Congestion pricing is great, but I am pointing out the underlying politics, its just being used to prolong the car first status quo in these cities. theres not really an earnest follow through for road/parking diets,…
The financial & car industries have been immensely successful at making cars accessible to all consumers. Anyone with an income, a bit of credit history and a pulse can roll out of dealership with a car. Roads on the…
"the plane should never have gotten the green light to fly." this is an overstatement. airframe fuel efficiency is a undoubtable good thing vis a vis climate change, costs, etc. Obviously they've reached a point were…
http://www.ktvu.com/news/bart-investigating-3-violent-deaths... https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-s-approval-... slightly depends on your entry/exit stations but I would regularly see crack/heroin use,…
agree with most of the other comments in this thread, but would add - BART is an extremely filthy and dangerous transit system by any 1st world standard, and I say this as a lifelong transit rider. - Oakland, Berkeley,…
there's always been bad information but it was previously hard to disseminate NEW bad information quickly. It was incredibly expensive, slow and there were watchers, gatekeepers ... various religious authorities,…
financial illiteracy is a real problem in journalism. You can't really judge how egregious/successful these guys were without knowing the annualized NET revenue of this business.
another clickbait article from this organization. "${TechCo} paid X% in taxes but it should have paid Y% * Current Year Net Income". What specifically is ITEP arguing for? GAAP profitability is not Taxable income is not…
tl;dr we are upset GAAP net income does not equal taxable income.
Caltrain electrification is a comparatively small project and seems will happen quickly regardless of HSR. the Bay Area provides 40% of state tax revenue and, even worse, externalizes the costs of its awful development…
how pointless that the state is spending decades and tens of billions on HSR from SF to LA for a hypothetical sub-3 hour journey, while it still takes 1.5 to 2.5 hours to get between various important locations in the…
+ VTA light rail + BART in 2026 too bad the SJC airport runway axis runs straight across downtown. They could otherwise go much much higher/denser in the urban core. Capitol Corridor really could use an investment from…
from my observation, the primary drivers are 1) the heroin/fentanyl epidemic 2) political choices or fiscal constraints as local spending on public healthcare/shelters/mental-wards/criminal-justice has not kept up with…
it's a non-violent crime of opportunity. police time is $150/hour at least. all your loses seem to be covered by the banks, aside from the car window, which um happens to people all the time. its the kind of thing they…
guess the Telecoms or their lobbyists hired some small sketchy 3rd party PR/astroturfing firms to do this, and those people will take the fall but blow back to AT&T, Comcast, Verizon will be minimal. Eventually some…
on a 2 year window its pretty accurate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y Max view also true that 2 years a very long time for an economic/investment hypothesis to play out
a better way to understand the causality between yield curves and recessions is to look at it from the perspective of the banking sector ... banks/lenders primarily borrow short-term and lend long-term. They pay…
this is basically what happens when BigTechCorp leaves its product decisions to the competitive empire building machinations of middle managers with 4 year vesting
"just need to live further away" there's the rub. most suburban outposts of transit on the west coast just have SFH around them, which is a nice $billion entitlement to public infrastructure if you can get it. anyway…
so instead of rent you pay interest, various property taxes, and hoa, maintenance, or property management. Most of which are still subject to inflation and price/wage disparity. a better high level discussion would be…
some aspects of the political problems are definitely driven by voting blocs rather than money per se. For example, construction trade unions leverage generally block changes to simplify/de-cost the building code or the…
"Houston, the fourth-most-populous city in the nation, has cut its homeless population in half since 2011, in part by creating more housing for them."
the gentrification angle is predictable. people want a generous government sector but don't want the local economic growth thats necessary to keep it afloat. for Amazon its seemingly a PR nightmare versus just quietly…
... that's compared to +1.5% in SF/Alameda on houses 2-3x the cost and worse size/quality (and up to a 1.5% transfer tax in some cities). California has the highest state income tax, near top sales tax rates and if you…
some familiarity with running a small business in Ca. : Every little thing your business does potentially has some permitting, licensing fees, taxes, and/or approvals necessary at the local, county, or state levels,…
Congestion pricing is great, but I am pointing out the underlying politics, its just being used to prolong the car first status quo in these cities. theres not really an earnest follow through for road/parking diets,…
The financial & car industries have been immensely successful at making cars accessible to all consumers. Anyone with an income, a bit of credit history and a pulse can roll out of dealership with a car. Roads on the…
"the plane should never have gotten the green light to fly." this is an overstatement. airframe fuel efficiency is a undoubtable good thing vis a vis climate change, costs, etc. Obviously they've reached a point were…
http://www.ktvu.com/news/bart-investigating-3-violent-deaths... https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-s-approval-... slightly depends on your entry/exit stations but I would regularly see crack/heroin use,…
agree with most of the other comments in this thread, but would add - BART is an extremely filthy and dangerous transit system by any 1st world standard, and I say this as a lifelong transit rider. - Oakland, Berkeley,…
there's always been bad information but it was previously hard to disseminate NEW bad information quickly. It was incredibly expensive, slow and there were watchers, gatekeepers ... various religious authorities,…
financial illiteracy is a real problem in journalism. You can't really judge how egregious/successful these guys were without knowing the annualized NET revenue of this business.
another clickbait article from this organization. "${TechCo} paid X% in taxes but it should have paid Y% * Current Year Net Income". What specifically is ITEP arguing for? GAAP profitability is not Taxable income is not…
tl;dr we are upset GAAP net income does not equal taxable income.
Caltrain electrification is a comparatively small project and seems will happen quickly regardless of HSR. the Bay Area provides 40% of state tax revenue and, even worse, externalizes the costs of its awful development…
how pointless that the state is spending decades and tens of billions on HSR from SF to LA for a hypothetical sub-3 hour journey, while it still takes 1.5 to 2.5 hours to get between various important locations in the…
+ VTA light rail + BART in 2026 too bad the SJC airport runway axis runs straight across downtown. They could otherwise go much much higher/denser in the urban core. Capitol Corridor really could use an investment from…
from my observation, the primary drivers are 1) the heroin/fentanyl epidemic 2) political choices or fiscal constraints as local spending on public healthcare/shelters/mental-wards/criminal-justice has not kept up with…
it's a non-violent crime of opportunity. police time is $150/hour at least. all your loses seem to be covered by the banks, aside from the car window, which um happens to people all the time. its the kind of thing they…
guess the Telecoms or their lobbyists hired some small sketchy 3rd party PR/astroturfing firms to do this, and those people will take the fall but blow back to AT&T, Comcast, Verizon will be minimal. Eventually some…
on a 2 year window its pretty accurate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y Max view also true that 2 years a very long time for an economic/investment hypothesis to play out
a better way to understand the causality between yield curves and recessions is to look at it from the perspective of the banking sector ... banks/lenders primarily borrow short-term and lend long-term. They pay…
this is basically what happens when BigTechCorp leaves its product decisions to the competitive empire building machinations of middle managers with 4 year vesting
"just need to live further away" there's the rub. most suburban outposts of transit on the west coast just have SFH around them, which is a nice $billion entitlement to public infrastructure if you can get it. anyway…
so instead of rent you pay interest, various property taxes, and hoa, maintenance, or property management. Most of which are still subject to inflation and price/wage disparity. a better high level discussion would be…
some aspects of the political problems are definitely driven by voting blocs rather than money per se. For example, construction trade unions leverage generally block changes to simplify/de-cost the building code or the…
"Houston, the fourth-most-populous city in the nation, has cut its homeless population in half since 2011, in part by creating more housing for them."
the gentrification angle is predictable. people want a generous government sector but don't want the local economic growth thats necessary to keep it afloat. for Amazon its seemingly a PR nightmare versus just quietly…
... that's compared to +1.5% in SF/Alameda on houses 2-3x the cost and worse size/quality (and up to a 1.5% transfer tax in some cities). California has the highest state income tax, near top sales tax rates and if you…
some familiarity with running a small business in Ca. : Every little thing your business does potentially has some permitting, licensing fees, taxes, and/or approvals necessary at the local, county, or state levels,…