What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#571

Post by neilk » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 11:46 PM UTC

run4yourlives wrote: post #311

neilk wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope - San Francisco is not much bigger. San Francisco has 800K people. Vancouver has 600K. (It is true that there are much more people in Bay Area versus the greater Vancouver area.) I've lived in both cities. Vancouver is basically the San Francisco of Canada. But it lacks the defiantly weird spirit of San Francisco. The insane wealth that's pumped through the city from nearby tech zillionaires does play a role, be…

(It is true that there are much more people in Bay Area versus the greater Vancouver area.) Yeah, it's bigger. People don't stay within local municipal boundaries. Don't be ridiculous. Nobody in their right mind would argue that Vancouver and SF are the same size. I've lived in both cities. Great, but have you lived out east ? Because that is what I'm comparing. I recognize there are differences between each city. Of…

I grew up in Montreal, which is definitely more east coast but is so unlike other North American cities it's probably a poor comparison.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#572

Post by tsotha » Wed, Jan 23, 2013, 8:57 PM UTC

afterburner wrote: post #567

tsotha wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything in that article that isn't sensible. There's no reason government expenditures have to keep going up in good times and bad.

Quite the contrary, when times are bad, social services are needed more, not less.

In broad strokes states have essentially two functions - education and social services. Of course when you make substantive cuts that's where they're going. There's no "right" amount of social services - as a state you pay for what's reasonable at the time given budgetary constraints.

It's no coincidence the Economy in Texas has recovered while the economy in California hasn't. This is particularly galling given the number of tech companies in Northern California with highly compensated employees.

In any event, California didn't slip into a budgetary black hole by coincidence. State employees are grossly overcompensated, and much of that compensation takes the form of generous retirement benefits. The state will be raising taxes and using budgetary gimmicks for decades because the real problem is unfunded pension liabilities, not delivery of current services.

Re: What I wish I knew before moving to San Francisco

#573

Post by hindsightbias » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 8:42 PM UTC

flyinRyan wrote: post #537

hindsightbias wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TX has had massive shortfalls in the last two biennial budgets. As big as CA's annual one: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/04/us-usa-deficits-st... So imagine an already very low service state having to cut budgets even more. Am sure that will work out well for the kids long-term. The State is tossing welfare/health/service issues down to the counties now, so expect your property taxes to skyrocket in the next…

Does texas even have property taxes? They didn't use to.

Counties set valuations and property taxes