Visitor's impressions of SF (to buy, salary, tax)

[modernist1]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

The way to deal with the homeless is a) provide more mental health treatment for war vets, b) provide more hospital beds for the severely mentally ill, and emergency cases, c) expand community mental health services and affordable housing for mildly mentally ill and disabled, and make sure they're involved in job services and rehabilitation, d) grow the economy and re-regulate the financial service industry to prevent fraud and another collapse like the one in 2008. In other words, build a stable economy to provide jobs for the marginally employable.

Sorry, no quick fixes. Serious problems deserve serious measures.

Absolutely, there are no quick fixes. Provide better social services - fine with me. A national health system as per every other rich country would be a start.

[Larry Siegel]

The massive homeless population aside, inequality in SF isn't any worse than in any other high-priced, rich city, such as New York. What the visitor is reacting to is people starving on the street, or looking like they are - not struggling members of the working class commuting to their modest apartments.

There is really no excuse for this. Most of the homeless population consists of people who are seriously mentally ill and who have used $250,000 to $500,000 in public funds in various failed forms of treatment (or so a reputable social services administrator tells me). They then impose costs many times larger than that on their communities.

What we need is humane, mandatory institutionalization.

[shooting4life]

Originally Posted by Larry Siegel

The massive homeless population aside, inequality in SF isn't any worse than in any other high-priced, rich city, such as New York. What the visitor is reacting to is people starving on the street, or looking like they are - not struggling members of the working class commuting to their modest apartments.

There is really no excuse for this. Most of the homeless population consists of people who are seriously mentally ill and who have used $250,000 to $500,000 in public funds in various failed forms of treatment (or so a reputable social services administrator tells me). They then impose costs many times larger than that on their communities.

What we need is humane, mandatory institutionalization.

That was found to be unconstitutional in the 70's (which I agree with btw). If you are not a danger to yourself or others you have the right to determine what you should or should not to be put into your body and to live free.

[shooting4life]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Drilling for oil/natural gas requires highly skilled and educated workers, not generic blue collar labor. Less red tape is as much a liberal goal as a conservative one, except for the environmental restrictions. Environmental restrictions benefit lower class people, because it's usually their communities that get poisoned groundwater and other environmental disasters. It's the lower class communities that don't have much of a voice, and end up being considered throw-away communities by industry.

You'll have to come up with better examples.

Actually oil fields and rigs are filled with blue collar workers. Red tape has been put into place by liberals, just look at the process for similar permits in this state compared to others, or even liberal counties compared to conservative counties (an example of red tape that I learned about recently, though it doesn't have anything to do with job, a relative of mine passed away recently and wanted her ashes to be spread on Lake Tahoe where she spent a lot of time over the years. Where the family always spent time was on the NV side. The state of California required a permit and fee of $50 to take her ashes across state line).

If you ran a small business you would understand how the regulations, licenses and red tape kill growth and competition.

Environmental regulations rarely actually protect the environment anymore, that ended in the 80's. Now it is about milking money and socially engineering certain behaviors. Just look at carb for an example with its visual inspection and testing requirements. If someone wants to sell a modified car part they have to pay a large fee and let carb test it before it can sold in the state. This has nothing to do with the environment because a car with this part auto fails smog even if you are under the particular limit. I have also seen carb lower what level of emissions is acceptable to get people out of older cars, of course this hurts the poor disproportionately. It is a straight money grab and the state has many programs similar to this.

Another example is when an endangered fly is found somewhere and farms and projects have to be shut down. Of course this has been abused, environmentalists bring endangered species to various projects and then file a lawsuits to get the project shut down. Of course this increases the costs of the project, and Ultimately the cost to the end user while litigated.

Or any time someone talks about tort reform and and billions that costs everyone in the state. The trial lawyers have the democrats in their back pocket to prevent any sort of meaningful reform.


All these above things impacts regular Californians and especially the middle and lower class either directly or indirectly and costs billions of dollars each year. All brought to you by liberals under the banned of protecting us from ourselves.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by shooting4life

That was found to be unconstitutional in the 70's (which I agree with btw). If you are not a danger to yourself or others you have the right to determine what you should or should not to be put into your body and to live free.

But the problem is, even if they decided living in an institution with 3 meals and a warm bed was better than living in the streets, where would they go? The institutions were closed. New and improved ones need to be built. The option to institutionalize themselves simply doesn't exist for the time being.

[shooting4life]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

But the problem is, even if they decided living in an institution with 3 meals and a warm bed was better than living in the streets, where would they go? The institutions were closed. New and improved ones need to be built. The option to institutionalize themselves simply doesn't exist for the time being.

The institutions exist, they just don't have customers because no one wants to go there.

It is like expecting a criminal to want to go to prison for their own good to prevent them from committing crimes in the future, it just doesn't happen.

[dalparadise]

Comfortably ensconced in the Middle Class and loving it in San Francisco.

Things may be bad for those who aren't willing to work, the crazies, and the addicted. But for the rest of us, life is good. SF is a city of transplants, so if someone is here, he's likely here by choice. Thus, he gets no sympathy from me. If I couldn't afford my rent and food, I'd migrate to a place or condition that was more favorable. Wouldn't you?

Thus, I offer no apologies for loving my overpriced lifestyle in this amazing place. Sorry if some can't afford it. It's not for everyone. Try Texas, maybe?

[Pietro25]

Originally Posted by shooting4life

Various liberal policies promote income inequality.

Dumb blanket statement. The conservative "trickle-down" idea of cutting taxes to the rich and underfunding services for the poor has more to do with income inequality in the United States than anything else. Income inequality was at its lowest before Reagan became president. It has increased ever since. We are now at Guilded Age levels of income inequality.

[shooting4life]

Originally Posted by Pietro25

Dumb blanket statement. The conservative "trickle-down" idea of cutting taxes to the rich and underfunding services for the poor has more to do with income inequality in the United States than anything else. Income inequality was at its lowest before Reagan became president. It has increased ever since. We are now at Guilded Age levels of income inequality.

A. I didn't make a blanket statement
B. Looks like your idea to get rid of income inequality is to chop off the top so everyone has a crappy income. In the modern day global economy companies relocate to countries that are more favorable, taking their taxes and jobs with them. This isn't the 50's where every other industrialized nation is trying to rebuild after ww2 and we are the only industrialized nation left to feed purchasing needs of the world. I'm all for a conversation about the complexity of the tax system, but pretending the "rich" don't pay their fair share when the top 10% are paying over 70% of taxes received by the government, up from 55% in 1986.
The rich pay majority of U.S. income taxes - Mar. 12, 2013

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by shooting4life

A. I didn't make a blanket statement
B. Looks like your idea to get rid of income inequality is to chop off the top so everyone has a crappy income. In the modern day global economy companies relocate to countries that are more favorable, taking their taxes and jobs with them. This isn't the 50's where every other industrialized nation is trying to rebuild after ww2 and we are the only industrialized nation left to feed purchasing needs of the world. I'm all for a conversation about the complexity of the tax system, but pretending the "rich" don't pay their fair share when the top 10% are paying over 70% of taxes received by the government, up from 55% in 1986.
The rich pay majority of U.S. income taxes - Mar. 12, 2013

"The top" was doing just fine before "trickle down economics" was invented and implemented. How can you say "the top" is paying its fair share, when members of Congress pay less tax than their own secretarial staff?! An equitable tax system gave us the infrastructure that set the stage for the economic expansion of the Post-War period, and catapulted many into the middle class via gov't support for education, the GI Bill, and strong unions. Remove the equitable tax system, and things fall apart. Cause---> effect.