San Francisco discovers free enterprise
Bookworm on Apr 14 2011 at 8:13 am | Filed under: Barack Obama, San Francisco, Taxes
San Francisco is definitely up in the top five when it comes to “most Progressively governed cities in America.” No surprise, then, that the city’s finances are in a shambles. What is a surprise is the fact that, faced with a looming budget collapse, the City has suddenly discovered capitalist incentives: it’s offering the big employers tax cuts to stay in the City.
This is a smart move on San Francisco’s part. (And I can’t believe I wrote that sentence about the City that doesn’t know how.) The Leftists may call them “the rich people” or “blood sucking corporations,” but I have another name for them: employers. The City has discovered that if you constantly penalize employers, they go away.
As Obama’s vicious, dishonest budget speech shows, he hasn’t yet come to that little realization. Nor, despite his intellectual common ground with Tom Friedman, has he seemed to realize that Friedman is right about one thing: the earth is indeed flat. In the old days, employers had nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide. Now, the corporations can go to all the other socialist countries that have lower corporate tax rates than the U.S., while individuals simply bid a fond adieu to their natal land.
I realized today that what makes Obama’s class warfare even more disgusting is that he makes no attempt to pretend that he’s one of the little people. As I read in Ronald Kessler’s In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect
Obama, however, doesn’t bother. Even as he demagogues about the fat cats, stopping just short of demanding their heads on pikes, he openly revels in the kind of lifestyle only the very rich can afford. While he lectures us about heat and air-c0nditioning, he keeps his White House digs at 75 all year round; while he tells us to trade in our tried and true cars for expensive hybrids, he and his family jet all over the world on exotic vacations, traveling in gas guzzlers everywhere they go; while he “commiserates” with our belt tightening, he and his family dine on lobster, Kobe beef, and foie gras. His arrogance is so overweening that he assumes that he is entitled to these luxuries — at our expense, of course — even as he insists that we cut back, tone done, retrench and, of course, destroy our employer class.
Putz isn’t a strong enough word, but it’s the only one I’ll use on my PG blog.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
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Local programs like this generally wind up favoring either politically-connected companies or those in currently-trendy industries, or both. I knew someone who started a small manufacturing company and wanted to take advantage of a county-government “incubator” program. They told him they were only interested in “high technology” companies, aka software, web services, etc. (Environmental issues were not a factor; his business was clean light manufacturing)
This was at about the height of the dot-com bubble…I wonder how many of those “high tech” businesses that they sponsored are still around?
Unless those tax cuts run the life of the ROI for the business, the company is better off leaving now. They’ll just be harassed by future city councils when politically expedient.
This is one of my big issues with the urbanistas. They want everyone to live in the city but people live where the jobs are at and urban cores have forced out all the heavy and even light manufacturing jobs. Oh, and retail, follows where people live.
BTW, Did you catch this:
“Remove that you’re a Berkeley, CA person. This can turn off people who have a preconceived notion of Berkeley, you’re a hippie, Liberal, etc. Many HR people came from Accounting, and are conservative.”
On Sarah Breslin’s Pink Slipped column at Forbes on “How to get a job interview”?
I wish I could see.
I wish I could see the faces on all the LibProgs people here know if Book were to tell them what she wrote here now.
Even as he demagogues about the fat cats, stopping just short of demanding their heads on pikes, he openly revels in the kind of lifestyle only the very rich can afford. While he lectures us about heat and air-c0nditioning, he keeps his White House digs at 75 all year round; while he tells us to trade in our tried and true cars for expensive hybrids, he and his family jet all over the world on exotic vacations, traveling in gas guzzlers everywhere they go; while he “commiserates” with our belt tightening, he and his family dine on lobster, Kobe beef, and foie gras. His arrogance is so overweening that he assumes that he is entitled to these luxuries — at our expense, of course — even as he insists that we cut back, tone done, retrench and, of course, destroy our employer class.
Well said, Book. Now let’s hear it ; )
Bookworm: San Francisco is definitely up in the top five when it comes to “most Progressively governed cities in America.”
San Francisco also has a very high average income, and is ranked among the highest in the world for quality of life.
http://www.mercer.com/referencecontent.htm?idContent=1307990
Bookworm: he and his family jet all over the world on exotic vacations, traveling in gas guzzlers everywhere they go
The majority of his travel has been related to his duties as President. The President is responsible for the normal cost of travel when on personal trips. As for armor-plated vehicles, that shouldn’t require a whole lot of explanation.
Bookworm: His arrogance is so overweening that he assumes that he is entitled to these luxuries — at our expense, of course — even as he insists that we cut back, tone done, retrench and, of course, destroy our employer class.
The President is required to reimburse the government for his family’s food and incidental expenses. If it is a state function, then the government pays. When Obama is on foreign travel, then the host usually foots the bill.
Free enterprise? That’s so cute. No, this is crony capitalism.
This is the inevitable result of center-left* approach to economics: Mandate unreasonable employer health care costs, then grant waivers to your friends (or those with the best lobbyists) when they threaten to follow your incentives by dumping employee benefits. Raise corporate taxes overall to sock it to “the rich” — but then hand out special incentives to allies and powerful corporations threatening to leave.
As the author notes: “Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman [gave] the idea a five-star review…. One wonders how many stars your everyday non-tech companies, who go unmentioned in Wednesday’s announcement, would give it.”
(* Far left, you just shoot or “reeducate” the company owners and take over their wealth and mansions. Someone, after all, has to live in them… For the benefit of “the people”, of course!)
The leadership of the American left isn’t anti-business: they’re just against anything their people don’t control. Now that WalMart is giving nice buckets of donations to the left, the criticisms have largely disappeared. And, as somebody quipped regarding the center-left’s sudden embrace of war in Libya: “But they’re *our* jets now!”
“San Francisco also has a very high average income, and is ranked among the highest in the world for quality of life.”
Zach, repeating other people’s talking points is another example of why you create so much amusement here. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
I live in the Bay Area and spend a lot of time in San Francisco. If you think litter-strewn streets, hyper-aggressive panhandlers, urine and feces-smeared sidewalks, a syphillis epidemic, and utterly crappy public schools—among a host of other pathologies—make for a high quality of life, then you have finally proven our surmise that you are probably a group of clueless college kids or professors (virtually the same thing).
Perhaps you could link us to the enlightened source of your comment. I’d be happy to continue dismantling your blithely swallowed delusions.
(Danny, you promised me first dibs. Thanks!)
All the high income comes from places like Beverly hills. But the Leftist plutocrats and elitist aristocrats aren’t greater than 10% of their total pop.
So if you take one place, SF, and talk about the high standard of living, that money is coming from the top 10%.
Z is trying to befuddle people with the age old con. Show the majesty of the court and the life of the aristocrats, then claim that their kingdom is great and glorious. All the while, what the minders didn’t show the touring guests were the slums, the slaves, and the destitute.
Timw: Diane Feinstein’s husband works for a military contractor. Coincidentally, a lot of contracts from the US seems to go towards that company, when Feinstein is on the defense appropriations committee.
Still, this doesn’t seem to business or Californian friendly. Seems California has been hoisted on their own petard. California mandates 33% of power come from renewables. They specifically define large hydro as not renewable. Now, with the record winter, there is an excess of hydro electricity due to snow melt. So they are giving it away for free, to other places besides California who have to keep buying the expensive wind power. Solution, idle the wind farms when generating with hydro. Can’t just let the water run around the dam as it apparently isn’t permitted due to salmon regulations.
Between Wind and Water | Watts Up With That?
Evil does as evil is.
Ymarsakar: Show the majesty of the court and the life of the aristocrats, then claim that their kingdom is great and glorious.
San Francisco has one of the highest *median* incomes of any city in the U.S.
“Among places with 250,000 or more residents, the affluent Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, boasts the highest median income: $77,038. San Jose came in second at $73,804 and San Francisco was third with $65,497″
http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/28/real_estate/wealthiest_states/
$65,497 in San Francisco is equal to $33,290 in Plano, TX.
http://www.bestplaces.net/col/?salary=65497&city1=50667000&city2=54858016
Zach, still waiting for you to produce the criteria that describe “quality of life.” Of course, I understand why you won’t touch the issue. You just realized that you cannot conflate a median-distorting enclave of wealthy people with the actual quality of life in a city where basic amenities, such as clean streets, decent schools and panhandler-free zones, don’t exist.
Maybe you meant the ability to afford opera or ballet tickets, or have access to “free” healthcare in a city running a budget deficit of several hundred million dollars?
Z has one of the lowest abilities in existence of proving a coherent point. Or do you think you deserve that honor not, Z.
Charles Martel: If you think litter-strewn streets, hyper-aggressive panhandlers, urine and feces-smeared sidewalks, a syphillis epidemic, and utterly crappy public schools—among a host of other pathologies—make for a high quality of life, then you have finally proven our surmise that you are probably a group of clueless college kids or professors (virtually the same thing).
You’re right. We should have qualified our statement. San Francisco has a high quality of living — for a U.S. city.
Charles Martel: still waiting for you to produce the criteria that describe “quality of life.”
That was provided above.
http://www.mercer.com/referencecontent.htm?idContent=1307990
Mercer is a leading HR firm whose job is to advise businesses. As for criteria: “Mercer’s study is based on detailed assessments and evaluations of 39 key quality of living determinants, grouped in the following categories:
Political and social environment (political stability, crime, law enforcement, etc)
Economic environment (currency exchange regulations, banking services, etc)
Socio-cultural environment (censorship, limitations on personal freedom, etc)
Health and sanitation (medical supplies and services, infectious diseases, sewage, waste disposal, air pollution, etc)
Schools and education (standard and availability of international schools, etc)
Public services and transportation (electricity, water, public transport, traffic congestion, etc)
Recreation (restaurants, theatres, cinemas, sports and leisure, etc)
Consumer goods (availability of food/daily consumption items, cars, etc)
Housing (housing, household appliances, furniture, maintenance services, etc)
Natural environment (climate, record of natural disasters)”
Moose: $65,497 in San Francisco is equal to $33,290 in Plano, TX.
Yes, but Plano is a suburb, meaning it’s a selected subset of the whole. Median income in Dallas is only about $26,000, so the median wage earner is poorer in Dallas than in San Francisco.
Sorry. Mixed apples and oranges. The $26,000 is per capita, while the $65,497 is per household. This calculator says that $65,497 in San Francisco is equivalent to $38,914 in Dallas based on differences in the cost of living (mostly due to the cost of housing).
http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-living-calculator.aspx
According to this, the median household income in Dallas is $36,403.
http://www.simplyhired.com/a/local-jobs/city/l-Dallas,+TX
I’ll comment on the criteria Zach cadged from Mercer:
Political and social environment (political stability, crime, law enforcement, etc)
—SF is politically stable, although predictably far left. Law enforcement is corrupt, with a low rate of crime solving, slow response time. City attorney refuses to prosecute quality-of-life misdemeanors and will not seek the death penalty even in the most egregious cases. Bloated government with an annual budget of $6.55 billion. This compares to San Jose, which has 200,000 more residents than SF, which operates on a yearly budget of fewer than $3 billion.
Economic environment (currency exchange regulations, banking services, etc)
—Great banking services, terrible business climate. High taxes and extreme limitations on workplace practices, including imposition of minimum wage that exceeds Fed rate. Teen unemployment rate approaches 30 percent.
Socio-cultural environment (censorship, limitations on personal freedom, etc)
—Censorship can only be imposed by government, therefore this is a pointless metric. Self-imposed censorship among media regarding discussion of the high rate of homosexual disease and its costs to the city; high number of illegal immigrants and their high crime rate; general filth of the city; crime aboard Municipal Railway; infrastructure decay; out-of-control city bureaucracy with average worker pay, including benefits, of $93,000 per year.
Health and sanitation (medical supplies and services, infectious diseases, sewage, waste disposal, air pollution, etc) —Great hospitals and superb level of medical care. Good paramedic service. Infectious diseases still afflict gay population depsite years of efforts to control them. Illegals have reintroduced tuberculosis. Sewer infrastructure is dangerously old. Much public defecation, which police do not prosecute, so waste disposal in certain areas approximates Calcutta’s. No air pollution, thanks to prevailing westerlies.
Schools and education (standard and availability of international schools, etc)
—Terrifically bad public schools; possibly the second or third worst in the state (Los Angeles and Oakland vie for lowest). San Francisco State University a hotbed of anti-Semitism. Cal Berkeley and Stanford are top schools and help burnish San Francisco’s reputation though the city itself lacks even a second-rate college or university.
Public services and transportation (electricity, water, public transport, traffic congestion, etc)
—Water supplied from Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite National Park courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. Great stuff, possibly the country’s best tap water. Public transport is unreliable, accident-prone, overcrowded, and often populated by gangbangers and loutish schoolkids. Traffic congestion grows worse each year as the city refuses to add parking garages and reduces usable pavement by giving lanes over to bicyclists.
Recreation (restaurants, theatres, cinemas, sports and leisure, etc)
—Abundant recreational opportunities for the wealthy. Great span of restaurants, so it is easy to eat cheaply and well. Avid movie town that often hosts premiers, but movie theaters are still closing rapidly, thanks to Netflix and the expense of going to a movie. Theater itself is very expensive. Tickets to mezzanine seats often go for $85 to $100 on a weekday night, so theater attendance is limited to the affluent. Sports events also expensive—not possible for middle-class family of four to take in a baseball game for less than $250. Parks are ill-maintained; some have been taken over by druggies or loose dogs.
Consumer goods (availability of food/daily consumption items, cars, etc)
—Terrible place to find moderately priced goods. Food prices higher than surrounding areas, though that’s to be assumed in any center city. Corner stores charge huge markups because of high rents, high transport costs, city restrictions on what foods may be sold. Gasoline prices are the highest in California thanks to restrictions on number of gas stations.
Housing (housing, household appliances, furniture, maintenance services, etc)
—Housing only affordable to the wealthy. Rent control encourages older people to squat until they die, creating huge problems for younger would-be renters. Rent control discourage landlords from making repairs, so general rental housing stock has been decaying over the years. Appliances and maintenance services available, but at high prices because of city service tax add-ons.
Natural environment (climate, record of natural disasters)
—This should really be a separate category since a city bears no responsibility for or control over these.
San Francisco has a “high quality of life” if you are affluent. Otherwise, it’s a crowded, inconvenient, noisy, dirty, inefficient, expensive place to live.
Charles Martel: I’ll comment on the criteria Zach cadged from Mercer:
You can certainly argue with one aspect of their methodology or another, but Mercer is presenting a reasonable survey that provides some perspective on relative quality of life. Mercer is well respected for providing global human resource intelligence.
Why is it well respected? By whom? I’ve already shown that its “quality of life” determinations are based on unrealistic criteria because they fail to mention San Francisco’s deep level of corruption, decay and filth. You avoid addressing the plain fact that Mercer’s determinations only apply if you are affluent.
Charles Martel: Why is it well respected? By whom?
Mercer has won many industry awards, and being the world’s largest human resource consultancy, obviously has the confidence of businesses that rely upon its advice.
Charles Martel: I’ve already shown that its “quality of life” determinations are based on unrealistic criteria because they fail to mention San Francisco’s deep level of corruption, decay and filth.
It’s actually your own comments that lack foundation. Most of your points are polemic or anecdotal. And you didn’t provide comparisons to other cities.
Oh, come on, Z, Charles is talking from first hand experience which is a pretty good foundation. I’ve worked in SF, gone to school in SF and lived in the area for 35 years and I can tell you everything he says is absolutely true. I’ll take personal experience (especially my own) over some survey list any day, no matter how many awards the surveyer has won.
Don Quixote: Charles is talking from first hand experience which is a pretty good foundation.
Though anecdotes can give dimension to data, anecdotes are not data.
Don Quixote: I’ll take personal experience (especially my own) over some survey list any day, no matter how many awards the surveyer has won.
Without a comparison between a number of cities, it doesn’t even address the question of comparative quality.
Zack, I’m disputing the data themselves. For example, data may show that City X has 15,000 acres of parks while City Y has only 8,000. Yet if City X’s parks are ill-maintained, understaffed and crime-ridden, the data become farcical if somebody like Mercer declares that the number of acres are, ipso facto, some indication of “quality of life.”
If SF has more museums than Cleveland, by your reckoning that datum makes it more appealing than Cleveland even though the prices for going to a museum in SF are far higher and far fewer people can afford the visit.
You can’t possibly be serious when you demand a comparison of San Francisco to other cities before you’ll accept the validity of the conditions I’ve described there. As Don Quixote has pointed out, we live there. We know the score. You’re still doing your Black Knight imitation where you deny direct experience in favor of whatever you can dredge up on Wiki. C’mon, do you seriously expect me to run like you to an Authority to dredge up proof that SF is a far better city to live in than a s**thole like Detroit or Philadelphia?
Your perpetual disconnect with reality makes me assume you live in a college town, either as a student or as a perfesser, therefore take it for granted that the idyllic lifestyle you lead is normal. Having mom and dad (or the taxpayer) support you is way cool, but when you finally decide to come out of the cocoon, you’ll face the same dilemma that somebody who isn’t rich faces when he reads drek like Mercer’s “Which Cities Are the Grooviest for Wealthy Folks to Live in?”: Who the hell are these guys kidding?
OK, back from my travels and Charles Martel has had first dibs…
“There are lies, there are damn lies and there are statistics”.
Thomas Sowell has written quite a bit on the Bay Area demographic and economic dynamic, whereby cadres of very wealthy people combined with very tight, environmentally obsessed growth limitations have bid up the cost of real estate (ergo the cost of living) to such high levels that only the very rich and the very poor (i.e., homeless, drug addicts) can afford to live there.
The productive middle class gets squeezed out of communities such San Francisco, Marin and Palo Alto to peripheral communities such as Dublin, Richmond, Santa Rosa and Pleasanton (requiring 2+ hours of commuting time each way to their jobs) or simply are forced to move out of state. As Victor Davis Hanson has commented, California is being hollowed out, as its middle class moves out of state and its lower-class (largely Hispanic) populations create favela communities in the economic penumbra of the Central Valley. So Third World!
The resulting demographic shift drives up median incomes by a) skewing population demographics toward the rich and b) by increasing the relative costs of living in those areas (as per the Dallas versus San Francisco example), leading to further economic flight by the lower-wage classes. The environmental, social, regulatory and government-tax extremism of the Bay Area is a luxury easily afforded by the independently wealthy and their trust-fund babies, our new wannabee aristocrats.
This is the primary reason there has been such an exodus of blacks from San Francisco, leaving a bobo playground for the lily-white and Asian wealth classes, who can reliably be counted on to keep voting Democrat because, hey, it really doesn’t affect their quality of life…yet.
http://sfbayview.com/2009/san-francisco%E2%80%99s-black-exodus/
Danny, the Left also intentionally promote the mass migration by offering cheap affordable housing and loans. The whole fanny mae package for underprivileged minorities. Give them house loans so they move the hell out of the rich territory so that property in SF can go up, not down. When crime increases in the suburbs and other states, well heck, the Left isn’t paid to care about that.
Danny, very good points. It would be interesting to see a reflexive (and unreflective) leftist like Zach tell us what a great thing it is that San Francisco has lost half its black population over the past 30 years. Does that add to the quality of life?
Charles Martel: Yet if City X’s parks are ill-maintained, understaffed and crime-ridden, the data become farcical if somebody like Mercer declares that the number of acres are, ipso facto, some indication of “quality of life.”
Crime and personal safety are components of the index. Crime is lower in San Franscisco than many other U.S. cities, such as Dallas, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington or Memphis.
Charles Martel: You can’t possibly be serious when you demand a comparison of San Francisco to other cities before you’ll accept the validity of the conditions I’ve described there.
In other words, you have no contrary data, not even anecdotal information about other cities. But you reject out-of-hand, a more thorough survey. Any such survey is going to be somewhat subjective, but it is still reasonable support for our previous statement to point to a non-partisan survey. It’s apparent you don’t like San Francisco, but it’s rather obvious from your comments that much of your problem is because you don’t like the local politics.
This discussion started with this statement: San Francisco discovers free enterprise. In fact, San Francisco is the home to entrepreneurs and business startups, and a center of technological innovation. It is the headquarters for many large and diverse enterprises, such as Gap, Dolby, LucasArts, Wells Fargo and Twitter, yet 85% of its businesses have fewer than ten employees. And apparently, Mercer Global finds it to be among the best cities to live and do business in, at least in the U.S. (though perhaps that’s not such a high standard).
Again, in dealing with statistics data, one has to plumb deep to be truly able to interpret them. The Z group’s consistent willingness to accept data that supports their premises at face value and based on shallow appraisals is kinda touching, actually, but serves to confuse rather than clarify. It certainly explains their reams of sites/cites on man-made global warming: if it is in print and it is acceptable within the Temple of Orthodoxy…it must be so.
The Mercer Study link provided by Z offers very little information to support how the criteria listed are defined and measured, other than listing criteria of which one, affordability, is notably absent. In fact, looking at the list of criteria presented, most appear quite mundane: for example, “fruits and vegetables” and “varieties of restaurants”. A few things that are very clear, however:
1. They make clear that the study addresses “quality of living”, not quality of life.
2. It is clear that their criteria apply to “when cost is not factor” (many of the cities that top the list are horrendously expensive) and only to living in the toniest neighborhoods of the cities cited/sited (Geneva? Zurich? You must be kidding!)
3. Mercer’s clientele is the very wealthy set.
Thus, from Mercer’s point of view, San Francisco is a ducky place to live…when money is no object!
http://www.mercer.com/referencecontent.htm?idContent=1380465
Just one more example of the Z group and everyone else talking past one another.
Danny Lemieux: The Z group’s consistent willingness to accept data that supports their premises at face value and based on shallow appraisals is kinda touching, actually, but serves to confuse rather than clarify.
As we said above, these sorts of surveys have a subjective element, but no one has posted information that would call into question the overall results.
Danny Lemieux: Thus, from Mercer’s point of view, San Francisco is a ducky place to live…when money is no object!
http://www.mercer.com/referencecontent.htm?idContent=1380465
Oddly enough, many of the criteria they use, political environment, public services, schools, pollution, and economic environment are not directly related to the personal cost of living. In any case, this relates to the discussion concerning San Francisco discovers free enterprise, and quality of living is an important criterion for businesses.
It is easy to forget sometimes that where one lives is not where one does business.
Thus, one can live in San Francisco while owning a business in South San Francisco under different rules of play entirely.
Plus, to say that “political environment, public services, schools, pollution and economic environment are not directly related to the personal cost of living”…well, that is a particularly insightful disconnect.
Danny Lemieux: It is easy to forget sometimes that where one lives is not where one does business.
Let’s try it one more time. The topic is San Francisco discovers free enterprise. The leading human resources information service ranks San Francisco among the best cities in the U.S. for the quality of living for their business clients. Hence, it is directly relevant. In addition, San Francisco is the home of many large corporations, and a leading center of entrepreneural endeavor.
Actually, anecdotes are data. It’s not statistical data and by its nature is hard to quantify, but anecdotal evidence is still data. Especially if it can be corroborated by existing accounts, other anecdotes, or independent sources.
When one person in SF says they saw this, that’s one person. And if another person in SF says the same, that is called a data point congruence. You have independence sources agreeing with each other, congregating together. That is data. And it can be charted.
What anecdotal data requires is analysis, trend spotting, and source validation from the researcher. Z is unable to do that, so he has to pick up the works of other people to do it for him, the so called survey data. Well, that was research conducted and processed by someone other than Z. If Z can’t even quantify and process data in the form of personal anecdotes, numerous and corroborated, what hope does Z have in analyzing the survey data of other people?
And yet many large corporations that help to creat a leading center of entrepreneural endeavor appear ready to leave San Francisco due to the “quality of living.” The original story linked to this post contradicts precisely what Mercer/Z argues: that SF is attractive for large corporations. This goes right back to Danny’s point: SF is a great city, as long as you don’t live there or run a company there.
Z believes that it is his survey under attack, so he believes if he can prop up the credentials of Mercer, that he can prop up his own inflated claims. That’s just not so.
The question at topic here is whether Z’s judgment and personal abilities are adequate to processing and interpreting the Mercer survey data. It is very apparent that Z lacks some fundamental skills and abilities on this venue. The conclusion is unavoidable. Regardless of what is right or wrong with Mercer’s data analysis and data accuracy/reliability, Z cannot know what is or is not good about San Francisco’s business, free enterprise, or quality of living conditions.
It is not Mercer making the claim that SF is good for free enterprise. It is Z. He may try to befuddle people into thinking it’s Mercer’s credibility and authority on the line, but in fact since the argument stems from Z, it is Z’s credibility and authority being called into question here. Instead of the red herring of saying Mercer has city comparison data that Martel does not, Z should instead focus on qualifying his ability to judge any of this.
One of the little problems with refusing to make your own point, Z, is that when you try to claim anything, you automatically refuse to justify and qualify it. Resulting in a total failure, academically, conversationally, and scholarly.
The correct point Mercer makes is that for those that care not for cost, SF has certain utilities, like say Bookworm’s Marin, that provides quality for the paying customer. Danny makes the correct point that in SF, the wealthy have it swell, like most everywhere else in the US, but the reality for the rest is much different. The only person that is absolutely wrong here is Z. Mercer is not here to argue anything, thus they are certainly not wrong as they haven’t stated anything they couldn’t back up. But neither is Mercer arguing that SF is good for businesses.
Y: “But neither is Mercer arguing that SF is good for businesses.”
Agreed. My point was that it appears that Z has become the “spokesperson” for Mercer, thus arguing on its behalf to make his/their points.
I swear I feel like I’m reading the script to a Star Trek: Next Generation script when “Z” posts.
Moose: And yet many large corporations that help to creat a leading center of entrepreneural endeavor appear ready to leave San Francisco due to the “quality of living.”
Actually, the article indicates that the city is making changes businesses want for staying in the city.
Ymarsakar: The question at topic here is whether Z’s judgment … {snip balance of off-topic}
Well, no. The topic was San Francisco supposedly discovering free enterprise, even though they have been a business hub for generations.
That’s correct, Z. And if the “city” does not make changes from its current environment, what do these businesses do?
Here’s a citation/sitation that lists a number of formerly Californian companies that apparently did not bother to read the Mercer Report:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/vranich-296360-jobs-moves.html
Maybe Z can send them the link.
Zach: The topic was San Francisco supposedly discovering free enterprise, even though they have been a business hub for generations.
And yet, for some reason, they need to be “making changes”? What are they “changing” from? Clearly, SF must have moved into a state they themselves realize is non-optimal, right? If not, why is there a need to make changes at all, and why is there an article about it?
Zach: just granting, for a moment, your argument that SF has a high average income (truly agreed, actually) and a good quality of life (debatable, and I tend to agree that it only the wealthy get to experience the better bits): ummm… so what? I’m not even sure what the larger point is here. Because there are wealthy people there, SF must have a great environment for free enterprise? Because many businesses were started there a while ago, the business climate must be good now? That businesses, and the middle class, aren’t fleeing SF? Do you have some affirmative point here?
And what’s the still-larger point? That leftism works? Or…. ???
Look, Aspen has a lot of wealthy people. And a GREAT standard of living. All of which means…. ? Is it easy for me to start business X or Y there because there are wealthy people there? Or a fantastic quality of life, for those who can afford to live there? (I can’t even afford to visit, and I live nearby!) How about Monaco? Saudi Arabia? To what larger reality or point is this argument (and its detractors) supposed to contribute (or refute)?
And if citing SF in that manner is supposed to prove something, politically, then doesn’t Plano’s even better position, in the *exact same study*, sort of simultaneously refute it? Heading this off, perhaps, you suggest Plano is a “a selected subset of the whole”. Well, um, so is SF. You mention that you’d want to consider how Dallas a whole is doing. Fine. Then consider, as a whole, how Oakland is doing, where the working-class people who commute to SF have to live. It seems you desire a more inclusive view of one city, but don’t want to apply the same logic to another.
But, again, what’s the larger point? Otherwise, I’m not sure what your argument is supposed to imply. That SF is a great climate for business: “Wealthy people” = “great place to start businesses”? If so, Park Avenue must be a veritable hothouse of innovation.
Danny Lemieux: Here’s a citation/sitation that lists a number of formerly Californian companies that apparently did not bother to read the Mercer Report:
Interesting. Wells Fargo Bank is moving 59 jobs from Orange County to India.
The criticisms here of Zack’s inability to plumb statistics beyond their utility as confirmations of his own repjudices are well merited. Companies like Well Fargo, Lucas, Dolby, PG&E, Chevron, etc., may maintain corporate headquarters in San Francisco because of the prestige of the address, but locate up to 90 percent of their work forces in other parts of the Bay Area. As Danny points out, the Mercer surveys are really asking the swells how they like living in a playground only they can afford. (By the way, Zach, I love San Francisco—you’re correct, I hate the politics. I just abhor what people like you have done to it.)
Here’s the great difference between you and everybody else on this board: The one thing you are good at is games and game theory, and I would not presume to question your knowledge or ability when it comes to them. But otherwise you are an extremely ignorant person. I do not say that as an insult; God knows we are all ignorant about many things. I will admit when I’m ignorant about something. But you will insist that if you can find an Authority who agrees with your sandbox politics, then, voila!, you have mastered the topic.
I’ll say it once again, because there’s really no reply you can make other than to pull your usual Dukakis: You do not know what you are talking about when it comes to San Francisco, and your insistence on trying to appear that you do simply makes you look the fool.
Charles Martel: The criticisms here of Zack’s inability to plumb statistics … {snip off-topic}
In other words, you no argument other than attacking the speaker, ignoring valid points, and handwaving away information that is contrary to your preconceptions. Good luck with that.
Zack, I’m having great luck with it! Every person in this room, who is at least your intellectual peer, finds the argument you cadged from Mercer to be unconvincing and agrees with me.
Good luck tilting at windmills!
My point was that it appears that Z has become the “spokesperson” for Mercer, thus arguing on its behalf to make his/their points.
That is a common trick Z falls into. He often likes to portray himself as a messenger, with no view of his own, just passing along the truth from the lips of Bush quotations, ClimateGate scientists, and other sources of “authority”.
To address the topic here, I’ll summarize the results.
People may not be dead certain enough to write about it, but it’s more than plausible. Especially for those who know how the Left works, especially in SF or California. Book took the positive and optimistic assessment, while many took the prudent, pessimistic assessment of the motivations and results of California’s “new” changes.
Into this common network of agreement or at least lack of disagreement, comes Z with the “message” that California has not rediscovered free enterprise, but in fact has always had free enterprise. Z uses Mercer’s study results concerning San Francisco averaged mean incomes as justification for this pseudo claim of his.
I say it is a pseudo claim because even now Z is trying to pretend that he doesn’t have a claim, that the topic is about some pie in the sky abstraction. Z doesn’t come out right out and say what he is thinking or what he believes. Too risky I suppose. Amongst the Left, they have learned to keep their mouth shut in certain social situations. This indoctrination goes deep and affects their behavior elsewhere.
Interesting. Wells Fargo Bank is moving 59 jobs from Orange County to India.
As you can plainly see, Z acts like he doesn’t have a view, but does his hardest to leak all sorts of “hints”. It’s unclear, imprecise, and designed to “upset” the flow of conversation. But like most Leftists, they do not have the courage of their convictions nor the knowledge to back up their claims.
Z relies upon the basic trick that if he doesn’t make a claim, he can’t be wrong. But oh, he is. He is very wrong. Not only is he wrong to try to hide behind Mercer, he is wrong in his implications, his claims, and his thinking. He is absolutely wrong. SF has not always had free enterprise. Government regulation in SF is what eliminates free market forces, rather than promotes them. Z is for government regulation, period. He cannot hide the truth of the past from us. Not after producing a bunch of flakk for Obama here in the past.
EDIT:
One part got left out. Sandwich this in.
To address the topic here, I’ll summarize the results.
WordPress is actually deleting Z’s quoted commentations, amazing. Once more to make it show up.
Well, no. The topic was San Francisco supposedly discovering free enterprise, even though they have been a business hub for generations.
Book wonders on how SF has rediscovered free enterprise and things like free market forces. Much of Bookworm Room responds that SF is only reinvigorating crony capitalism, where the State Politicians hand out favors in order to control companies or force companies to pay the Left more extortion money. It’s also a good way to reward Leftist friends that own shares in such companies and would become rich if the companies were granted special dispensations. This is in common agreement here amongst the fellows.
In other words, you no argument other than attacking the speaker
Hey Martel, I think Z was always hailed as a genius in school: a tensei. But out in the beyond, the real world, Z has found that he is a little fish in a big vast, infinite sea indeed. Perhaps he is unable to forget how he “won” debates (like John Kerry in his little debate club) as the “speaker”.
Zachriel: Interesting. Wells Fargo Bank is moving 59 jobs from Orange County to India.
Ymarsakar: As you can plainly see, Z acts like he doesn’t have a view, but does his hardest to leak all sorts of “hints”.
There’s a point there, as most readers can see. We’ll let you think about it some more.
Ymarsakar: Much of Bookworm Room responds that SF is only reinvigorating crony capitalism, where the State Politicians hand out favors in order to control companies or force companies to pay the Left more extortion money.
Eighty-five percent of San Francisco’s businesses have fewer than ten employees, and the city is a hub of entrepreneurial activity, including recent start-ups such as Digg, Pandora, Twitter and Craigslist.
Y: “Eighty-five percent of San Francisco’s businesses have fewer than ten employees, and the city is a hub of entrepreneurial activity”
So, that pust SF where in relation to the national average for size of businesses with fewer than ten employees? How does Plano, TX compare to that statistic? Does that fact provide licens to make a subjective statement, or can that statement be used, really, for any metropolitan area?
Not sure, but I think Detroit may have the same percenatge of businesses with fewer than 10 employees. I guess that city is the hub of entrepreneurial activity as well.
Sorry, quote should be atrritubted to The Z-Man/Group
Can somebody tell me please…I’m a bit confused…..is Zach an individual using the “royal” we, or a committee of intellectuals posting as a collective? I can relate to feeling like I’m reading a script for an episode of Star Trek, TNG.
Either way, he/she/they(?) is/are getting a verbal asswhoopin’ from the amazing posters here. Most of the time I just lurk, trying to learn something. I’m loving this thread. Great work to Charles and Danny. Where were teachers like you when I was in school?
Fight on, guys….ya’ll rock!
Moose: So, that pust SF where in relation to the national average for size of businesses with fewer than ten employees?
For fewer than 100 employees, the national average is 24.57 businesses per 1000 people. In San Francisco, it is 27.65, or about 12% more than the average.
Z: “For fewer than 100 employees, the national average is 24.57 businesses per 1000 people. In San Francisco, it is 27.65, or about 12% more than the average.”
OK. What does this new statistic have to do with less than businesses with less than 10 ee’s? This is a strange dance your performing. Where should we go next? I got it, let’s see how many businesses are have between 43 and 63 ee’s.
Your newly grabbed stat has nothing to do with any point you’re trying to make.
Here’s one for your books: For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index decresaed 2.9% in February.
Duchess, thanks for a great compliment. I think Zack comes here because he knows he has finally reached a place where his leftist nonsense gets called. When you’ve been telling yourself how superior you are but retain a shred of doubt, it’s good to go to where you can get a mental overhaul from folks who are much better at these things than you are.
Since Zack is a game player, it could be that he is using this site as a teaching tool for his fellow basementeers: Here’s how to incite by saying silly things and stealing other peoples’ ideas. Of course the unwanted part of the lesson is when his observers note that he does routinely get his clocked cleaned.
(A note about the number of S.F. businesses with fewer than 100 employees: Once again, Zack does not bother to think about why S.F. seems to be such a hot bed of small businesses. One reason is that the city’s immense congestion and restrictive zoning practices force the creation of hundreds of mom-and-pop grocery stores. They’re overpriced as hell, but convenient in terms of saving shoppers a hellish trip in heavy traffic to destinations where there are few parking spaces. Duh! Also, many small businesses are boutiques that cater to the carriage trade, such as shoe stores, manicurists, and dry cleaners—hardly entrepreneurial. Also not cheap. The entrepreneurial shops that Zack cites, such as Twitter, keep a corporate presence in San Francisco for reasons of prestige and ready access to the city’s lawyers and bankers. But they conduct most of their business offsite, beyond city boundaries in order to avoid excessive taxation and workplace regulation. Thus, S.F.’s sudden realization that its business climate for people who are not wealthy Democrats sucks.)
God forbid that I’d be mistaken for Z.
My deepest apologies, Y.
Is it easy for me to start business X or Y there because there are wealthy people there?
In a limited sense, some luxury businesses would find it useful to know where their market demographics are. People selling yachts and fine cuisine would be better placed to do business in certain parts of SF, due to the demographics. And that is what surveys such as Mercer accomplishes. It provides certain data to businesses and factions who desire such data.
This distinction, of course, has not been made by Z purely because he is unaware of it. The nuance, the details, the transfigurations of human motivations and behavior, all are a mystery to Z the messenger.
I often describe Z in this fashion. A person that cannot speak for Mercer or Bush or even himself, since he keeps saying “we”. Well, why should I believe he has the “authority” to speak for all his other selves? When Z talks about his point or lack of it, Z can’t even speak for himself, yet he believes he can speak for Mercer… ridiculous.
For fewer than 100 employees, the national average is 24.57 businesses per 1000 people. In San Francisco, it is 27.65, or about 12% more than the average.
I’m pretty sure businesses have great concentrations in population centers and not in the rural areas of America, which actually constitute most of the square area of the US. As real climatologists in Danny’s video said, averaging things out makes a mishmash out of any valuable information contained in empirical data. The true worth of such data is to look at local variances as they pertain to the local conditions, rather than averaging them out into a meaningless “mean”.
Zachriel: For fewer than 100 employees, the national average is 24.57 businesses per 1000 people. In San Francisco, it is 27.65, or about 12% more than the average.
Moose: OK. What does this new statistic have to do with less than businesses with less than 10 ee’s? This is a strange dance your performing. Where should we go next? I got it, let’s see how many businesses are have between 43 and 63 ee’s.
Different studies use different measures. In order to compare cities, you have to use comparable statistics.
Moose: Here’s one for your books: For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index decresaed 2.9% in February.
That’s the national number. It fell after reaching its highest point since mid-2008. Winter storms account for part of it. Did you have a point?
Charles Martel: I think Zac{hriel} comes here because he knows he has finally reached a place where his leftist nonsense gets called.
What you mean is that when the original contention is shown to be incorrect, and handwaving isn’t working, you declare victory.
Charles Martel: The entrepreneurial shops that Zac{hriel} cites, such as Twitter, keep a corporate presence in San Francisco for reasons of prestige and ready access to the city’s lawyers and bankers.
Twitter was born in San Francisco, as were many other businesses.
Charles Martel: Once again, Zac{hriel} does not bother to think about why S.F. seems to be such a hot bed of small businesses.
There are a number of reasons, including a highly educated and motivated workforce. There is currently a lot of money flowing into new startups in San Francisco.
Zacky, I hate to quote myself like you quote yourself, but you left out my money sentence:
“Since Zack is a game player, it could be that he is using this site as a teaching tool for his fellow basementeers: Here’s how to incite by saying silly things and stealing other peoples’ ideas. Of course the unwanted part of the lesson is when his observers note that he does routinely get his clocked cleaned.”
Score: Martel’s handwaves 1,000; Zacky’s basement antics 0.
They’re not doing much for those “small” businesses…
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/04/democrat-math-even-kooks-running-san.html
suek, did your link come from a Zach-approved source?
I think Zac{hriel}-Z
He’s doing it again Martel. Do ya see? Do ya see it?
What you mean is that when the original contention is shown to be incorrect,
Shown by whom to be incorrect. You? You think you showed something here? *chuckles*
He’s very formal, Ymar. I think he may be a Brit, which would explain his problems with subject-number agreement (for example, referring to the city of San Francisco as a “they”). In which case leaving off the second half of his alias would vex him greatly. Kind of like calling the Prince of Wales “Chuck” or “Your Stiffness.”
Speaking of, Ymar, you and anybody else here are welcome to call me Chazz, Chuck, Moor Killer, Zach Slayer, C.M. Hammer, whatever.
Z: “Did you have a point?”
Exactly my point. Thank you for picking that up. Random statistics skimmed from web sites don’t prove a point.
Is it Zachriel…or Azariel?
Just askin’!
Feeling kinda puckish this morning.