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Re: San Francisco

Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:28 pm
by boglerdude
Cost of freedom. You cant tell an adult what they're allowed to do with their own body (fentanyl) and you cant lock up the mentally ill because it turns into the Cuckoo's Nest.

Getting rid of minimum wage would get half the bums working, but that sounds mean to voters.

Re: San Francisco

Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 8:11 am
by Kriegsspiel
boglerdude wrote:
Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:28 pm
Cost of freedom. You cant tell an adult what they're allowed to do with their own body (fentanyl) and you cant lock up the mentally ill because it turns into the Cuckoo's Nest.
The cost of freedom isn't carried by other people, it's on the individual. Do all the drugs you want; when you steal or rob to support your drug habit, you forfeit your freedom. You can be insane, but when you're harassing passers-by or taking shits in the middle of a store, you forfeit your freedom.

Re: San Francisco

Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:53 am
by WiseOne
I doubt the city will do anything, regardless of how bad it gets. Bureaucratic organizations are fundamentally unable to admit that they made a mistake. They may "tweak" policies but they will never, ever roll them back.

Also, conventions pulling out of San Francisco may be simply due to higher total cost of attendance. In my field, there are no conventions in that city at all. We go to places like Baltimore, New Orleans, Austin, or Atlanta. I don't think SF is even feasible for biomedical conferences given that there is an NIH-mandated cap on reimburseable daily hotel costs. In cheaper cities, we're already getting close to that cap.

Re: San Francisco

Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 8:33 pm
by boglerdude
> when you're harassing passers-by or taking shits in the middle of a store, you forfeit your freedom

So is the state unwilling, or unable, to build more minimum security prisons

Re: San Francisco

Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:02 pm
by Ad Orientem
The social contract is starting to break down in California and some other hard left locals. When people start believing that their government is failing to uphold its end of the aforementioned contract, things can start getting ugly.

Re: San Francisco

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2020 6:59 am
by WiseOne
Still not sure it's the poop-filled streets...convention centers are booked for major events many years in advance and generally by people looking only at the bottom line and who aren't physically in the city.

However, Ad's message is the real point. San Francisco is a major tourist attraction - when I'm in Europe and wander through a bookstore, in the travel section on the US about 90% of the guides are for California and SF. California relies on tourist income to a large extent, probably more so than conventions. If SF's worldwide reputation as a clean, safe, beautiful city starts to degrade, that will most definitely hurt. Not to mention that residents will only put up with so much before they start to leave in droves - and the ones leaving are more likely to be the ones contributing to the state's coffers rather than the ones dipping into it. That's the problem that New York has right now, too.

Re: San Francisco

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2020 9:53 am
by Kriegsspiel
[My friend] had been living with rent control and various tenant protections for years in a huge flat for very little money. Then her elderly landlady died and the new owners carefully threaded the needle of legal procedures. The simplest option was to pay people to leave. It was a three unit building and each of the three tenants were offered $100,000 to depart voluntarily. But everyone had to sign the papers in unison and move out promptly and on schedule.

Of course, $100,000 isn’t enough money to buy a dog house in San Francisco. It’s not a down payment on anything. At best it’s seed money to help ease the transition to someplace far away.

. . . I appreciate the fact that my friend wouldn’t be living there – or likely anywhere in San Francisco – without rent control since property values and rents are so astronomically high these days.

However, rent control is counterbalanced by Proposition 13. In 1978 (one year earlier then rent control) Prop 13 passed and was enshrined in the California state constitution. From that moment on all property taxes were based on the day a building was purchased rather than the current market value. So my friend’s landlady is still paying property tax as if Jimmy Carter were president. Then in 1986 and again in 1996 California voters passed Propositions 58 and 193 which extended these unnaturally low property taxes to heirs who inherit property. So when my friend’s landlady dies her son will not only own the duplex, but will continue to pay the old 1979 tax rate forever.

. . . both owners and renters are in a death grip to retain what they have at the expense of each other. And new arrivals to the city will continue to absorb all the externalized costs.

link

Re: San Francisco

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2020 11:26 am
by dualstow
It's real, WiseOne. Here's an example from the summer of '18:
A major Chicago-based medical association is moving its $40 million convention out of San Francisco due to safety concerns for attendees. The city’s—and in particular the Moscone Convention Center’s SoMa neighborhood’s—open drug use and homelessness issues are being blamed for the decision.

The medical group cites that tent encampments, blatant drug use on the city’s streets and untreated mental illness have caused conventioneers to feel unsafe. The five-day, semi-annual medical convention, which attracts around 15,000 people and spends about $40 million in San Francisco, will move to Los Angeles upon completion of existing contracts.

“It’s the first time that we have had an out-and-out cancellation over the issue, and this is a group that has been coming here every three or four years since the 1980s,” Joe D’Alessandro, president and CEO of San Francisco Travel, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
https://www.meetingstoday.com/newsevent ... y-concerns