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San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

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Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#81

Post by pfannkuchen »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #72
monero-xmr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There absolutely people who just keep messing up in the private sector until they reach retirement, never suffering consequences. You just have to be executive level. This dichotomy you're making between the free market and government is cartoonish and not particularly useful.

The performance of executives may be more influenced by factors outside of their control than the performance of e.g. IC engineers, though. I wonder if that plays into the perceptive of many executives being incompetent, and how much context is considered when hiring an executive.

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#82

Post by moltar »

rayiner wrote: post #66
monero-xmr wrote: post #26

Earlier 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…

The US seems especially bad, though. Do other countries do things differently in terms of incentives?

A subset of services in Ontario, Canada are handled by a private company on a tendered government contract. It’s called Service Ontario, and is sort of a DMV equivalent, but also handles healthcare cards and other daily minutia.

http://www.ontario.ca/page/own-private-serviceontario-centre

I’ve used Service Ontario services many times, and they certainly feel like a balanced blend of bureaucratic process and efficiency.

It’s certainly an oasis in the desert of dealing with the government.

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#83

Post by pstuart »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #75
pstuart wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shi…

A lot of states give prisoners open bus tickets on release if they have no one coming to pick them up. They are not technically sending them to LA, SF, Portland, or Seattle, but where else are they going to go? Living outside in LA is much better than doing the same in Houston. But this is another point of the problem: anyone who solves the problem well is bound to just attract more of the problem. People are not imm…

My second paragraph explicitly said it: it's a national issue and can only be solved at that level.

It would be collectively cheaper and far more humane to boot.

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#84

Post by hackernewds »

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…

I'm guessing you mean OpenAI. Ironically they did their best work while working remotely not in an SF HQ. Also it behooves me to consider that a CEO/CTO in a competitive environment would be biased to dole out malignant advice, as evidenced against their own practice?

It's kinda like how you wouldn't want to use the toothpaste that "9 out of 10 dentists recommend". Or billionaires often mention their secret to success is merely "reading a lot" or "waking up at 4am" or doing dishes [0]

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/10/why-jeff-bezos-and-bill-gate...

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#85

Post by bryanrasmussen »

rayiner wrote: post #66
monero-xmr wrote: post #26

Earlier 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…

The US seems especially bad, though. Do other countries do things differently in terms of incentives?

In Denmark government money is pretty good, especially when taken in with the benefits, for areas like being a social worker. Working in Gov tech is not that great but it isn't bad either, the problem is every gov I have ever seen makes it difficult to fire people and gives lots of benefits to make up for the fact that they don't give money.

Why would you work a government job given that it is underpaid unless there were benefits to even it out? And don't say helping people is a benefit, that kind of thing lasts a couple years and then most people burn out on helping people.

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#86

Post by reducesuffering »

kaycebasques wrote: post #44
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…

Back when I used to go to Stable Cafe a lot I often looked at the Pioneer Building and pondered that it was a strange, interesting building. Only learned in the last few weeks that it's OpenAI's HQ!

Used to be

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#87

Post by rightbyte »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #81
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There absolutely people who just keep messing up in the private sector until they reach retirement, never suffering consequences. You just have to be executive level. This dichotomy you're making between the free market and government is cartoonish and not particularly useful.

The performance of executives may be more influenced by factors outside of their control than the performance of e.g. IC engineers, though. I wonder if that plays into the perceptive of many executives being incompetent, and how much context is considered when hiring an executive.

An engineer is influenced by the same factors and the executives themself. Fired diagonally upwards is a real thing.

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#88

Post by fmajid »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #75
pstuart wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shi…

A lot of states give prisoners open bus tickets on release if they have no one coming to pick them up. They are not technically sending them to LA, SF, Portland, or Seattle, but where else are they going to go? Living outside in LA is much better than doing the same in Houston. But this is another point of the problem: anyone who solves the problem well is bound to just attract more of the problem. People are not imm…

SF does not solve the homeless problem, but there is good money to be made in the welfare-industrial complex pretending to help.

Salt Lake City, that bastion of left-liberalism (/s) does a much better job, specially at preventing vulnerable people from becoming homeless in the first place.

Ultimately SF’s problems are well understood and the solutions as well, but there is no political will to confront the entrenched interests that led to this and an apathetic electorate that does not demand accountability is responsible.

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#89

Post by sokoloff »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #73
jltsiren wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A concrete example: In many countries, most taxpayers don't have to file taxes. Those countries have taken many steps over the decades to make the tax bureaucracy more efficient. The US could try to do the same, but the existing institutions make it difficult. Another example: Many countries have a system of administrative courts. If someone challenges a decision made by a public official, the case goes there. The pr…

You don’t have to do tax returns in China. But you have to fill out a form with some numbers from your pay check stubs as HR tells you. It’s absolutely bizarre, it doesn’t change what taxes you pay at all, but you are in trouble if you don’t file the form (which is in Chinese anyways and I’ve never read through).

Wouldn’t it seem weird if the official government form wasn’t in the official government language?

Re: San Francisco’s Financial Crisis

#90

Post by inferiorhuman »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #85
rayiner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US seems especially bad, though. Do other countries do things differently in terms of incentives?

In Denmark government money is pretty good, especially when taken in with the benefits, for areas like being a social worker. Working in Gov tech is not that great but it isn't bad either, the problem is every gov I have ever seen makes it difficult to fire people and gives lots of benefits to make up for the fact that they don't give money. Why would you work a government job given that it is underpaid unless there…

The pay scales are all public info for public sector jobs (in California at least). sfgov.org/careers or something should point you in the right direction, most of the tech positions I've seen listed fall under 104x or 106x. However (and I don't think this is unique to SF) most of the tech jobs are listed as civil service exempt. So it's kinda like USDS. No civil service exam required, mediocre pay, next to none of the typical civil service perks.

  Why would you work a government job given that it is underpaid unless there
  were benefits to even it out?
To make the world a better place. Seriously. When I was starting out I went through the whole process with the SF school district. The folks I interviewed with seemed quite decent and were also realistic about the work environment. The top pay band was not far enough off from private sector pay to. matter to me. Unfortunately they could only offer me the lowest band because reasons. Megacorp pulled something similar when they asked me to come back. Bureaucracy is nasty no matter who's signing your checks.
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