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Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives

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Re: Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives

#101

Post by fmajid »

michaelt wrote: post #90
Jarwain wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cruel yes. Better in the long run? Maybe. People need support. This support requires funding. This funding comes from taxes, which requires business operations and such. Business operations are impacted by perceptions of safety and cleanliness, which also requires funding and scales with the number of people who need support.

I'm no expert on US politics/taxes, but isn't the bay area already home to some of the richest companies on the planet? Mostly companies whose income comes from all over the globe, and hence is almost entirely independent of the state of San Francisco's streets? And people on HN make it sound like the Bay Area is full of workers making several hundred of thousand of dollars a year, buying houses worth several million…

SF's problems do not stem from lack of money. The City's budget went from $6B in 2008 to $13B today. That's more than entire countries (SF would by #80 in the UN after Nigeria and before Sri Lanka). They could afford to buy every homeless man, woman and child (7,000 total) a $1M condo with just one year's worth of the tech windfall. By my calculations, the city bureaucracy captured at least 40% of that in salaries and benefits, and I'm sure the welfare-industrial complex took its cut as well, while failing the people it ostensibly serves.

If SF raises additional taxes, the few companies left will simply decamp to other places in the Bay Area like San Jose. The crime and quality of life issues are already pushing them to do so. They only set up shop in SF after 2000 because that was the only way to attract talent from Berkeley or SF who were not willing to commute to the South Bay, but in the new job market environment that is no longer an issue.

Re: Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives

#102

Post by freediverx »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #69
paulcole wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It likely felt safer than walking but there is a 0% chance that a 1.5 block walk through San Francisco was truly more dangerous than a 1.5 block car ride. It’s much more likely that neither was dangerous at all.

Getting accosted several homeless people in a short stretch feels unsafe, especially to the sort of out of towner who is not inured to it, in a way that driving does not. Both have a very low risk per unit of travel, but in the moment we have no way of qualitatively measuring that risk. I stayed in SF for a few nights, it was pretty shocking to me the amount of homeless people (euphemism creep: temporarily unhoused)…

Maybe instead of complaining about homeless people we should complain about how capitalism creates homelessness.

Re: Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives

#104

Post by jojobas »

zoky wrote: post #74
jojobas wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feeling of danger is subjective, I can easily imagine a car ride along shit-infested sidewalks and deranged homeless people feels less dangerous (and icky) than walking.

I mean, okay, but don't you think there's generally a correlation between “feeling of danger” and “actual danger”?

I'm not arguing with you, I'm arguing with other people here who apparently have no problem walking on shit, syringes and whatever else as long as loitering delinquents don't "look at them crossways".

Re: Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives

#105

Post by zoky »

freediverx wrote: post #102
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting accosted several homeless people in a short stretch feels unsafe, especially to the sort of out of towner who is not inured to it, in a way that driving does not. Both have a very low risk per unit of travel, but in the moment we have no way of qualitatively measuring that risk. I stayed in SF for a few nights, it was pretty shocking to me the amount of homeless people (euphemism creep: temporarily unhoused)…

Maybe instead of complaining about homeless people we should complain about how capitalism creates homelessness.

Maybe instead of pretending homelessness is a strictly capitalist problem we should look at whether it’s been a problem elsewhere:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Russia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_China

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotjebi

Re: Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives

#106

Post by ptero »

koolba wrote: post #56
bombcar wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A non-recourse loan means the lender is also “invested” in the property somewhat. That can be a good thing. A non-recourse interest only loan is a bit batshit however.

> A non-recourse interest only loan is a bit batshit however. Not as crazy as you think as that’s pretty much what the FHA does with consumer mortgages in non-recourse States. It’s not quite zero but I think it goes as low as 3.5% down. You can almost create this position synthetically by getting a non-recourse loan for the bulk of the purchase, and an unsecured loan (at a higher rate) for what would normally be the…

For home loans, even non recourse, it is not a purely financial transaction. Defaulting on a loan stays on your credit report for a while and might not only hit your chances of getting another loan, give a (small) hit to your job search (especially if you apply to a company outside US that would run a credit check), etc.

Re: Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives

#107

Post by hef19898 »

ddorian43 wrote: post #98
Fervicus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mismanaged their risk. You make it sound like they did nothing wrong.

Can the other banks handle the same thing that happened to SVB?

From memory, yes. At least better, since SVB had an unusual high amount of uninsured deposits and Edit: other banks have more short term investments to cover withdrawls that were marketed to market, meaning they were more like cash equivalents than the long term stuff SVB had to sell at huge losses. And those losses kind of killed SVB.

Re: Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives

#108

Post by dismantlethesun »

freediverx wrote: post #102
HlessClaudesman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting accosted several homeless people in a short stretch feels unsafe, especially to the sort of out of towner who is not inured to it, in a way that driving does not. Both have a very low risk per unit of travel, but in the moment we have no way of qualitatively measuring that risk. I stayed in SF for a few nights, it was pretty shocking to me the amount of homeless people (euphemism creep: temporarily unhoused)…

Maybe instead of complaining about homeless people we should complain about how capitalism creates homelessness.

Why is capitalism only creating homeless encampments in San Fran and not generally in the US? Maybe it’s not capitalism at fault here but a government that is unwilling or unable to supply standard social safety nets like homeless shelters and addiction therapy.

Re: Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives

#109

Post by zoky »

jojobas wrote: post #104
zoky wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, okay, but don't you think there's generally a correlation between “feeling of danger” and “actual danger”?

I'm not arguing with you, I'm arguing with other people here who apparently have no problem walking on shit, syringes and whatever else as long as loitering delinquents don't "look at them crossways".

Ah, gotcha, I see what you’re saying. I guess I’d just say that you seem to be implying that the human instinct for perception of danger is not really tied to actual danger. And while one could argue that in the modern day that may be true, I think there’s something to be said for the fact that our instinctual ability to perceive even potential danger has gotten us this far.

Re: Hotel Owners Start to Write Off San Francisco as Business Nosedives

#110

Post by gigatexal »

briandear wrote: post #97
nradov wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US still has a positive net migration rate with pretty much every other country, including all major EU member states.

That’s going to be a lot poor people moving from poor countries. But to OP’s point, there are a lot of middle-upper class, especially remote workers that are looking to get the heck out of the US. I am one of them. When sex changes for children is a topic of national debate, or my kids are being taught that your skin color makes you racist — it’s time to go.

No joke much of the US business exceptionalism is from immigration. For whatever reason many a foreign national wants to go to the US to take part in that 50-cent dream of get[ting] rich or d[ying] trying.
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