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natetimm posted:No, I think you're trying to re-purpose what you claim to be a measure that would significantly reduce house prices by making more available (gee, I wonder how) into a "this isn't even a big deal" So you are unwilling to actually engage here, and won't answer how you think an income neutral prop-13 replacement would have the harm you claim? We can nitpick the benefits of an income neutral alternatives, but first we have to resolve if there is agreement that an income neutral alternative wouldn't have the harms you claim removing prop 13 would. Otherwise, we have no foundation to work from.
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May 29, 2014 21:11
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natetimm posted:You'll probably have to get into the details more. Additionally if it's income neutral then why is it even worth proposing? There's obviously some kind of statistic you're trying to alter with the proposal and "income neutral" can mean a lot of things spread out over millions of people. Well, like I originally posted: lets say, reducing either sales tax or low-bracket income tax, or both. Whichever of those is palatable to you and you think wouldn't have the grandma destroying impact. There are many reasons that posters better than I have given why prop 13 has had a negative impact on the income mix for California. I would suggest those reasons as starting points as justifications for proposing the change. Edit: The impacts prop 13 has on the housing market is also another good point, although I know you disagree more with that.
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May 29, 2014 21:20
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natetimm posted:You guys I have this totally tax neutral plan to get all those welfare queen homeowners who spent their whole life working for something to be forced to sell so I might be able to buy a cheaper house. Why yes, I consider myself a progressive. So you still refuse to actually articulate how on earth a tax revenue neutral plan to remove prop 13 would actually force anyone out of a house?
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May 30, 2014 00:27
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natetimm posted:You've still not proven how it's going to improve the status quo or the point of implementing it unless of course you expect it to actually not be tax neutral for everyone. I and many other people in this thread have given examples, but here I'll give you another one. Repealing prop 13 and replacing it with a revenue neutral reduction in sales and lower-income tax brackets would increase California's income stability in economic downturns. Now your turn: explain how a revenue neutral prop 13 replacement would force people out of their homes. Also, you're basically saying that if I make a proposal X, you can say that it will fail for reason Y, but are under no obligation to actually explain reason Y until I convince you that X is good. So you never have to justify yourself or your "arguments", because obviously you'll never agree I "proved" the thing you personally reject (with no evidence).
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May 30, 2014 00:40
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natetimm posted:All you're doing is proposing to still jack up the property tax on homeowners while evening it out through things like sales tax so it ends up a wash on paper. The same people still get hosed even if it is "tax neutral" for the entire state. You're playing a shell game and using the term "tax neutral" to try and sell it. By "Jack up on homeowners" you mean "normalize what new and old homeowners pay". So your nonexistent grandma on 50k income with a 1M home would pay less in sales and income tax, and still pay no more in property tax then her neighbors. How is that a "shell game"?
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May 30, 2014 01:10
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natetimm posted:What's wrong with me is that "tax neutral" isn't calculated for individuals. You can gently caress the grandma over in this scenario and save a bunch of other people money on sales tax and it's "tax neutral". Why do you think inheriting low taxes is good? That's pretty much the most discriminatory tax policy imaginable. Sucks to be you if your family didn't have wealth before 1979.
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May 30, 2014 01:23
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etalian posted:Yup prop 13 means new homeowners don't get the big tax break. At least we're "clear eyed" that the situation is "gently caress you got mien".
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May 30, 2014 01:25
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And then I remembered why Lowtax, in his wisdom, invented the ignore button.
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May 30, 2014 02:21
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On the non-arguing against dishonest diatribes side of thing, looks like SF is set to ban Ellis Act evictions for the first 5 years of property ownership. Also looks like SF will have to cut some of their water withdrawals this year because irrigation gets first priority. Not the way the farmers say it always goes.
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May 30, 2014 20:08
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Space-Bird posted:SF water comes the Hetch-Hetchy reservoir, the way I understand it, that reservoir doesn't really service the larger bay area, so it'd be a difficult task to funnel it off to farms anyway, because of the infrastructure. That being said, they're going to be mixing the nonpotable water in the Golden Gate reservoir, with the Hetch Hetchy Water starting in 2016. They say because the Hetch-Hetchy water is so pure, blending it with this non-drinkable reservoir will still pass national standards. It seems like a very terrible idea, and I'm suspect as to how safe it'll be, but ....water crisis. (still, I don't want to drink it) SF diverts water from the Tuolumne river to fill the Hetch Hetchy, but is a junior rights holder to the local irrigation district. It's not going to have an impact on water deliveries inside the SF water system, but is contrary to the narrative that ag water supporters use. Also blending is the only way LA uses it's water from the Colorado river, so there's that.
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May 30, 2014 20:24
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Papercut posted:LA water is really gross, though. What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas. It flows downstream.
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May 30, 2014 23:22
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Grand Prize Winner posted:So, serious news. Apparently some businessman from Washington bought the Clips. I for one am terrified, and having nightmares of a time when the Clippers go north and the Lakers get repossessed by Minneapolis. The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate Disco > California Politics Thread: Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers.
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May 31, 2014 06:22
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Hurray for hipster approved air pollutants
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Jun 1, 2014 11:12
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FCKGW posted:They installed giant new air purifiers and the odors went away. And the owner also said repeatedly he was never going to move anyway.
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Jun 1, 2014 22:21
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Kaal posted:Sriracha has the same amount of sugar in it as ketchup (20%), and less than BBQ sauce (35%). If you like vinegar-based hot sauces like Tabasco, good for you, but don't think that you're doing some healthy alternative by pouring it on your cheese fries. You lost me when you implied all BBQs are the same amount of sugary. Stop buying KC, problem solved.
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Jun 2, 2014 00:36
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etalian posted:Get used to renting or having a home in the sketchier neighborhoods unless you make shitloads of money. Also this doesn't even include the fact that the entire Bay Area has a housing growth problem. Cities like Mountain View are really exacerbating the problem. The SF Chron had a good article on that recently: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/place/article/Mountain-View-stuck-in-past-when-it-comes-to-5519893.php
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Jun 2, 2014 03:40
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Blindeye posted:I should say that I lived exclusively in the East Bay but outside El Cerrito down to Rockridge it gets sketchy fast. Even in Emeryville I was witness to a driveby. I am already priced out of those areas and Oakland, so unless Richmond or Fremont are where you're talking about and I commute over an hour each way I'm going to disagree. In the short time I was there Oakland prices exploded and Concord/Walnut Creek are going to be out of reach when I might get back. Serious rezoning in the East Bay needs to happen, and for example Berkeley will NIMBY the poo poo out of any attempt to densify. Wait, are you implying that downtown Berkeley is too sketch to live in? Cause that's what is in between El Cerrito and Rockridge.
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Jun 3, 2014 00:00
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GrumpyDoctor posted:I think they're saying that El Cerrito down to Rockridge is non-sketch. It's still a fair bit of territory, though. Oh that makes a lot more sense in context too. On the totally unverified facts front, I heard that the probability of any one individual being shot in Oakland is about the same as the probability of a 9+ earthquake on the Hayward fault. So, pick your poison I guess.
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Jun 3, 2014 00:14
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Leperflesh posted:That's dumb because shootings are almost never random. If you're not in a gang or having a domestic dispute with your gun-toting spouse, your odds of being shot are tiny. Yeah, no that's my general feeling about a lot of the obsession with crime stats and other metrics when looking at neighborhoods. loving drive/walk/bike down the street, and that will tell you a lot more about your general risk than looking at per capita statistics.
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Jun 3, 2014 00:23
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I'm all about the single-story wood frame house. But I'll still be waiting on my FEMA check like all the other shmucks.
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Jun 3, 2014 02:11
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Grand Prize Winner posted:I thought with our new primary system we've actually had a few Dem-on-Dem races? We will, and we will have Republican on Republican races. Most people hear have been discussing the statewide offices where there is more even support for both parties. Or enough it won't be completely dominated by Democrats.
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Jun 4, 2014 01:58
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nm posted:Not always. I live in a majority dem district. There were 2 republicans, a bunch of dems, and some others. Which district was that? I assume you mean in 2012.
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Jun 4, 2014 02:34
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Maybe 3 democrats and a green was 1 too many.
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Jun 4, 2014 06:13
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Zeitgueist posted:Don't worry, I'm sure we'll blame the Green and not the 3 Democrats. I'm sure the 2 candidates with ~5% of the vote will be equally blamed, but the greens will use their usual "third parties are important" bs to run again and again. While at best the democratic machine further constricts who can run, to prevent republicans from beating them by doing the same. Which is to say...I'm grumpy that we just ignore the mathematical realities of our electoral systems.
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Jun 4, 2014 06:20
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Part of the Top-Two system is that there is no restriction on who can claim to be associated with which party. The Republicans can theoretically run 13 candidates claiming superficial affiliation with the Democratic party to confuse voters and there is little the Democratic party can do about this but spend advertising money to try to promote the "correct" Democratic candidate. How does that not fail in the same way the previous system was ruled unconstitutional because it forced the parties to support candidates without their consent? At least the bar for entry is high enough...that only well funded candidates can use a shotgun approach....oh.
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Jun 4, 2014 06:41
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Also, that decision is far from final.
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Jun 10, 2014 21:36
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ProperGanderPusher posted:Mark my words: when the culture war bullshit is over and gay marriage and weed are no longer issues people give a poo poo about, a shitload of formerly Obama-loving Silicon Valley types will start voting for and supporting the GOP. I found this Nate Silver article about Silicon Valley really compelling for that reason: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...type=blogs&_r=0 Basically, that Silicon Valley is just as conservative as when it elected Reagan, but the Republican party is so conservative now SV appears liberal.
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Jun 11, 2014 02:02
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Papercut posted:Maybe in their next round of negotiations, the teacher's unions could insist that all contractual language use "due process" in place of "tenure". Let all of these privatizers attempt to sell the public on taking away teacher's due process. Oh they will. The new turn to dismantle public employee unions (since private employee unions are dying) is a major focus and won't be stopped by language or public pleas.
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Jun 12, 2014 19:44
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Also, I'm not sure how exactly it was shown that removing tenure would actually result in <3% of California's teachers being grossly ineffective. That seems like a surprisingly low number to me in terms of organizations in general How does that correspond to the % of teachers that are first year teachers? Which could be a contributing factor. I take for granted the "lemon toss", having seen it working in a school district that had no unions, no tenure, and a "right to work". But the lemons just had political connections instead of tenure.
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Jun 13, 2014 00:00
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:It's really really frustrating! It doesn't seem like the HSR project is being developed with any kind of coherent vision for connecting people to the train stations. Maybe we could spend some of the money on making California's conventional rail network viable or at least spend the money where it's going to do the most good for the environment? Instead it seems like a prestige project that state Democrats are now bound to defend to the death. Hope I'm wrong, but I've been watching this thing drag along since the 90s and it's pretty drat unimpressive. California's conventional rail network is viable. We just use it for freight, and the Capitol Corridor. Improvements would require new track, and if we're laying new track, why not make it high speed capable, since the real world cost differences are pretty slim (few communities would allow new railroad tracks with at grade crossings). There are lots of good ideas for using local abandoned tracks for commuter lines, but that's not what HSR is targeting.
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Jun 13, 2014 08:13
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etalian posted:What sort of tricks do they do exactly? Ellis act evictions are the most common these days, in fact SF is getting an exemption to the Ellis act for that specific reason.
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Jun 14, 2014 21:03
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I'm just amazed how companies can break the law openly but get positive media spin because its "technology".
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Jun 17, 2014 08:08
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Kaal posted:Are you referring to the lawsuit being levied against Google Bus et al? The companies are legally operating under a mayoral pilot program, paying an average of $100,000 for the privilege of using the MUNI stops - or $1 per stop - a price set by state profiteering laws that prohibit fees being levied in excess of the cost of providing the service. I suppose there's also the complaint about the environmental study exemption - which again is absolutely legal - but how much environmental study is really required to run buses on existing bus routes? First, that's a retroactive deal. They were operating in those stops illegally long before that. Second, its not really about the tech buses (or the tech companies getting around zoning), its the fact that companies like Uber or AirBnB are able to actively violate the law in communities they operate in, all under the banner of the "technology increasing competition". One can argue about the usefulness of those laws, but when did breaking the law become part of a valid business model? Tesla is dealing with equally protectionist laws, but is responding in a legal fashion, but a lot of these other companies don't and they get away with it in the media. Behavior that would land the Koch brothers on the front of HufPo gets lauded on TechCrunch if a tech company does it. That's what amazes me.
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Jun 17, 2014 08:45
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Kaal posted:I guess what I'd say is that technology has a habit of outpacing legislation. Napster and Audiogalaxy bent "file-sharing" rules, but now we've legalized the concepts in the form of iTunes and Netflix. Google Bus and its clones bent "common carrier" status, but now they're being incorporated into the system. Uber and Lyft have a similar story with their loose definition of "taxi driver", and I'm sure that Airbnb will eventually find its own regulatory niche as it becomes more popular. Cities are constantly working with local industries to create regulation that encourages controlled growth, and that often means reining in companies that have big ideas and then crafting socially-conscious niches for them. And the big corporations that are bankrolling these startups are typically quick to smooth out any legal problems. As long as the entrepreneurs aren't outwardly malevolent, I think that the public is generally willing to give new industries some legal leeway to see how they end up working. I don't think your example of Napster and Audiogalaxy works because we never changed the laws, nothing is different between nowand then except that iTunes and Netflix is an idea that people invested in after the file-sharing revolution. With Uber's valuation, its clear investors assume that laws will change to meet Uber's desires. Uber could be choosing to work within the laws in all communities it operates in. It operates legally here in CA (for now), but if a community has rules that Uber doesn't like (say, requiring commercial insurance for all commercial drivers) they often just flaunt them in the name of competition. That idea, that rules can (and should) be thrown away when they get in the way, is very much what a segment of the tech industry argues.
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Jun 17, 2014 16:20
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Bip Roberts posted:What do you mean by this? Google buses are normal coach buses. Also MUNI buses are decent buses. Plus, there are tons of people who would love to pay a reasonable amount for access to the tech employee only bus network. So yeah, when the "young, white, male, elites only" bus rides up and blocks traffic and the entire bus stop for their passengers the classism is palpable. But they're tipping the city a dollar now, so that makes it all better.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:07
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^ You're right, but the number of reverse commuters in SF is ~100k a day. So about 1/2 the amount of those commuting into the city. However, all those people commuting into the city have jobs that support the SF payroll tax, while those commuting out don't. Bip Roberts posted:Right. Muni buses are fine. Also muni buses run local routes are completely different than the google buses. I'm not sure what you're on about. Right, the elite gets nice coach buses. Also there are plenty of MUNI long haul commuter lines for pleabs that are quite similar to the google buses. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 23:57
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Rah! posted:No there isn't, unless something changed recently that I never noticed. AC transit and Golden Gate transit have some buses like that though, which have service to SF. Muni operates only within the city of SF (aside from a weekends-only line that goes to the Marin headlands, and the 14-mission line, which ends just past the SF border, in Daly City), so there's no need for them to run fancy commuter buses. You're right. I should have said AC Transit instead of MUNI, but the entire point still stands. Plebs have to use worse buses to try to make the same commutes that the tech elite buses cover.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:13
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Rah! posted:That doesn't sound right, where did you find that number? SF has around 450,000 employed residents according to the census. 15% work outside of SF, which means there are more like 67,000 "reverse-commuters" living in SF, not 100,000. SF would have to have 670,000 employed residents for 15% of them to equal 100,000. http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/cb13-r22.html census.gov posted:San Francisco County, Calif., has among the highest number of commuters coming from another county in the nation, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today in new estimates released from the American Community Survey. Nationally, 27.4 percent of workers commute outside the county where they live. The interesting point there is how few make it down to Santa Clara, however 20k units in the SF housing market is still a serious impact.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:23
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gonger posted:Tech shuttles are a replacement for private point-to-point automobile travel, not the sort of general mobility that public transit is meant to provide. Are you really in that much of a hurry to further subsidize the commute of tech workers? Tech shuttles are literally the only form of non-subsidized mass transportation going in the bay area right now, and they're doing it at no cost to the public. I get that you're riled up about the optics of the situation, but I don't think you have a proper appreciation for the cost or political capital associated with expanding public transit. Both resources are pretty damned hard to come by for transit, and it sounds like you're suggesting it would be a good to burn them in order to replace something that's already working at no public expense. It's a bit disingenuous to argue that the tech buses have no cost to the public. While they were operating illegally there were many documented cases of them making MUNI buses even later. Plus they are still using public resources for private good. Regardless, I'm saying that these companies could easily open these programs up to the public, with a public fare they subsidize for their employees. That's the way to turn this into mass transit that's more than just the physical representative of income inequality. Also it's a bit of a leap to assume everyone on a tech bus would be driving instead. There are other mass transit options available. But this is what I'm talking about, if I wanted to use a ton of bus stops and asked I would either have had to pay upfront or not gotten permission. Meanwhile tech companies can break the law and come back and make amends only if there is enough outrage. They didn't even need to use the bus stops, but it was more convenient so break the law until we get a deal, right?
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Jun 18, 2014 02:19
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on the left posted:They couldn't open them up to the public because then the busses would need to install the same lovely anti-vandalism fixtures that public busses need. Also, not that many San Franciscans need to travel directly to Google headquarters. Uh? Somehow the other private bus companies don't need to add fancy anti-vandalism things do that. But you're right, they might have to add a stop at the VTA station after dropping people off at Google. Plus we're not just talking about google and SF. Many tech companies run private buses to and from all over the Bay Area. Some of them chose to use public transit resources for private transit, without pre-agreement or payment and did so until outrage forced them into a payment deal. Somehow we shouldn't criticize them for this?
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Jun 18, 2014 02:57
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