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San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
51–60 of 129 posts
Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
And an international airport and a water source and pipeline from the mountains. Crazy stuff
SFO is in San Mateo County.
San Francisco International Airport is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco and policed by San Francisco Police Department.
Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
#53Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Couple that with the fact that it’s nearly impossible to fire people from these jobs, regardless of their competency. Some of the absolute laziest and rude people I’ve ever interacted with are CA government employees who deal with the public.
How many fucks would you give if it was effectively impossible to get fired? It isn’t exactly surprising. When I worked at McDonald’s decades ago I would have greatly enjoyed telling numerous people to go fuck themselves, but I’m a consummate professional and needed the cash. Now isn’t it crazy that government employees, who ostensibly serve us the tax payers, treat their fellow citizens like shit? A travesty all aro…
I worked for government for a long time. It’s no different managing government employees, it’s about leadership. Most people just want to do their job and go home. You probably had a decent manager at McDonald’s — many of them frankly suck.
In city government, frequently the professional managers are on a leash. Some councilman, friend of the mayor, etc has the juice to take care of their friends or countrymen. In citizen facing situations you can usually see this when everyone in the office looks or sounds the same - those are likely not civil service employees, but patronage jobs serving at someone’s pleasure.
I’ve worked in and around many big companies too — plenty of incompetence to go around there, even in sales orgs where getting fired happens routinely.
Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
#55If employee wages are a large part of the rising costs, then perhaps the cost of living for living in SF is too high. The cost of living is too high because rent is too high. Since there is so much political contention to building more housing, there is no chance that housing prices will decrease (nobody wants to see their property lose value). Now they are complaining about the problem they caused?!? I don't know if…
Somebody at a planning meeting for an apartment building in Nopa was arguing that it would go against the working-class history of the neighborhood (homes sell for >$1M there now btw). People here are in deep denial about SF being a world city, and the fact that people with (realized or paper) gains in the high hundred thousands are not "working class".
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Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
#56I 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…
You don’t understand. The incentives are all wrong. There is absolutely zero benefit for a bureaucracy to make itself more efficient and require less money each year. No one is incentivized to ensure money is being spent well. The biggest incentive for a lifelong bureaucrat is to increase budget and headcount - the more money and headcount you have, the more important you are. There is never a time when you aren’t re…
I don't think it's about incentives. Or, alternatively, if it's about incentives, then you have already failed.
For a long time, the US tried to export democracy and capitalism around the world. Sometimes it worked, but it was more common that the attempt failed. It failed, because the culture, the values, and the institutions needed to support a Western-style society were not there.
There are countries where the bureaucracy is more efficient and functional than in the US. But maybe the attempts to import the best practices fail, because the culture, the values, and the institutions needed to support them are not there. So it's up to individual incentives, which is usually a recipe for failure.
Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
#57Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don’t understand. The incentives are all wrong. There is absolutely zero benefit for a bureaucracy to make itself more efficient and require less money each year. No one is incentivized to ensure money is being spent well. The biggest incentive for a lifelong bureaucrat is to increase budget and headcount - the more money and headcount you have, the more important you are. There is never a time when you aren’t re…
I don't think it's about incentives. Or, alternatively, if it's about incentives, then you have already failed. For a long time, the US tried to export democracy and capitalism around the world. Sometimes it worked, but it was more common that the attempt failed. It failed, because the culture, the values, and the institutions needed to support a Western-style society were not there. There are countries where the bur…
I could not disagree more. In the countries where the bureacracy is considered "efficient", it's because in that time and place the best jobs for the most talented were in the government. In the US context that was 1930 to 1970, when the Great Depression, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam, and the aftermath made stable government employment attractive.
Once the situation tilts back to the private sector, which IMO is the natural state of things, it starts to get corrupted.
My thesis is that over the longterm you must align incentives. In certain times in certain places you can avoid this. But the arc of the moral universe bends towards self interest.
Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many fucks would you give if it was effectively impossible to get fired? It isn’t exactly surprising. When I worked at McDonald’s decades ago I would have greatly enjoyed telling numerous people to go fuck themselves, but I’m a consummate professional and needed the cash. Now isn’t it crazy that government employees, who ostensibly serve us the tax payers, treat their fellow citizens like shit? A travesty all aro…
I worked for government for a long time. It’s no different managing government employees, it’s about leadership. Most people just want to do their job and go home. You probably had a decent manager at McDonald’s — many of them frankly suck. In city government, frequently the professional managers are on a leash. Some councilman, friend of the mayor, etc has the juice to take care of their friends or countrymen. In ci…
I have come to appreciate that in the private sector, eventually, you will get fired. I recognize the nepotism and nonsense is rampant in the private sector. However there is the market test. In government it can be neverending.
Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 incompeten…
Isn't it beyond liberal? I would almost say it's so left it's not even liberal anymore, but that's a different matter. i think for sure it is a factor because the people who make decisions in the city, who are elected to manage the city, are probably not afraid of losing their jobs or the consequences of the decisions they make. There is so little pushback they can just run experiment after experiment with zero repercussions. I don't know what the solution is but I sure know that I don't hire the same company over and over if they keep failing at solving a problem I'm paying them for.
Granted, corruption is a big part of it (i.e. public services wasting tax payer money instead of solving the problem), and dealing with that would be a step in the right direction.