-what... http://wkins.com/aca-common-ownership-rules-explained/

I wonder whether blocking any/all avoidance of this tax truly* what they want though.

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

#506

Post by kmtrowbr »

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…

Proposition L is not enough tax to take away the economic prosperity.

I am all for building more and more dense housing. I'm not sure how to accomplish it. The way I see it, SF either becomes more dense, or it becomes even more of "a toy city for rich people" & loses all hope of economic diversity.

I grew up in Michigan. I am well aware of how cities can fall into decline. My wife on the other hand grew up in Minnesota. So in my mind, I often compare Detroit with Minneapolis. I think the problem with Detroit is that, it never diversified. It was all auto industry. Minneapolis's economy has several pillars: finance, insurance, healthcare, industry. You can ask yourself whether or not SF is either Detroit or Minneapolis in this example. I tend to think of SF as the New York of the West coast. It has very unique geographical advantages. It will have ups and downs, but will continue to be reborn.

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

#507

Post by dragonwriter »

colordrops wrote: post #144
cody3222 wrote: post #121

This raises some interesting questions / side effects: 1) Companies may now have a direct incentive to have their lowest income earners be outsourced/contracted out to boost the median pay amount. 2) It was smart of them to include compensation such as stock options. However if a city starts to expect this income, it will all go away in recessions when CEO's stock options are not valuable. ie more money to the city i…

CEOs are all just going to move out of San Francisco.

> CEOs are all just going to move out of San Francisco.

Doesn't help at all to move high-paying managers out of SF the way this is structured.

Moving low-payed workers out of SF while keeping high-paid workers in SF, OTOH.

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

#508

Post by jelliclesfarm »

runarberg wrote: post #494
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downvoted you because I am insulted by this attitude. As someone who comes from a country of starvation deaths, I can easily see how the homeless in SF would be considered the 1% of the world. If the milk of human kindness is all about spreading the wealth..how about spreading the wealth to other countries? Why should I pay for the homeless in SF when they live in the richest country in the world when I can send th…

I actually upvoted that because I glad you left this comment. It provides an essential perspective for the global distribution of wealth. USA is the richest and the most powerful nation in the world and it is a ridiculous power dynamic that has no justification. The USA cannot provide housing option for some of its population, but even worse, the USA consistently steals wealth from other nations leaving them impoveri…

Thanks. I agree. But there needs to be no justification.

The USA does not steal wealth from other nations. Please substantiate this comment with an example.

Wealth is not an indicator of quality of life. I have seen this over and over again amongst the rich and the poor. All we can do is live well so we are not a burden to others. The next best thing to do is help when we can.

What I am against..on principle..is that we look to someone else for our happiness. Or survival. I am an immigrant too. I left my country of origin for one reason and one reason only..upper economic mobility. Many immigrants cause reverse brain drain. I have a better quality of life and I can uplift people within my circle of influence. I can do better as an American than as a citizen of my country of origin. And I enjoy the comforts of my new life. And that’s fine with me. I don’t believe we can heal the world by squeezing the hearts of the collective rich.

I don’t understand why I should support someone who doesn’t want to leave SF because it’s chill while I had to leave behind my native country, my family and friends and all things familiar because I wanted the same thing as them. Comfort and quality of life. Only..I was willing to make sacrifices and trade offs. It’s difficult to empathize because it would make a mockery of the sacrifices that I had to make because I wanted something. We can’t ask others to sacrifice their money because some people don’t want to make any sacrifices for their own desires.

We have seen that money doesn’t solve problems. In SF alone..350+ million did not solve homelessness or drug addiction or mental illness or despair due to poverty.

So what is the answer. If the pitchforks against the rich are laid down and the energy is properly channelized to find meaningful solutions, we will get somewhere.

My motto: Do what you have to do. Others are not a measure. What I am NOT is a fan of guilty self flagellation. If I am not going to flagellate myself, why would I allow others to do it to me?

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

#510

Post by echelon »

standardUser wrote: post #338
echelon wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

Don't be so accusational. I'm not lying. [1,2]

> 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.

Don't ignore or discount change. Nothing stays the same forever. Companies are starting up elsewhere and plenty of SF headquarters are pulling up roots.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/2nd-most-valuab...

[2] https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2020/05/29/sta...

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