“Overpaid Executive Tax” in SF hits firms that pay CEOs 100X more than workers

Post by CountSessine » Sun, Nov 08, 2020, 5:50 AM UTC

disposekinetics wrote: post #12

roenxi wrote: post #5

This is going to have unintended consequences. Chances are it brings in a trickle of revenue and triggers silly behaviour rather than making anyone better off.

Social engineering seems to be a fragile idea because humans are amazing at optimizing in favor of their own interests. Taxes as a form of revenue seem to work better than taxes as a force for manipulation.

Taxes work beautifully as an incentive by changing people's utility gradient. "Don't smoke if you want to raise your utility!" "Don't drive a gas-burning car if you want to raise your utility!"

I suspect that taxes work less well when the whole point is to lower people's utility. "Lower your utility or we'll do it for you!"

Post by lacker » Mon, Nov 09, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

srtjstjsj wrote: post #15

lacker wrote: post #2

Glad to see this as an East Bay resident. Here's hoping it helps the already-existing trend of more tech companies moving across the bay ;-) Or, maybe the San Francisco companies will just fire their low-paid workers or shift them to being employed by a subsidiary to avoid this tax. It's funny how San Francisco often seems to be both the home of the US tech industry, and the home of opposition to the US tech industry…

Why would the opposition be anywhere else?

It's not like the opposition to the coal industry comes from Appalachia, or the opposition to the tobacco industry comes from North Carolina, or the opposition to gasoline-powered cars comes from Detroit. My mental model is that industries form clusters, the towns around them support their industries, and opposition comes from elsewhere. But it seems like it doesn't work that way for the tech industry.

Re: “Overpaid Executive Tax” in SF hits firms that pay CEOs 100X more than workers

Re: “Overpaid Executive Tax” in SF hits firms that pay CEOs 100X more than workers