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San Francisco Passes a First-of-its-Kind Tax on Big Businesses To Help the Homeless (recode.net)
San Francisco voters passed a measure that has divided the tech community and sparked a national debate about the industry's responsibility to fix the city's homelessness crisis. From a report: The San Francisco Chronicle called the race at 60 percent in favor with 99 percent of the vote counted. Proposition C will raise the city's gross receipts tax by an average of .5 percent on annual gross receipts over $50 million that companies like Square, Lyft and Salesforce generate. The new funds will bring in an estimated $250 million to $300 million a year -- twice what the city currently spends on an annual basis to help the homeless in tech's de facto capital. The thousands of people living on San Francisco's streets serve as a daily reminder of economic inequality in a city that has one of the highest concentrations of billionaires in the nation. Earlier this year, a United Nations expert on housing called the living conditions of the homeless in the Bay Area "cruel" and "unacceptable." The decision to increase funding for the city's most needy is a victory for the local nonprofits behind the measure and their tech fairy godfather, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who, along with his company, has poured more than $7 million into the campaign in the month leading up to the election.
More corporate flight from California. Good.
You want to push more business out of your city, this is how you push more business out of your city.
Do a great job taking care of the homeless and your city will become a magnet for the homeless of the nation. If that's what you want, go for it. Cheaper to turn them all into Soylent Green, but, hey, democracy, and each city can have its own values.
Frankly, this is less odd and government-intrusive than most stuff SF does, and companies of course have the option of just excluding SF from their business if it's not worth the cost.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Steeling someone else's money and redistributing it has always failed. This won't work out. The real cause is these people are all drug addicts.
In short, if you are homeless, get yourself to San Francisco any way you can. They are spending tons of money on the homeless.
Mo Money for Homeless
Mo Homeless
Need Mo Money for even Mo Homeless
Even Mo Homeless Taxes
Rinse and Repeat.
If they're going to take care of me there, then I'm not going to be homeless anywhere else. Leaving the library right now and hitchhiking there, wish me luck!
The way you treat others speaks a lot about yourself. These are people... so many people are just a few missed paychecks away from being homeless. Stop treating them like a scourge or like animals.
Where I live they go so far as to put concrete "spikes" to make flat areas unusable by the homeless.
This all starts from the "every zygote is sacred" mentality -- when you prevent abortion, someone has to pay for all the costs of supporting the resulting child. The more children, the more jobs are needed. That pushes more people to the bottom wages and increases living costs as more have to share.
These decisions are causing future problems -- and guess what? The future is now. It has been for many years.
When people have true control over their reproductive rights, fewer children are brought into society and those competitive costs decrease... which means fewer homeless people.
Anon because some religious cultists have attacked clinics and doctors in the past for simply helping people. Don't get me started on the fuckery that is religion and it's incredibly harmful effects on society.
The implication being that these tech companies are to blame for these people being homeless and literally relieving themselves on city government-designated shitting streets?
These Communists are going to learn very quickly that for the all of the flag-waving these corporations engage in in support of the progressive cause du jour the second their bottom line is threatened they're going to abandon San Francisco faster than their dads abandoned them.
I am all in support of taking care of the homeless.
However, San Francisco seems to get the least bang for the buck.
They need a completely different strategy. Pity that with all the smart people in the area, they cannot come up with any effective solutions.
I saw a documentary recently. Drug addicts, excrement on the street. Felt like third world than one of the richest areas in the world. I hope the documentary was not exaggerating. I haven't been there in a decade and that was for a conference. I just remember aggressive pan handling. The documentary said some conferences pulled out as well. They didn't feel safe, they said.
In actuality the money just gets redirected to the "charities" run by wealthy donors.
Taxing businesses doesn't fix the problem. Homeless still homeless because they are either drug addicts, or simply cannot afford the incredible living expenses in California. Homeless need a means to a end of being homeless. Addressing why they are homeless and working to reverse that. Not simply throwing money at more shelters and providing some food relief. We should be able to fix this and not just band aid it.
If Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is so morally great, why would he give $$ millions on campaign and to activists to tax other people instead of just giving the money to poor?
It's always strange how rich people ask for tax increase on everyone else, they could give their money at any time, no new laws required.
With that much money per year, couldn't you just create a company and give all of the homeless jobs?
...using those words, "economic inequality." Like they mean something. What should terrify you is economic equality. That means no one prospers, because everyone is equally poor and dependent on the state for every aspect of their life. It's called Socialism.
Throwing money at the homeless problem has not solved it. Clearly most of these people have mental health issues or drug/alcohol dependency issues. That means that appeals to rationality are not going to work, but relocation might. Allow cities to exclude people for bad behavior, and suddenly this becomes a non-issue.
In the meantime, every tax that we spend just makes government more intrusive in our lives, and puts us farther down the path that the Soviet Union explored. The more we depend on government, the weaker we get as individuals, until you end up with a lot of clueless people shrugging their way through life.
Alternative Right.
Why was Willie Sutton ever sent to prison? He should have been given a government office in America.
When asked why did he rob the banks, he answered: it's because where the money is.
San Francisco government learns from the best.
You can't handle the truth.
"Thousands of homeless" and "$250-300 million" = "twice what the city currently spends".
This means that the city will spend around $400 million to help less than 10000 homeless. In different words, it will spend more than $40000/homeless/year. That does not seem reasonable.
round them up and euthanize them. i still havent seen a good argument against it from the libtards
local taxes for a local issue. I do wonder what the results would be of an audit of how current funds related to this issue were spent. And if these new funds will be used well it is government after all. But good luck to them I think they might need it.
;)
Just my 2 cents
They would be better to increase minimum wage to a livable wage, and then offer tax discount to hire locals.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
California collects GIGANTIC amounts of maoney and promptly wastes it.
That plus a lot of it is stuffed in to State Employee Pensions.
that those hobos are going to stop harassing me on the corner for loose change, I'm all for it.
in the Union. Always has been. Not because of taxes, but because people want to live there. The weather's fantastic. They get little or no natural disasters (occasional fire or mud slide, nothing like east coast gets). Great beaches. Lots of parks. And you've got tons and tons of amenities (great sports teams, Disney Land, fantastic schools, etc, etc).
We've had 40 years of offshoring and outsourcing. If the companies could leave they would have done so already. It's high time we Americans called their bluff. Wanna leave? Fine. Go. Door's right there. Don't let it hit you where the dog shoulda bit you. You can go home, but you can't take the ball. If you try, we'll eminent domain your ass. This is our country, and we're through letting you threaten us.
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Earlier this year, a United Nations expert on housing called the living conditions of the homeless in the Bay Area "cruel" and "unacceptable."
We've got the UN calling the conditions cruel?
How about we send some relief workers to California to pick these homeless folks up and fly them to Geneva to apply for asylum.
Or at least bring these folks to cities where some decent housing is affordable without a 6-figure income
why aren't people more angry at the constant threat of total economic devastation from mega corporations? When the Mafia did this shit we called in Eliot Ness and sorted their sorry asses out....
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but it was extortion.
Seriously, why aren't people angry that they're constantly being threatened with economic disaster every time we do anything to upset our corporate overlords? Do we like being pushed around and told what to do?
Like I said on another thread, we didn't put up with this shit when the Mafia did it, why are we doing it now?
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human beings are very, very inefficient. We're just not very good at doing stuff. We make up for it by banding together as a society to get stuff done. OTOH if you keep chasing the phantom of "efficiency" you'll never get anywhere.
As the saying goes, never let perfect be the enemy of good.
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Look, I am a conservative that doesn't live in that state. But there is something I do know, and care about. Is their high rate of homeless. LaTimes being my source for most of my information,
There is a high rate of working homeless. Either they live in cars, SUV's, RV's parked on the road or what ever. The caring citizens of California have called the police on these wayward homeless citizens when they have the gall to park in burbs where people own houses.
You hear the common argument that homeless are drug addicts and released mental patients. Yes, I am sure there are some that fit this description. But, you have vet's and just people that have never recovered from the great economic downturn that occurred.
The reason I am not sure this tax on big business will work is because California already throws billions at the problem, but what has it achieved? Shoot, California didn't have to do this new tax if you think about it. Why didn't they just dump programs that are not working(bullet train anyone) and reallocate that money to the homeless problem.
I see the homeless problem of California being for many reasons. High rent and taxes driving working families into the streets. Weather attracts other states homeless. When you already have high taxes being a contributing factor to the homeless, what is another tax going to do? Why not look at wasted tax money, and shift it.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
The more we depend on government, the weaker we get as individuals, until you end up with a lot of clueless people shrugging their way through life.
You mean "homeless"?
Let's pay poor women to get abortions and then sterilize them. No, the Republicans are against abortions - the poor women will have to have the baby first, then we can kill it.
Because as we all know, poverty and being poor is a character flaw. In this great country, all one has to do is be born to the right parents, be brought up in a warm loving stable household, go to Harvard, and success is guaranteed! (I have heard some losers who were only able to get into Stanford do all right for themselves. But, it's still not an east cost Ivy league education!)
And if a person can't be bothered to do those little things, then they have no business being alive.
Mega corps have been using Dutch Sandwiches and Irish loop holes to avoid paying their fair share of taxes while enjoying the benefits of a well educated workforce, our police and military protecting them and our infrastructure making them rich (roads, telecom, stock trade, etc).
California has it especially bad. They pay more into the federal coffers than they get out. Meanwhile those mega corps manipulate elections in other states to get special privileges. I see this as a way for California to claw back some of the money they've been paying out.
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It seems like after this new tax, California may be well in excess of spending $100k/homeless person per year. At what point does it make more sense to buy them all housing in one other state and pay for meals and everything in perpetuity?
From what I've seen though homeless people in California get pretty much nothing from all this money supposedly devoted to them. I'll bet if you looked over the people administering these programs you would find SO MUCH corruption...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That’s the amount per homeless person that SF already spends on these people. Yet so many of them continue living in the street because that’s what they prefer.
Is the new revenue going toward a mandatory mental health program for homeless? It will be a total waste if it isn’t.
Thanks, SF.
Have gnu, will travel.
It works because the mouse isn't aware why the cheese is free.
Uber-liberal San Francisco will continue to destroy itself as long as it embraces these "rob from the rich and give to the poor" policies. But perhaps it's necessary to let some of our cities follow these flawed ideas through, in the hopes that it educates more people?
Again, though it falls on deaf ears with the people who aren't already in agreement .... A vast majority of the homeless will not better their situations, even if large amounts of money are spent on giving them free things. Many have mental illnesses and simply aren't capable of functioning as contributing members of society. Occasionally, they even HAVE money but are living on the streets anyway, because that money is tied up in some sort of trust, set up for them by family members who knew they had issues. They're not in a frame of mind to withdraw that money and use it constructively on things like renting an apartment.....
America has some real challenges dealing with mental health, but I'm not sure the science is even at a stage where we can provide many solutions? You can give a lot of these people treatment, but serious mental problems don't get cured by any of the drugs out there. At best, some drug combinations work temporarily for a person, until their effectiveness decreases over the years. And it's a crap shoot if a new drug cocktail can be prescribed that gets them back to a functional state again for X number of additional years.
Once upon a time, we just locked them all away in asylums so the public didn't have to see or interact with them. Now, we don't - so you see them sleeping in the streets. It is what it is, but I don't want to punish businesses for any of it.
Roughly 40% of the homeless in San Francisco have traveled there in the last few years. That is at the same time that residents are becoming homeless at an increasing rate.
So why would you move to an area that already has a problem with homelessness?
and don't do nearly as much damage as what Florida sees every 5-10 years.
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In the SF Bay area, the cost of homes are artificially high because the properties have changed hands so many times in the last decade--each time the price goes up from the agent and the banker. Now, we have large investment firms flipping houses, also driving up the costs. Here, we aren't making communities, we are making a collection of houses that few people own, which is exactly what the banks want.
On my street in Campbell, I've seen the same houses go $750,000 to over a $1,000,000 in less than 5 years. Even with two tech workers, it's not easy to pay that off.
The thing you won't be able to understand: a lot of the homeless in the SF Bay area, are blue-collar working people. People work to maintain the cities they often cannot afford to live in. This is also what happened in Orange County. The people who clean Irvine and Tustin Ranch live in Costa Mesa. What is also being built here seems a little like the old Science Fiction movie Metropolis.
Most of the traffic problems here are caused by single drivers going to work from where they can afford to work where they cannot afford to live.
There is also an attitude here that people don't believe how rich they are, which is caused by the high property. If you make $40,000 year, you might not be able to afford a 2-bedroom apartment here.
There are a few simple solutions:
1.) If you buy a house, you must keep it and live in for 5 years--unless you get divorced or show bankruptcy. This makes property homes and communities and not investment tokens.
2.) Zone more areas for apartments.
3.) Stop outlawing poverty and homelessness. Homelessness is an equal-opportunity affliction. This means no more police harassment.
4.) Give people a place to shower and go to the bathroom. It's not only the homeless people who need to use bathrooms. Pregnant women and men with prostate problems have to go more, too.
6.) Let people sleep in their cars.
7.) Make sure that homeless people can vote.
8.) Make social workers live as homeless people for 1 month before giving them jobs--on the lowest benefit afforded to the homeless people.
9.) Build small pod-hotels for the homeless people, like they have in Japan.
10.) Offer wash-machines for homeless people. If people can was their clothes, then they don't need to carry as much with them.
11.) Require that the "Salvation Army" either give homeless people clothes--or give up their non-profit status.
12.) Give more money to help the homeless, and get that money from reduced administration. It takes a lot of money in administration costs to deny people help.
13.) Consider giving 1/4th of the tax money to help a homeless person that might otherwise be spent to keep someone in jail.
14.) Give homeless people carts and storage solutions but expect them to organize their stuff. Riding along the Los Gatos Creek trail, I've seen homeless camps that where a shambles, but I also saw a well organized one, with signs of cottage industry.
15.) Few if any social programs have any kind of meaningful feedback. All social interviews should have a program in social worker performance review sheet. Are the programs working? Was the interviewer fair?
The problems surrounding homelessness won't get fixed unless the people involved run. As far as I know, the only politician around here gives a damn about the homeless--was himself homeless as a child when his families home burned down.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
California's housing problem is due to misguided environmentalism putting large swathes of land as forest reserves next to expanding cities. This means that houses are overpriced.
**Life is too short to be serious**
This money should be used for providing downpayment assistance. Amny californians pay more in rent than a mortgage but as the cost of living is so high they never can save for a downpayment. Living paycheque to paycheque means a job loss means homelessness. If they got downpayment assistance and could move into homes then a job loss would mean they could still live in those homes while they go through a restructuring of their loans with the banks.
**Life is too short to be serious**
For the money the are ALREADY spending they could rent a studio apartment for EVERY homeless person in the city of San Francisco (a msall studio goes for 3-3400/month) So WHAT are they doing with all that money?
some homeless are veterans and we need to do better for them.
California was without power for weeks due to an Earthquake. The Wildfires were the only major disaster they had, and even that was relatively limited in scope. Still sucked, but if you live in a major city it's a non issue. Los Angeles hasn't burned down recently :)
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So thatâ(TM)s on gross receipts in San Francisco right? Otherwise I foresee a huge number of new companies forming like âoeSalesforce Friscoâ and âoeApple Friscoâ etc. as wholly owned subsidiaries. This seems to affect purchases from CocaCola to Bayer Asprin. And by not uniformly applying this tax, it makes an accounting nightmare. If I sell to a distributor outside SF who sells to aggregator in SF who sells to folks inside and outside SF, where in the chain do the rights to audit end.
I think these are a bigger eye sore than the homeless.
For the record the big uptick in homelessness started under Reagan. He closed the insane asylums. It was part of a libertarian movement that said it was wrong to keep these folks locked up. Of course we didn't provide them any alternative housing or mental healthcare services (since in addition to "freedom" the idea was sold as a way to save money) and, well, predictable results.
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the wealthy give to charity because it's cheaper than the tax raises we would impose on them if they didn't distract us with the occasional charitable donation.
And he doesn't need more gov't employees. He can raise the fees charged for his existing corporate welfare. That's how corporate welfare works. Socialism for the rich and dog eat dog capitalism for you and me. You're never gonna take away his socialism. He's too good at getting it. How's about you start asking for some yourself? Maybe start with guaranteed healthcare and college?
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so you pay people not work, to be irresponsible bums, and now you're going to sink more money into the effort? You'll have even more hobos, is what you'll get.
You fuckers invading Denver, driving 5 under in the left land, building mcmansions on 3 ft lot lines are destroying Colorado. We held off your most recent attempt yesterday to end rural economies, but I'm sure your new majority in the state house will succeed at turning Colorado into the hell you escaped.
Anytime an action is taken either by a company or an individual there must be considerations for those that are effected whether the effect is direct or indirect. I can quickly think of one exception. No business or individual has any duty to preserve the abilities of competitors to make a living. Even at the lowest level of commercial cleaning operations their are business owners who will burn vans or attack a competitor physically over their supposed right to earn a living. With 90% of the world's children breathing unsafe air it is time that some serious alteration of business morality must be made.
Since when has government ever not re-allocated funds? They will use the money for that the first few years, but then later it will be taken for something else.
Big business passes taxes to the customer :-)
we should deport them?
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most of them are mentally ill, assuming you're not going to shove them into ovens (I noticed you used "Soylent Green" instead of the oven solution). The problems they cause cost more than just taking care of them. It's cheaper to feed them in shelters than prisons.
They have drug problems because in the absence of medical care they turn to illegal drugs to cope with their illness. You don't have to worry about them all heading to California. The ones that are sane enough already have because the lack of shelter makes it hard to live back east where winter can and will kill you.
Also, I know we shouldn't complain about the Mods, but come on here. Are we really so far gone as a country that somebody advocating, with no hint of irony, that we should kill large numbers of "useless" people while taking a dig against a city trying to help them? Seriously, that's some fucked up shit right there...
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[insert your own joke about /. here]
Anyway nursing homes are only for the elderly, and even then the ones that don't cost $5k+/mo are underfunded. Don't count on one if you get dementia.
The rest of those institutions will only house you if you're an active danger to yourself or people around you. You know that joke about "I cut myself to feel alive"? It comes from mentally ill people cutting themselves to show self harm so that they can be admitted to a loony bin long enough for an attack to safely pass. When I say "active danger" I don't mean suicidal thoughts, I mean you have to be actively trying to kill yourself. Until then you're on your own.
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If successful maybe this will catch on all over the country, or even better, big businesses will see the writing on the wall and volunteer to pay to help solve the homelessness problem. We're supposedly the 'Greatest Nation On Earth', yet we have this absolutely shameful problem of people being homeless and/or hungry. Meanwhile, traditionally, The Rich (embodied in both individuals and corporations) sit by and do nothing, expecting The Poor and the Middle Class to ante up to 'fix' the problem themselves. Senseless and stupid. Like it or not, homelessness is a problem that has to have a solution that comes from the TOP, not near the BOTTOM, and if that means big profitable companies are forced to pay, then that's what needs to happen.
That's not how this works. that's not how any of this works
If everyone has enough money to buy food, housing, transportation that wouldn't make your wealth any less valuable.
OTOH it would diminish your power. For example, when you show up at a strip club with a wad of $20 dollar bills those girls aren't glomping on to you for your good looks for winning personality. Give those girls UBI and a lot of them wouldn't bother becoming strippers; and they'd never give you the time of day.
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Darling snowflake, your parents would not have had you had this policy been in effect during your gestation.
These stupid feel-good laws won't solve anything. Those people are not homeless because of someone else. They're homeless because, for whatever reason, they cannot fit in with regular society. The "normies" in San Fran look at homeless people and say "ick, get away," rather than offering compassion and love for them, and trying to welcome them into society. They think they can just cut someone a check with someone else's money and the problem goes away.
The problem with this particular feel-good nonsense is that the problem they are trying to solve is not homelessness. The problem they are trying to solve is having to see that there are homeless people. This money is not going to be used to fund training and housing programs for homeless people, and the law could not force people to be loving and compassionate towards them, even if it wanted to. This money is instead going to be used to "put them somewhere else," out of sight and out of mind.
It's a shame really, but I have come to expect nothing better from the most arrogant, selfish state in the Nation.
Liberal startup CEOs get a healthy dose of liberalism. I'm in support of that. Should have been 10% of gross receipts for all I care. Vote republican next time.
...because they deserve it. Facebook, Google, Apple, Uber, Salesforce....teach them about the socialism that their idiot employees keep voting for.
Expect the little ivory tower tech snowflakes to get their pantaloons in a twist
Google Justin Keller to see an example of their attitudes
We tried this in Seattle, and they couldn't cave fast enough.
All their pockets are lined with tech bitcoin.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You act like wasting time on political witch hunts isn't what the United States House of Representatives hearings are all about.
"act like" ? I literally stated the opposite. I said I'd be disappointed if they go forward, and that it is better if they don't waste time on this.
If you can't bother to fucking read, then don't bother to fucking comment.
The problem stems from the Reagan-era budget cuts closing down mental health institutions aka insane asylums. (Reagan-era because although Reagan spearheaded it, control of Congress was split at the time so it couldn't have been done without the cooperation of both parties.) The hope was to divest the Federal government from mental health care (it's not listed in the Constitution as a responsibility of the Federal government) and put it back in the hands of the states (the downside of the 10th Amendment for the states). But the states never picked up the ball.
Consequently, about 25% of the homeless are people with severe mental health issues (vs about 4% for the general population). Add to that about 30%-40% who are addicted to drugs or alcohol (vs 10% for the general population). The large prevalence of mentally ill and substance abusers among the homeless prejudices people against the homeless in general, making recovery harder for the about 50% who are homeless simply because they've hit a rough patch in their lives.
At a city or county level, it's usually cheaper to simply boot the homeless out than to really tackle the issue. But that doesn't reduce the rate of homelessness, it merely hides it from view (in those cities). Just like a burglar alarm may reduce the chances of your house being robbed, but doesn't reduce the overall burglary rate (the burglar flees your home and robs another house instead). The problem really needs to be addressed at the state or national level for an effective solution - geographic areas large enough that simply booting them out doesn't appear to be a solution to legislators.
SF is very liberal, therefore it's full of good people.
Why arent these good people simply inviting the homeless into their homes or something similar?
DESTROY ALL JEWS
to consumers as price increases is just that, a myth. It's a common right wing talking point used to discourage employees from asking for a raise. If it was true we'd never made it out of the Gilded Age or progressed at all as a civilization.
As long as productivity per work (measured by raw goods produced, not by dollars, be careful there or paper money will make it look like your productivity is worse than it really is) you can raise rages without price increases. Automation in the last 20 years has massively boosted productivity. America produces twice as much manufacturing output with 1/3 less employees. But all of that went to the top 1%. They then used that increased wealth to buy out all their competitors. Not only did this let them raise prices (less competition) but lower wages (if 7 companies own everything that means they also employee everyone.)
America is becoming the larges company store in human history.
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to consumers as price increases is just that, a myth. It's a common right wing talking point used to discourage employees from asking for a raise. If it was true we'd never made it out of the Gilded Age or progressed at all as a civilization.
As long as productivity per work (measured by raw goods produced, not by dollars, be careful there or paper money will make it look like your productivity is worse than it really is) you can raise rages without price increases.
...
last 20 years has massively boosted productivity. America produces twice as much manufacturing output with 1/3 less employees. But all of that went to the top 1%.
And yet this is a "right wing talking point"??? LOL k.
There are more important things to the long term heath of a society then the amount it produces and thus consumes. That, is a point typically the left refuses to talk about. You seem to be under the impression wealth will magically fall through to millde and lower class workers despite history showing otherwise. Barely living is NOT the same.
Keep thinking that though and hope your profession isn't next to be automated for the sake of efficientcy. When you're out of a job.
Fuck those guys. I prefer vets who dont become welfare queens.
Wrong. You avoid some taxes, but you must pay a Franchise tax is every state that you operate, not only in the state of incorporation. And there is still corporate tax on revenue (not just profits) for businesses that operate in California. The primary reason you make a Delaware corporation is the protection from lawsuits, especially in this day and age of tech companies lying to shareholders about profits (derivative lawsuits).
I'm not sure why you're talking about this when you seem to have little knowledge of it. Have you ever incorporated?
How different was this from Seattle's homeless tax, and we saw the result of that. They just need to declare SF a disaster so FEMA can use those trailers.
Alabama and West Virginia banned it yesterday in the midterms.
You can find plenty more to disprove that myth on google.
That's the problem with reality, it doesn't work the way people think.
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What's with all the free rides in CA?
it's a constant battle to keep the aristocracy from taking everything for themselves. They never get tired and they never run out of greed. It's not about money, it's about power. The last thing the ruling class wants is a working class that has plenty of food, shelter and medicine. They use the threat of losing those things to control us. Keep us at each other's throats. In the process we do everything they want and give them everything they want. They live like God's among men.
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Google says about 8000 homeless in SF, so is that $31000 pr. homeless person? what is wrong in this calculation, please enlighten me. :)
L'Idiot
I'm amazed at just how dumb so many people are. You guys let emotion dictate rather than evaluating the facts. The problem is part drug addition and part mental illness. The other part though is the insane cost of socialism. I'm not even talking about the money taken from joe to pay for bob's kids schooling. A big part of what I'm talking about are the regulations and inhibitions on contractors building sufficient housing to meet demand that has bumped up the cost of housing. It doesn't have to be insanely expensive to house the homeless. We don't have to send the homeless into homeless shelters. We need to reduce the regulatory barriers to building smaller and less expensive housing for people of lesser means and rid ourselves of the socialist prerogatives that are sadly misguided and leading to these high housing costs. The socialists think they are doing good, but reduced efficiencies and higher costs lead to middle class homless problems that we see today- not just mental illness and drug addition. If we did get rid of the socialist policies that redirect money from one person to another the vast majority (and the poor in particular) would have a drastically larger sum of cash to work with and those who have a problem with the poor and homeless that are poor and homeless because of drug addition and mental illness can help contribute to the solution via privately funded solutions. I mean- if you have a good idea and people really don't like the homeless there should be lots of money flowing into whichever proposed solution it is that you have to solve the problem. At least short of stealing other peoples money to do it because ultimately the solution isn't a financial one in 2/3 of the cases. It's drugs and mental illness and clearly outlawing drugs didn't solve the problem and nor has socialist policies that we have had for god knows how long now. More privately funded solutions though would likely increase the chances of someone finding a better solution to the problem. Public solutions have not worked.
Force Facebook (in particular) and the rest of them to hire the homeless, especially the mentally ill and drug-addicted. It would improve their crap products.
San Francisco - the best homelessness money can buy! ...OR...
San Francisco - the best crackheads, tweakers, and batshit crazy street people money can buy!
veterans? thats military.
the military is eeeeeeeeevil.
- liberals
I love how politicians tax the companies that have no responsibility for the homeless problem. The city kept welcoming them and now they want tech companies to pay for them. You really need to rethink voting for Democrats. Libertarian is the way to vote.
I see this a lot, and wholeheartedly agree.
It seems that nowadays the kids joining the army are doing it because it's "Easy money, just do what they tell you and try not to die."
At least that's the impression they give here, north of your border. They come back with shiny new trucks, build brand new houses and act like "it was no thang."
I tend to rant.
Why do you have to throw money at your fridge this week, when you spent perfectly good money on groceries last week? Why do you have to keep throwing money at your car in the form of taking it to the gas station? Expecting your car to run on perpetual motion based on a one-time payment is as sensible as expecting poverty to disappear based on some food stamps and some public housing.
Yup. Providing free housing, medical care or education is exactly the same thing as the NSA spying on everyone's communications, because gubbmit.