The broken part is that there is third world-level poverty on the streets outside Google’s offices, working class people cannot afford to live in the Bay Area, and a fifth of California lives in poverty.

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epistasis 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I agree that that's the major problem; the poverty is inexcusable. But that's not caused by the $300B (or whatever) of equity. It's caused because the homeowners of the Bay Area decided that once they got a house, nobody else should, and that they should get to exclude others from the opportunities they had.

This same thing was observed during the Gold Rush in California in the 1800s; extreme wealth also resulted in extreme poverty. And there's a great way to solve this: tax the land and redistribute it equally to everyone. Land can't be moved, it's something that belongs to all of us, and you can't make more of it.

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jdm2212 5 hours ago | parent [-]

You sort of can make more land -- by building tall buildings. Unfortunately the Bay Area has mostly outlawed that, too. And we can't blame that just on homeowners. SF "tenant advocates" are just as violently allergic to developers building new structures as homeowners are. But the worst offenders are definitely Peninsula and South Bay homeowners.

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epistasis 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That distinction between tall buildings and shorter buildings on the same plot of land is exactly why the land should be taxed.

Economic land is any capital that has a fixed amount, that you can't make more of. When the local governments in the Bay Area started capping the amount of buildable square feet, they greatly accelerated inequality by converting regular living space and working space into economic land, just like the real land it sits upon.

This is why economic inequality skyrocketed so much. Rentierism resulted in so much being stolen from anybody who doesn't own the land, and blocks out so many people from even having access to the economic system.

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Tiktaalik 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Tenant advocates recognize that eviction is an existential threat to their way of life and so understandably they are fighting for their short term future. I disagree with their efforts in the long term, but I understand why they'd do what they're doing.

In contrast when you have enormously wealthy people like Marc Andreessen fighting against higher density zoning there is no such excuse and it's pure greed. Nothing could actually be an existential disruption to the wealthy in the same way. There is no reason to listen to the rich like Andreessen at all.

The equitable thing would be to focus on redeveloping wealthy homeowner areas and limit redevelopment in areas occupied by poor renters, but somehow that option never seems to be on the table. Only the reverse.

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epistasis an hour ago | parent [-]

I tend to keep quiet on the following critiques, because it can be counterproductive to larger goals to speak the truth sometimes, but something in this comment got to me and I need to share my truth. You're too kind on the "tenant" advocacy groups here. They are nearly 100% funded by wealth foundations that have exactly the same motivations as Marc Andreesen, and the people carrying out the wishes of the wealthy foundations are merely woke-washing really bad behavior. These "tenant" groups fight the types of change that would redevelop wealthy areas, precisely because of their funding sources, and they do it just as hard if not harder than stopping housing going up in other areas.

If anything, these "tenant" groups only advocate for the interests of a small subset of tenants, those who have their forever home, and do so at the expense of tenants in general. It's "pure greed" too, at the expense of others in their same general social, economic, and political class!

I say this as someone who continues to advocate alongside tenant groups on policy for better protections, for rent registries, etc. And as someone who spent many years giving small donations to local tenant advocacy groups. At least Andreesen is transparent in his greed, and not hiding it. I regret all those years of donations to the groups that hurt people, but when it comes to the few good things they do I'll be there with them still. Marc Andreesen and the wealthy funders of "tenant" groups are not harmed at all by better tenant protection policy, but boy are they harmed if real power were handed back to tenants in the form of having enough housing, and therefore ultimate power over the landlords.

	▲	Tiktaalik an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Well I'm speaking from first hand experience knowing working people who live in such situations. Their existence is so precarious that a change in housing situation is indeed existential. So even if there are some disingenuous tenancy orgs out there, it doesn't change the reality that this is a real problem. > They are nearly 100% funded by wealth foundations that have exactly the same motivations as Marc Andreesen, and the people carrying out the wishes of the wealthy foundations are merely woke-washing really bad behavior.These "tenant" groups fight the types of change that would redevelop wealthy areas, precisely because of their funding sources, and they do it just as hard if not harder than stopping housing going up in other areas. Certainly not the case in my jurisdiction of Vancouver, where such political groups (eg. COPE) have explicitly advocated for apartment development in the wealthiest areas of the city. Maybe this is the case somewhere but a big [citation needed] here. If there are somewhere tenant advocacy orgs that aren't in favour of turning low density detached homes into apartments for workers that's certainly not one I recognize. > If anything, these "tenant" groups only advocate for the interests of a small subset of tenants, those who have their forever home, and do so at the expense of tenants in general. It's "pure greed" too, at the expense of others in their same general social, economic, and political class! Yes this is the point of my last comment. The solution is to increase the amount of people who have their forever home. The most equitable way to do that is to "destroy" the forever homes of the very rich for whom that is really no big disruptive deal, not to destroy the forever homes of the poor for whom it would be incredibly existentially disruptive. It is not "greedy" for people to want to keep their toehold on their long term home. To be clear the stakes here are not simply moving somewhere else but being priced out of the city entirely.

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linkregister 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is almost completely traceable to Californians' failure to allow sufficiently dense housing to be built on their doorsteps. The only thing Larry did was bring prosperity to the region.

(I'm in agreement with the thesis of the article)

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johnsmith1840 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

More taxes should solve that.

Read somewhere that SF spends roughly 50k$-80k$ per homeless person per year.

Taxing more doesn't solve a massively inefficient system at it's core. Just like US education, we spend more than any country on earth, why is it still bad?

Answering that question with a "if only we had more money" is a really poor argument. The CA tax fundamentals are bad, pooring more cash onto the fire will not fix that.

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omgwtfbyobbq 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Sure. A lot of that money doesn't even make it to intended recipients because of corporate welfare and inefficiencies in government.

https://youtu.be/YKAD7l1a9hc

In addition, there should probably be changes to laws/regulations to address companies that exploit the poorest.

https://youtu.be/U9Rls-_7LdQ

And, many people who are poor have persistent mental/physical disabilities, so part of that spending is because many of these people have it the hardest.

With that said, we could likely fix all of these things and significantly unequal wealth distribution would still result in a lot of poverty.

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peab 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think it's hitting 96k per homeless person a year now. But yes, it's the tax system's fault.

	▲	johnsmith1840 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		96k$?! Those are rookie numbers. I propose a mclaren for every homeless person. We will weath tax all stocks in the fortune 500 to pay for it, crash the stocks and solve inequality.

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edoceo 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If money isn't solving the problem, you're just not using enough.

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jdm2212 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You can't solve a shortage with demand subsidies. You need to expand supply. SF has too little housing relative to its population, and has perennially tried throwing money at the nonprofit industrial complex which has (obviously) perennially failed to solve the problem because it doesn't generate new housing units, it just bids up and reshuffles the existing ones (and steals a lot of money in the process).

	▲	edoceo 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		OK, use money to expand supply. Using more money can make more supply.

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johnsmith1840 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Technically, cratering every fortune 500 does solve inequality so at it's purest their argument is right.

I think it's more socialist/communist motivation to seize production I don't think they care about the rich as much as control.

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JuniperMesos 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This has basically nothing to do with with market cap of Google or Larry Page's percentage ownership of it; and the state government taxing it more will not make this situation any better.

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peab 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

that has ZERO to do with the tax system... You can't be serious? Have you looked at the data at all? have you seen how much money is spent "combatting" homelessness in San Francisco?

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oklahomasports 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

just not his problem. not a single motherfucker on this website lives their life as if wealth disparities are a genuine problem anyways. you are motivated by resentment