Homelessness Tax Would Target Rich Tech Sector in San Francisco

MrDeaf said:
I am in the opinion that there's something seriously wrong with the housing market in SF, when $117k annual income is considered poverty line for a family of 4

So, doing the math of 40hrs/wk and 48wk/yr, the family would need to earn $61/hr, among 4 persons. $30.5/hr if two of them are not working, $15.25/hr if all of them are working.

And since this must be the poverty line, that must mean that over 90% of that annual income must go towards bills and taxes.


Maybe the answer is not so much taxing the rich or subsidies for the homeless, but clamping down on the housing market?
Click to expand...
Maybe. Or maybe the answer does not lie in more regulation.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'm sorry, but being homeless sucks teh donkey balls even if you are elucky enough to be so in a climate like that in SF where you never need tonworry about freezing to death.

The fact that someone, anyone, might actually be arguing that homelessness is a choice that people make because they are lazy and don't want to work shows how fucked up we have become as a society.

No one wants to be homeless. Even the laziest person on Earth would like to have a home to call their own. The problem is it is a negative spiral. Maybe at first they think it's cool, I'll only live in my truck for a few weeks until I find a new job, but then they realize how difficult it is to actually land a job when you are living in a truck, and things spiral out of control. Fast forward 10 years and now even a seemingly normal person with their wits about them is stuck in homelessness and lost. Whoever you are reading this. This could be you. One bad breakup, and fallout with your family and suddently, unless you have a really good support network of friends willing to take you in to live for a while on their couch, and this is you.
Click to expand...

This guy gets it.

See, it's always about the others, the scum, the lazy... until it happens to you.

Zarathustra[H] said:
This problem repeats itself all over the country. SF has it particularly bad because of how bad their housing prices are, and that their weather is good enough to survive outdoors yea round, but we see it on the east coast too..
Click to expand...

When it happened to me, I was in the Yukon. Enough said.

Zarathustra[H] said:
I challenge you to find me a homeless person who is actually happy with their situation and chooses to be there because they don't like work. I mean, there might be one. But this is not the norm. Overwhelmingly the homeless are either normal people who just got stuck, or the mentally ill. Either way, they need help to get out of a terrible situation.
Click to expand...

After the shit hit the fan real hard and people are deep on drugs, yeah, whatever... the person isn't even there anymore, it's just a shadow. But that's exactly when people jump out of the woodwork to point the finger at the "lazy bum". Nobody cares about what happened BEFORE that point...
 
Youn said:
View attachment 112190

and imagine another line below the blue one for people like trump
Click to expand...

I'm probably late to the discussion here, but I see this brought up by a lot of people. Really though, it just illustrates how little most people know about taxes in the United States. If you actually want to learn more - read this article, it does a much better job than I ever could of breaking it down. https://almostclassical.blogspot.com/2011/03/90-tax-rate-myth.html

The bottom line is, we all pay more taxes than we probably should, but at least the last several administrations have done some things to level those costs out. Running the US is very expensive, and everyone seems to have a "better" idea on how best to do it, but until we figure out how to be more efficient (likely never), it seems like we've found some degree of stability at around the levels we're at now.
 
filip said:
I'm sure housing prices are the only reason, not the fact they spend tax payers money to give out clean needles to junkies, from what I understand they want to open up centers where drug addicts can shoot up safely, and they are not arresting drug users. If they did not make a haven for these people most would not be there or at the very least the behavior would change. Why is there a haven? The administration made it so.
Click to expand...

OK, so the injection sites aren't even open. And opioid deaths are at an all time high (no pun intended). What solution would you propose? Prison? Your lack of empathy for those HUMANS BEINGS is astounding, and rather sad.
 
HeadRusch said:
Dude this isn't about generosity, it's about this equation: "When you help someone, how do you keep 10 others from showing up the next day asking for more help AS WELL as the first person who, more often than not, will simply ask...for more help".

That's the problem. Its not turning on the tap, it's knowing when to turn it off...and then that person becomes a Nazi to half of San Fransicso.
Click to expand...

Night of the Living Homeless
I cannot find a freely available episode link to post, including South Park Studios, but read the plot. As it states in the final paragraph of the plot section, California is super-cool to the homeless
 
Last edited:
jnemesh said:
OK, so the injection sites aren't even open. And opioid deaths are at an all time high (no pun intended). What solution would you propose? Prison? Your lack of empathy for those HUMANS BEINGS is astounding, and rather sad.
Click to expand...
I don't know what to do but I know you get arrested for drug possession in many parts of the US. It can be seen as a deterrent of sorts so your not shooting up on main street as the mayor passes by.

I just wanted to make sure you educated yourself on the topic. LOL.
 
Back in the 1970's scientists noticed a sharp rise in shark attacks in San Fransisco bay and were perplexed. There were numerous theories formed and debated but what really happened was several years earlier sea lions became protected. This protection lead to a sharp increase in the sea lion population which happens to be a "delicacy" to great white sharks. With the increase in population of sea lions came an increase in the population of sharks and by consequence shark attacks (from the depths a surfer on a board has the same profile as a sea lion).

If San Fransisco wants to control homeless people they need to make it less attractive to the homeless. Progressive policies will only drive out business from the city while making things worse with regards to the homeless.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Ok, this is simply on the ballot, we'll see if it actually passes.

Personally I almost hope it does pass, then we can see how absolutely futile any effort is to "help the homeless", there is no help, the city sells off parcels of land to rich developers so they can build housing and sure they have some "below market value" places but if you're on the street chances are those "below market value" places are still out of your price range The newest rage of homeless is RV homelessness, see that show Tiny House Big Living? Yeah think that with RVs 20-40 feet long, not sure how they afford to buy them or if there is some group out there renting them, but there is zero way they leave that life style because free (or really close) is still way better than the lowest of low rent. And all they have to do is move those things for street sweeping and not answer the door at night (because there are laws that prohibit living in a vehicle strangely enough from 10pm to 6am).

Personally I think they only way they can combat homelessness in this city is to help people find jobs elsewhere in the country and move, I don't mean simply give the homeless a bus ticket to anywhere they want, have some sort of "Employment Division" that works with other cities and takes into account the prices of housing in this areas and help people start a new life elsewhere. The fact of the matter is prices for living are not going down in this city, people need to accept that as fact and move the fuck on from "but I can't afford" type arguments, because if you can't afford today you won't afford it tomorrow or the day after either.

Oh and FYI, $117k is NOT poverty level in SF, it's "low income" for a family of 4, which is defined as 200% the poverty level, and to be really fair, that's two adults making $60k a year. The days of dad working and mommy staying home with the kids in this city are long gone. And that's another thing people need to realize about expensive cities like this, is you can't do the same shit that was done 40 years ago, or the shit that you can do in say Utah, or hell 1-2 hours OUTSIDE of San Francisco.
Click to expand...
The new trend is living on boats in alameda harbor. A couple of my coworkers who are in there late 20s figured out you can buy a large live on boat for less than $30-40k and spend well under $800 a month in boat slip plus utilities. The resourceful and smart always find a way.
Berkeley and Oakland plus Mountain View and other places are most likely going to start pushing back against all these RVs being parked by the lake and by the bay— Berkeley already has begun.
painintheworld said:
A serious question, as I am completely unlearned about areas near SF and Cali in general (I’ve only been to Cali once and that was less than a day on business in Sacramento). How long, in transit time, would it take outside SF to make that $117k go considerably further (idk, able to afford housing, utilities, etc)?
Click to expand...
Depends on your preference for safety. I saw a shitty house for sale in Oakland but we wouldn’t be neighbors. You’d also be robbed every time you went to work.
Hope you’re bullet proof.
More realistically once you got to either Tracy/Stockton (minimum 2.5 hours each way) or Brentwood Antioch (probably similar) during rush hour you’d decide to leave. Although a lot of people don’t work in SF. I live in Oakland and work in Walnut Creek which is about a 20 minute opposite traffic commute.
YeuEmMaiMai said:
yet another scheme to take money from hard working people and spend it with no accountability
Click to expand...
Fucking damn straight it is.
Retronym said:
Normally I'd have a strong opinion on this, but its San Francisco.

No group there deserves my support.
Click to expand...
I’d argue the hard working people are worth supporting. Luckily this bill doesn’t affect me, but what it will do is drive tech companies that aren’t based out of SF out. Effecting normal working people.
filip said:
I don't know what to do but I know you get arrested for drug possession in many parts of the US. It can be seen as a deterrent of sorts so your not shooting up on main street as the mayor passes by.

I just wanted to make sure you educated yourself on the topic. LOL.
Click to expand...
People smoking crack openly in front of moscone and shooting up on market street wasn’t always that way. The mission has been seedy forever. The politicians want it this way. However, with Chicago medical association pulling out of meetings here and the dental associations voting for the same, the politicians may enact meaningful change when it hurts tourism.
 
According to a bi-annual census done by the city of SF, there are 7,500 homeless.

http://sfist.com/2017/06/26...

According to the article, $380M of the $10B city's budget is spent on homeless. Do the math and they're now spending $51K per homeless person and want to bump it to $91K per homeless person with this tax.

Yes, let's throw more money at a complex problem that few, if any, understand. It makes us "feel " better about ourselves; yeah us we "did something" and others are paying for it(oh we pay for it indirectly). It inflates bureaucrats' wallets, provides a few extra sandwiches for the homeless, stops businesses from locating in your city, causes businesses to leave your city and perpetuates an entrenched problem; to name a few issues.
 
Typical Lefties.

"Well! We can just reach into someone else's pocket for the money! We have a government monopoly on force!"

"Hey...Where'd all the businesses go?"

These dipshits think that they can simply throw money at the homeless problem.
They're ALREADY spending more than $40,000 PER HOMELESS PERSON per year...
Don't even get me started on their free drug needle program...
Nor on their statistical two piles of human shit PER BLOCK...

They don't see that it's their OWN fucked-in-the-head policies that've created and are maintaining most of these people in a state of homelessness and poverty.
So how the fuck are these raging imbeciles supposed to FIX the problem?

Stealing more money from corporations isn't going to get that done.
 
fadedlogic said:
According to a bi-annual census done by the city of SF, there are 7,500 homeless.

http://sfist.com/2017/06/26...

According to the article, $380M of the $10B city's budget is spent on homeless. Do the math and they're now spending $51K per homeless person and want to bump it to $91K per homeless person with this tax.

Yes, let's throw more money at a complex problem that few, if any, understand. It makes us "feel " better about ourselves; yeah us we "did something" and others are paying for it(oh we pay for it indirectly). It inflates bureaucrats' wallets, provides a few extra sandwiches for the homeless, stops businesses from locating in your city, causes businesses to leave your city and perpetuates an entrenched problem; to name a few issues.
Click to expand...

Do I think throwing more money at the problem will solve it automagically? No.

Do I think it's just a matter of putting those lazy bums to work? No.

That's the problem. It's not a simple issue. You can't just throw money at it, yet it's not only about people being lazy. Both solutions are short sighted.
 
As said earlier about the negative downward spiral of homelessness. Even if one seeks to find a job, the mal-hygienic conditions make appearing clean and professional difficult. Especially if a uniform is required.
Close shave with Florida police wins homeless man job

I am skeptical about helping though. I live in Dallas and I once saw a person holding the usual cardboard sign stating homeless, hungry, God bless. On my way home I stop to refill my car. On the side of the gas station, under a tree, I see the same guy downing a 40oz bottle of cheap beer. Also, a friend of my wife buys free cheeseburger coupons for McDonald's and hands them out to the panhandlers. She has seen some people just toss them aside. That is what causes a lot of doubt about helping the homeless. Do they plan to effectively utilize what they have been given or do they plan to spend it to temporarily drown their woes away?
 
seanreisk said:
Outstanding! The top 1% in the US control 38% of the US wealth! (Go look it up.)



And the top 10% control 73% of the wealth! LOOKING GOOD! (Go look it up.)

By the way, your analogy doesn't show that the bottom also owns the debt, which feeds back to the wealthy.

I had a whole month's worth of soap box typed up, but I just couldn't be bothered to finish it, it was too much to read, and you wouldn't care anyway. We have many unsustainable problems in this country, whether it is the inability for 30% of the country to pay for health care, global warming, the national debt, our failure to hold people accountable for business crimes, or our severe wealth compression. But the people in power, and the people who support them, don't care. And it seems you don't care, if you bought into that silly beer analogy, no economist took that cartoon seriously. Maybe you'd like the pie analogy. We've spent 50 years being irresponsible, does anyone give a shit what this country looks like 30 years from now?

All I want is to get the conservatives, the Moral Majority, and the Christians out of my Republican Party so we can get back to supporting business.
Click to expand...

I think you and I could actually agree that we'd like to see less wealth consolidated in the upper 10%--I'd like that too. The difference is the approach we would take to improve this statistic.
  • One approach is to just try and steal more money from the wealthy (aka taxes imposed by the masses via government)--this is the lazy, immoral approach. It's a bunch of people who drive far less production saying "we deserve your money because you have it", with no other logical qualifier. Unfortunately, for some reason the majority of people in this country seem to think that this somehow makes sense--to vilify and squeeze the wealthy harder and harder to get at their tremendous wealth, without having any rationale for why productionless people deserve the spoils of production.

  • Another approach is to resist the laziness of the first approach, and instead deeply analyze why this disparity exists across multiple facets, and fix things at the source. There is no singular reason why 10% of the people control 70+% of the wealth--but it's probably somewhat true that 70% of the wealth of the nation has been initiated, produced, risked, and driven by ~10% of the people. So, instead of stealing the wealth from those people, how can we instead change that 10% into 15%? Or 20%? How can we make more members of society be more risk taking, assertive, and productive?

    I took you up on your challenge of looking into the numbers more. Just as one example of something I found: the top 10% of people control 88.5% of investment assets (stocks, bonds, etc). Investment assets are just another way of saying "I'm taking risk to purchase shares that fund entrepreneurial activity", which is another way of saying "I'm going to give money to someone in the hopes that they are successful in producing something useful to the world, and what's in it for me is that I might get rich by doing this". Why are the bottom 90% not participating in this scheme? Could it be that our schools--which are largely funded by the public which is really just stealing money from rich people who actually know how to produce things by the masses who don't produce things as well--don't teach this subject adequately? Could we have our schools spend literally years teaching about the stock market, or bonds, or property investment? Maybe that would help the rest of society participate in this crazy scheme the rich have going, where they assume all the risk of production and they reap all the spoils (because they should).
Which brings me back to the original point. Stop vilifying the rich. They aren't the problem. The problem is cultural--there is a small group of people who take nearly all the risk, and drive nearly all the production, and there is a group of people who don't. And that latter group isn't asking itself "how can I be more productive?" Instead, they ask themselves "how can I steal more of that guy's money and give it to a homeless person, who almost certainly doesn't produce anything?"
 
Donald Bell said:
Is this thread really devolving into arguing whether it is worth helping the homeless with a 0.5% tax on extremely profitable businesses in Silicon Valley?

Anyone ever play the arm wrestling exercise in grade school? The teacher offers an M&M to the student each time they win, attempting to win as many times as in 1-minute. Yeah, the stronger student will get more M&Ms than the weaker student. But, if the stronger student is willing to work with the weaker student, they both get a bunch of M&Ms by knocking their arms back and forth. Until students "got it", winners were averaging like 4 M&Ms. Pairs of students who "got it", averaged 20-25 M&Ms each. Hopefully that grade school lesson helps someone "get it".
Click to expand...

Except it's not that simple - and enacting that only certain entities contribute to a tax is just flat out wrong and creates more of the class warfare of "Haves" and "Have nots"

WHY the fuck is it when we have national issues like healthcare, homelessness, poverty, etc... That everyone is always saying "THEY need to pay more". Why the hell is it never "WE need to pay more"? That's because they truly don't give a shit. They wouldn't sacrifice half their sandwich to save a homeless persons life let alone a dime from their paycheck.

Regardless of your poverty level, an additional 0.5% across the board is FAR more reasonable. Do you know how percentages work?

It means if you only make $10,000 you only pay $50. If you make $1,000,000 that means you pay $5,000. Everyone pitches in, with proportions to account for how well off someone is. But nope, can't have that. THEY need to pay more... Not me. I'm suffering because I haven't been able to upgrade to the iPhone XLG2000 I only have the XLM1000!
 
Captain Canada said:
I think you and I could actually agree that we'd like to see less wealth consolidated in the upper 10%--I'd like that too. The difference is the approach we would take to improve this statistic.
  • One approach is to just try and steal more money from the wealthy (aka taxes imposed by the masses via government)--this is the lazy, immoral approach. It's a bunch of people who drive far less production saying "we deserve your money because you have it", with no other logical qualifier. Unfortunately, for some reason the majority of people in this country seem to think that this somehow makes sense--to vilify and squeeze the wealthy harder and harder to get at their tremendous wealth, without having any rationale for why productionless people deserve the spoils of production.
  • Another approach is to resist the laziness, and instead deeply analyze why this disparity exists across multiple facets, and fix things at the source. There is no singular reason why 10% of the people control 70+% of the wealth--but it's probably somewhat true that 70% of the wealth of the nation has been initiated, produced, risked, and driven by ~10% of the people. So, instead of stealing the wealth from those people, how can we instead change that 10% into 15%? Or 20%? How can we make more members of society productive?

    I took you up on your challenge of looking into the numbers more. Just as one example of something I found: the top 10% of people control 88.5% of investment assets (stocks, bonds, etc). Investment assets are just another way of saying "I'm taking risk to purchase shares that fund entrepreneurial activity", which is another way of saying "I'm going to give money to someone in the hopes that they are successful in producing something useful to the world, and what's in it for me is that I might get rich by doing this". Why are the bottom 90% not participating in this scheme? Could it be that our schools--which are largely funded by the public which is really just stealing money from rich people who actually know how to produce things by the masses who don't produce things as well--don't teach this subject adequately? Could we have our schools spend literally years teaching about the stock market, or bonds, or property investment? Maybe that would help the rest of society participate in this crazy scheme the rich have going, where they assume all the risk of production and they reap all the spoils (because they should).
Which brings me back to the original point. Stop vilifying the rich. They aren't the problem. The problem is cultural--there is a small group of people who take nearly all the risk, and drive nearly all the production, and there is a group of people who don't. And that latter group isn't asking itself "how can I be more productive?" Instead, they ask themselves "how can I steal more of that guy's money and give it to a homeless person, who almost certainly doesn't produce anything?"
Click to expand...
Just want to point out thet the top 10% is not some super exclusive club of trust fund babies. I think it's still less than 200k per household which is not all that much. It's not nothing, but it's not huge. I don't know why you'd want to see less wealth consolidated there.
 
Cyraxx said:
Except it's not that simple - and enacting that only certain entities contribute to a tax is just flat out wrong and creates more of the class warfare of "Haves" and "Have nots"

WHY the fuck is it when we have national issues like healthcare, homelessness, poverty, etc... That everyone is always saying "THEY need to pay more". Why the hell is it never "WE need to pay more"? That's because they truly don't give a shit. They wouldn't sacrifice half their sandwich to save a homeless persons life let alone a dime from their paycheck.

Regardless of your poverty level, an additional 0.5% across the board is FAR more reasonable. Do you know how percentages work?

It means if you only make $10,000 you only pay $50. If you make $1,000,000 that means you pay $5,000. Everyone pitches in, with proportions to account for how well off someone is. But nope, can't have that. THEY need to pay more... Not me. I'm suffering because I haven't been able to upgrade to the iPhone XLG2000 I only have the XLM1000!
Click to expand...
Yeah...ok....but....
Look how much is already spent on the homeless issue. It's always "just give us a little more and we can FIX EVERYTHING!"
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Capping rental rates wouldn't help in the slightest.

Sure, rent would get cheaper, but the result would be that there would be a massive housing shortage.

Price ceilings and price floors never work, as they fail to consider how supply and demand work.

The only solutions possible to control high housing prices have to include either reducing housing demand, or increasing housing supply or both.

Price floors and price ceilings never work and just hurt people.
Click to expand...

Exactly, you can't tackle that in a vacuum, that's why affordable housing projects should be accelerated by the state, governments actually do this in allot of places, very successfully, but SF is behind in this area of planning so far, and the mass influx of rich real estate outfits is making it harder to secure affordable land to do so.

Did you know allot of them are actually rich foreign investment firms? Lots of Chinese millionaires, for example, are buying up land and renting it, don't be surprised to see this practice grow in the rest of the US where real estate actually matters.

Not that this is a bad thing, foreign investment can be great for business if managed well, but there's a balancing act involved, and SF is at the tip of the spear so to speak. So some are calling for a residency requirement tied to buying up a certain level of state land due to these factors, not sure if that'll go anywhere but it's another concern.
 
Last edited:
nutzo said:
It's mostly due to the lack of new homes being built, the high costs of regulations that increase building costs.
Click to expand...

Nope, there are actually more unused homes in america than there are homeless people.

There just isn't space in the cities where population is constantly concentrating, so prices in those areas keeps skyrocketing.

Unfortunately, because everyone lives in the 'big cities' now, there aren't that many jobs in rural america that people can move to.
 
Guarana [BAWLS] said:
Nope, there are actually more unused homes in america than there are homeless people.

There just isn't space in the cities where population is constantly concentrating, so prices in those areas keeps skyrocketing.

Unfortunately, because everyone lives in the 'big cities' now, there aren't that many jobs in rural america that people can move to.
Click to expand...

That's not expected to change, in fact it's expected to accelerate significantly, you just can't sustain highetech work in rural areas well, especially when they continue to hobble their own infrastructure projects.

Common digital age illiterate sentiment can be heard all the time: Who needs faster internet? Well, might as well ask why your kids should have modern jobs then. Thus, time for them to move to the city, and we go back to the topic at hand, voila!
 
NeghVar said:
As said earlier about the negative downward spiral of homelessness. Even if one seeks to find a job, the mal-hygienic conditions make appearing clean and professional difficult. Especially if a uniform is required.
Close shave with Florida police wins homeless man job
Click to expand...

It is EXPENSIVE to groom yourself when you have nowhere to go.

NeghVar said:
I am skeptical about helping though. I live in Dallas and I once saw a person holding the usual cardboard sign stating homeless, hungry, God bless. On my way home I stop to refill my car. On the side of the gas station, under a tree, I see the same guy downing a 40oz bottle of cheap beer.
Click to expand...

Well... you've got to cope, right? Not saying this is the right or smart way of doing it, but I won't judge him. You've got to carry on, and sometimes the going gets tough. Everybody did that at one point or the other, the only thing here is that we have expectations on what the guy is going to spend the money because we handled it to him. Whenever we help someone on the streets, we've got to let that go. It's not easy to do so of course, but when we try and put ourselves on the person's shoes we can understand a little better.

NeghVar said:
Also, a friend of my wife buys free cheeseburger coupons for McDonald's and hands them out to the panhandlers. She has seen some people just toss them aside. That is what causes a lot of doubt about helping the homeless. Do they plan to effectively utilize what they have been given or do they plan to spend it to temporarily drown their woes away?
Click to expand...

Two different things here.

1) Temporarily drowning their woes away may help overcome. Of course, it's a thin line between getting addicted and down the spiral or just chilling a little bit so you can pick up the pieces and keep going. We all know that after a long stretch of hard work it's always nice to sit back and relax, the principle is the same. We only judge because the person is at rock bottom, but life can't be all about hardships, even for someone who's there.

2) All demographics have their share of ungrateful pricks. The homeless are no different. We should try to judge each person by its own merits. It would be unfair if I told you all Americans are ignorant, racist, gun-toting self-righteous assholes. As a foreigner (in Canada, not the USA, but some people are like that up here as well so...), I could easily grab the few that are like that and extend it to the whole populace because those are the ones that cause me the most grief, so of course they stand out to me. But it would be unquestionably unfair and ignorant for me to do so. Same thing applies to the homeless.

It's not all rainbows, and some people are indeed douchebags, freeriders, whatever. But we've got to be careful, because for those that are not - and that's the majority! - the fact that people internalize those stereotypes is bond to create a situation in which they can't win, as as the cycle reinforces itself, there's a point in which it's better to just lay down on the bed that's made for you instead of fighting, because anything else is a battle that you can't - or just don't have the energy to - win.
 
cdr_74_premium said:
Do I think throwing more money at the problem will solve it automagically? No.

Do I think it's just a matter of putting those lazy bums to work? No.

That's the problem. It's not a simple issue. You can't just throw money at it, yet it's not only about people being lazy. Both solutions are short sighted.
Click to expand...

It's an incredibly complex problem that has three basic groups; Mentally ill, drug addict/substance abuser, and the smallest group which is the people that have been granted a giant shit buffet through a confluence of awful events. My heart clearly goes out to group 3 and to some extent to group 1. Veterans could and do fall into any of the three groups and FUCK the VA for doing so little for those who served. I have a great deal of empathy for those that have fallen on hard times, been there down that no interest in returning to it. I volunteer when I can, mostly with the senior citizen community, as gratitude for living through tough times.

Bureaucracies are inefficient, feeding them results in bigger bureaucracies not better results. Why is college so damned expensive, its not additional professors, its bureaucrats. Local charities have proven much more efficient at assisting homeless populations without all the overhead.
 
Laowai said:
Just want to point out thet the top 10% is not some super exclusive club of trust fund babies. I think it's still less than 200k per household which is not all that much. It's not nothing, but it's not huge. I don't know why you'd want to see less wealth consolidated there.
Click to expand...

That's a good thing to point out.

It's not that I want to see those 10% of people have less wealth. It's just that I want to see a wider swath of people be more productive in this country, which would have the effect of decentralizing the wealth.

In other words I'd love to see the bottom 90% become more like the upper 10%. I have nothing against the upper 10% and the wealth that they have accumulated. Thank goodness we have them around to pay 70% of everything we do in government!
 
fadedlogic said:
It's an incredibly complex problem that has three basic groups; Mentally ill, drug addict/substance abuser, and the smallest group which is the people that have been granted a giant shit buffet through a confluence of awful events. My heart clearly goes out to group 3 and to some extent to group 1. Veterans could and do fall into any of the three groups and FUCK the VA for doing so little for those who served. I have a great deal of empathy for those that have fallen on hard times, been there down that no interest in returning to it. I volunteer when I can, mostly with the senior citizen community, as gratitude for living through tough times.

Bureaucracies are inefficient, feeding them results in bigger bureaucracies not better results. Why is college so damned expensive, its not additional professors, its bureaucrats. Local charities have proven much more efficient at assisting homeless populations without all the overhead.
Click to expand...

Group 2 is, most of the time, the aftermath of groups 1 and 3. Group 1 may also have people from group 3 as an aftermath of the shitstorm.

Veterans are the best example. Those who put their shit together enough to go to the battlefield and do whatever it takes. Yet, when they come back, some can't pull themselves back together. Nobody worth their salt would say with a straight face that they're "weak" or "lazy". It just goes to show how it's a very complex issue, and it would be a disservice to let the few that are truly worthless to steal the show like that.
 
It's interesting how one group thinks that the power to tax means that they have the ability to foist their morality onto the targeted group and, through the power of government coercion, take that group's wealth and us it for their own purposes.

It is also interesting to note that the top 1% pay more US income tax than the bottom 90%. And, as a rate of taxation, that top 1% pays a much higher average rate of taxation on their income than does the bottom 90%.

The tale of Robin Hood was NOT "take from the rich and give to the poor." That meme was introduced in the late '60s by Hollywood. No, if you remember the story, Robin Hood raided the King's tax-men after they took far too much money from the citizenry. Yet, the socialist/communist vision of those in power being imbued with the right to confiscate the wealth of anyone they target, still resonates with some. I wonder if it would resonate if they were targeted?

A "progressive" tax rate is a targeted tax rate. This idea of making the taxation even worse for those who succeed (yes, success is defined by income), will merely drive the successful out of San Francisco and leave them with a worse mess.

It's amazing how stupid they are. SF deserves the repercussions from this sort of "logic". Drug-addled homeless, houses beyond the reach of most, collapsing buildings, defecation and fornication on the streets: hey, sounds like a winning strategy to me.
 
NKD said:
Average income in my town is 75k vs 45k in 2006.
Click to expand...
Is that household income or individual income? Last I heard wages are stagnant, but if household income is going up then that means more people are living with each other.
There are more jobs available then there are people to fill it.
Click to expand...
Yes but nearly minimum wage paying jobs which last I heard isn't something meant for you to live off of. Which results in people working 2-3 jobs sometimes to pay the bills.
Could the prices go flat? and not boom that high? Sure! But almost every research I have read says they will likely increase in California in major areas by 7 to 10% here.
Click to expand...
They'll increase so long as there's a job market. If that collapses, so does the value of the homes. Also, my research suggests the housing market is either crashing or will be soon. Also, expect a lot of jobs to be lost after Christmas. Probably around March May or April of 2019 is when you'll see the effects of the changes. A lot of stores are going to close down.
Problem with SF Is not housing prices, problem is they can't make anymore so they are only going to go up. And people have been hoarding them for ages. I know someone who bought a house there for 150k and sold it for 875k. lol.
Click to expand...
Houses are one thing, but I would figure most people just want an affordable apartment.
Only thing they can do is rent control like new York does. But the thing is most of the people working in bay area especially for tech companies make bank though.
Click to expand...
So? That gives them the right to charge more? That's how you create a bubble, cause if tech companies move to Texes for example, that's going to be a huge problem for SF.
Its building more that they can't really do much of that is the real problem. So lot of people are buying in the valley, where I live and prices aren't bad for those people who are willing to commute to bay or have remote jobs.
Click to expand...
Zoning rights or just the community not wanting to ruin what they have is part of it, but the banks play a role as well. If you're a bank, you're making a lot of money from over priced homes as they do. So long as property value goes up, the banks are making big bucks. The is the same problem in 2008 when adding a gazebo to your home increased the value by 33%.

Prices will eventually do go down, if not because those tech companies moved then because the people got sick and tired of working to be homeless. Something is going to kick start another housing crash and cause another recession.
 
Guarana [BAWLS] said:
Nope, there are actually more unused homes in america than there are homeless people.

There just isn't space in the cities where population is constantly concentrating, so prices in those areas keeps skyrocketing.

Unfortunately, because everyone lives in the 'big cities' now, there aren't that many jobs in rural america that people can move to.
Click to expand...

I was referring to high prices here in Southern California.
I agree that there are plenty of low cost homes in other states.
Even here in California, you can get a larger home at half the price by moving inland, away from the coast.
 
DukenukemX said:
Is that household income or individual income? Last I heard wages are stagnant, but if household income is going up then that means more people are living with each other.

Yes but nearly minimum wage paying jobs which last I heard isn't something meant for you to live off of. Which results in people working 2-3 jobs sometimes to pay the bills.

They'll increase so long as there's a job market. If that collapses, so does the value of the homes. Also, my research suggests the housing market is either crashing or will be soon. Also, expect a lot of jobs to be lost after Christmas. Probably around March May or April of 2019 is when you'll see the effects of the changes. A lot of stores are going to close down.

Houses are one thing, but I would figure most people just want an affordable apartment.

So? That gives them the right to charge more? That's how you create a bubble, cause if tech companies move to Texes for example, that's going to be a huge problem for SF.

Zoning rights or just the community not wanting to ruin what they have is part of it, but the banks play a role as well. If you're a bank, you're making a lot of money from over priced homes as they do. So long as property value goes up, the banks are making big bucks. The is the same problem in 2008 when adding a gazebo to your home increased the value by 33%.

Prices will eventually do go down, if not because those tech companies moved then because the people got sick and tired of working to be homeless. Something is going to kick start another housing crash and cause another recession.
Click to expand...

go on linked in and look for how many jobs are available and other sites. They are not minimum paying jobs. I am sick and tired of this argument. Yea if you are not educated or have no experience you are not going to get any of those jobs. Your reasearch suggest that everything is going to collapse? Jobs are disappearing?

Let me give you an example: I work for AT&T we are hiring few thousand employees along with average income being 90+k in january! I am not sure what research you have done lol.

This comment about you arguing everyone wants to live in an affordable apartment? This really makes me doubt whatever research you have come up with lol. Do you think everyone wants to work at McDonald and live in an apartment for the rest of their life?

Learn first thing about what caused housing market crash! It was bad loans.

Also did you know housing prices started taking off in 1996 or so before the mortgage crisis? And it wasn't until 2011 it bottomed out, started around 2006? That is 10 years after it the housing prices had started to take off.

The housing market recovered in 2013-2014, thats where the prices started recovering and moving upSo we are barely 4 years into recovery of housing prices. And my house isn't even what it sold for in 2006 to someone brand new.

think about that for a second. it sold for 499k when average income was 45k. yep! Now its around 400k with average income of about 75k. Which situation is better?

Tech companies aren't moving to Dallas lol! New ones sure, but well established ones are staying where they are. if SF had more space they will come here too lol.

I think you are believing too many conspiracy theories. Do I expect a recession by 2022 or so? Yea but don't expect a crash like before. Simply not happening. Housing market isn't cooked up like it was before with bad loans that were designed to go up with the same 45k income. and Do you believe everyone is 20 and single forever? So even if it was household income 45k vs 75k, its still an increase in household income. The numbers increased regardless. So people should stop getting married and have kids?

Also people are homeless are not who are making 200k plus. its because of availability. Its not like houses are empty. Its space that is limited. I am not sure where this is coming from that people are making 120k and living on the street, which is nonsense. 117k income just means that you can't afford to live in SF comfortably. its not like SF doesn't have any cities around it. People are making it seem like all homeless are making 117k and living on the street ROFL! Its just a number. My friend makes like 125-150k and his primary market is SF but he lives outside of town about 35 mins. its not that hard. I don't believe this crap about someone making 117k and living in car or being homeless. Its a number that says hey that may not be enough to live in the city. Alot of people I know that work in SF don't live in SF.
 
Last edited:
Captain Canada said:
I think you and I could actually agree that we'd like to see less wealth consolidated in the upper 10%--I'd like that too. The difference is the approach we would take to improve this statistic.
  • One approach is to just try and steal more money from the wealthy (aka taxes imposed by the masses via government)--this is the lazy, immoral approach. It's a bunch of people who drive far less production saying "we deserve your money because you have it", with no other logical qualifier. Unfortunately, for some reason the majority of people in this country seem to think that this somehow makes sense--to vilify and squeeze the wealthy harder and harder to get at their tremendous wealth, without having any rationale for why productionless people deserve the spoils of production.

  • Another approach is to resist the laziness of the first approach, and instead deeply analyze why this disparity exists across multiple facets, and fix things at the source. There is no singular reason why 10% of the people control 70+% of the wealth--but it's probably somewhat true that 70% of the wealth of the nation has been initiated, produced, risked, and driven by ~10% of the people. So, instead of stealing the wealth from those people, how can we instead change that 10% into 15%? Or 20%? How can we make more members of society be more risk taking, assertive, and productive?

    I took you up on your challenge of looking into the numbers more. Just as one example of something I found: the top 10% of people control 88.5% of investment assets (stocks, bonds, etc). Investment assets are just another way of saying "I'm taking risk to purchase shares that fund entrepreneurial activity", which is another way of saying "I'm going to give money to someone in the hopes that they are successful in producing something useful to the world, and what's in it for me is that I might get rich by doing this". Why are the bottom 90% not participating in this scheme? Could it be that our schools--which are largely funded by the public which is really just stealing money from rich people who actually know how to produce things by the masses who don't produce things as well--don't teach this subject adequately? Could we have our schools spend literally years teaching about the stock market, or bonds, or property investment? Maybe that would help the rest of society participate in this crazy scheme the rich have going, where they assume all the risk of production and they reap all the spoils (because they should).
Which brings me back to the original point. Stop vilifying the rich. They aren't the problem. The problem is cultural--there is a small group of people who take nearly all the risk, and drive nearly all the production, and there is a group of people who don't. And that latter group isn't asking itself "how can I be more productive?" Instead, they ask themselves "how can I steal more of that guy's money and give it to a homeless person, who almost certainly doesn't produce anything?"
Click to expand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution
 
Guarana [BAWLS] said:
Nope, there are actually more unused homes in america than there are homeless people.

There just isn't space in the cities where population is constantly concentrating, so prices in those areas keeps skyrocketing.

Unfortunately, because everyone lives in the 'big cities' now, there aren't that many jobs in rural america that people can move to.
Click to expand...

Part of the problem is that many of the jobs that are needed in cities (cooks, waiters, store clerks, etc.) are not high wage jobs.

In an earlier time, the lower wage earners could just live more cheaply outside the city and travel in, but now even the further out suburbs to these areas are really expensive.

Which leaves you with a problem. Wealthy people living in expensive cities need low cost labor for their lifestyle, but that low cost labor can't afford to live there...
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Part of the problem is that many of the jobs that are needed in cities (cooks, waiters, store clerks, etc.) are not high wage jobs.

In an earlier time, the lower wage earners could just live more cheaply outside the city and travel in, but now even the further out suburbs to these areas are really expensive.

Which leaves you with a problem. Wealthy people living in expensive cities need low cost labor for their lifestyle, but that low cost labor can't afford to live there...
Click to expand...

The problem also is there just isn't enough space there to be building out more living space. That is one of the main reasons for price inrease. Lifers are there lol, people that have been there for ages and own their properties lol. Alot of people commute to bay though form valley as well. And I know a lot of people do remote jobs. Also the low paying jobs as you are saying is usually students and people living with family so its really a cycle people going through. Think about it though, no one is going to go be a waitress or work at low paying job all the way in SF. I am sure people are that well aware, they tend to have a decent support system.
 
Captain Canada said:
Which brings me back to the original point. Stop vilifying the rich. They aren't the problem.
Click to expand...
The rich as a whole aren't the problem. The rich that spend money to lobby politicians in both parties to change laws in their favor effectively shutting out the will of the people ARE the problem. If the rich didn't in essence write our laws and we actually had a representative democracy. What the most influential rich want tend to be diametrically opposed with what the rest of the populace wants. That's how we end up in these situations.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
yet another scheme to take money from hard working people and spend it with no accountability
Click to expand...

This is a drastic oversimplification of things.

Generally economic success does require work, but more than anything else it requires pure old fashioned dumb luck. Luck in being born to a family that values education and teaches those values to their kids. Luck in being in the right place at the right time to get that promotion, etc. etc.

And as we become financially successful our monkey brains make us very good at distorting facts and justifying why we are so special to deserve these great things, and those other people aren't.

The truth is, the overwhelmingly largest predictor of financial success later in life is where and to whom you were born. After that, it is more dumb luck than anything else.

The whole "poor hard workers having their money taken away and given to the lazy" is the biggest load of crap ever. The hardest working people I have ever met are the working poor.

Your financial success doesn't mean that you are special, gifted or a harder worker. More than anything else it means that you were lucky in one way or another. Yes, you may have had to work hard at some point in your life, but guess what. The overwhelming majority of people do, and only a few are granted the good fortune to have that hard work turn into financial success.

So, get off of your holier than thou horse, and start contributing to solutions for the problems in our nation.

Of course the wealthy should contribute more than the poor. This isn't even a matter of debate. Take $50 from the poor, they may not eat for days. Take $50 from the wealthy they probably don't even notice. This article is talking about 0.5%, only for companies earning more than $50M in revenue per year. This is peanuts, and only for the very successful. It shouldn't be controversial at all.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top