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San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

californiapolicycenter.org

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Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#31

Post by opmelogy »

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #21

I think they surely can get rid of a lot of city personal. I've moved to a different state and just being in contact with government officials to get things done is just... easier. Something not right? Let's fix it. Let's do this first and then that. General California feeling: you're missing form 5858b. Can't help you. Come back later. Next available appointment: 3 months. Half of their jobs could be filled by using…

When I moved here a year+ ago, I was told by the leasing office for my apt that I needed to provide proof of rental information even though I had owned a house for 15 years (in another state, and had it fully paid off). They refused to process my application until I dug up contact info for a unit for a condo that was no longer being rented and for a property manager that did everything under the table.

Now we just found out that the company we started a year+ ago didn't get registered in CA "in time" so we owe $800 even though it's made no money. And by "in time" I mean it was two weeks past their grace period for being exempt for your first year.

So yeah, not really feeling CA nor SF at this point. We're looking to move and move the business somewhere else.

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#33

Post by zjp »

fortran77 wrote: post #25
rcpt wrote: post #24

[flagged]

There are many cities in California that are not having a financial crisis. Stop trying to confiscate homes from people because their neighbors paid too much money for their houses, condos, or apartments and "raised the property value." That's pure evil.

[flagged]

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#34

Post by pstuart »

mellosouls wrote: post #20
CalChris wrote: post #3

SourceWatch on California Policy Center https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/California_Policy_Cent...

A left wing pressure group identifies the article publisher as a right wing pressure group. Ok, cool, but whatever the quality of the arguments in the article that's probably not the devastating hammer blow to defeat them.

Many of their points are valid and should be addressed, but the criticism is rather narrow.

Case in point: homelessness. Yes, it's a huge problem, but San Francisco is a dumping ground for the homeless, e.g., other states buy one-way bus tickets for their indigents/miscreants to shift the burden. It's a national issue that needs to be addressed on a national level.

Then there was this pandemic thingy, and the WFH shift has decimated the office worker economy.

So they blame it all on "crime, vagrancy, and drugs" without any note of the the external pressure helping to create those problems.

That said, the pols should always have their feet to the fire on their ability to do their damn jobs and be responsible.

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#36

Post by maerF0x0 »

simoncion wrote: post #9

> Additionally, retailers have been closing their San Francisco locations in droves, citing crime, homelessness, and drug use... Evidently uncited are * COVID concerns * Rapidly increasing cost of goods and services that remains unmatched by wage increases * Dwindling customer base as people find stores understaffed (thanks, "strategic" layoffs!), understocked, or both and give up and turn to online shopping. * Dwind…

> COVID concerns

I left, in part, not because of COVID concern, but LOCKDOWN concerns. I was tired of "rules for thee, but not for me" policies that I disagreed with.

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#38

Post by Vervious »

pengaru wrote: post #13
simoncion wrote: post #9

> Additionally, retailers have been closing their San Francisco locations in droves, citing crime, homelessness, and drug use... Evidently uncited are * COVID concerns * Rapidly increasing cost of goods and services that remains unmatched by wage increases * Dwindling customer base as people find stores understaffed (thanks, "strategic" layoffs!), understocked, or both and give up and turn to online shopping. * Dwind…

> > Additionally, retailers have been closing their San Francisco locations in droves, citing crime, homelessness, and drug use... "Walgreens Executive Says Shoplifting Threat Was Overstated" [0] "Recent Retail Closures in U.S. Cities Follow Trends Established Before the Pandemic" [1] Retail is just dying, but of course they're going to blame something other than their own failing / inability to compete with Amazon a…

We should still expect retail to be alive and well in cities, where people aggregate. The JP Morgan Chase institute report cited by [1] looked exclusively at the impact of WFH and covid. With the pandemic now "over", we should expect SF to bounce back, as did NYC (which now has fewer retail vacancies than pre-pandemic) and many other cities.

In particular, NYC feels incredibly vibrant right now, more-so than pre-pandemic. Maybe it's because of tourism, which is at 110% of pre-pandemic levels. In comparison, SF feels like it got left behind.

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#39

Post by onos »

RC_ITR wrote: post #11

The problem of these articles is that they lean too far into kicking SF while it’s down, since it felt so invincible before. Same kind of journalism happened in the early 2000s. The problem is that they don’t recognize cyclicality. Arguably the most important startup in decades is headquartered there, the CEO is stating remote work is a mistake, and the CTO is regularly calling SF the best place to start an AI startu…

Might be cyclical, or maybe it’s Detroit v2. We will see, hoping the former.

https://twitter.com/sfstandard/status/1662145831351336977?s=...

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#40

Post by pstuart »

proc0 wrote: post #19
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this place is a fake think tank that pretends to be neutral but is in fact an arm of ALEC and largely funded by the Koch's: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/California_Policy_Cent... Don't fall for easy bullshit and let it lead you to making "dunk" comments that don't actually engage the problems and instead act as thought ending cliches. That's their entire goal.

Sounds like conspiracy theories. No dunking, just saying. SF is far left just like Oakland and they both seem to have unique problems other cities aren't experiencing. I could be wrong, but so far I've predicted the downturn and I think it won't get any better unless people start holding the decision-makers accountable (which sounds like it's not going to happen).

So the problem is that SF is liberal? That caused the homeless to be sent from around the country?

It's expensive there because a lot of people want to live there (ye olde supply demand thang, ya know?), and the more affluent squeeze out the poor folk. A lot of that affluence seems to be all of us lucky tech people, so in a sense we're part of the problem (not blaming, just noting).

There is corruption and incompetence too but that seems to exist lots of other places too.

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