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Comment by JustAnotherPat | Hacker News Reader

I've come to the sad realization that Holywood/Silicon Valley liberal ideology is a significant enabler of inequality and wealth stratification.

They'd rather have people living out of cars and tents than being paid reasonable wages or having affordable housing.

Can't wait until their latest amendment passes[0] in California.

[0]https://ballotpedia.org/California_No_Taxes_After_Age_55_Ini...

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What do you mean by "liberal"?

For e.g. neither Hollywood/Silicon Valley are "economically leftist"---they would be considered "liberal" in Europe, where "liberal" refers to "economically liberal", i.e. policies similar to "laissez faire" (which seems about right for Hollywood/SV).

On the other hand, they are also supportive of "progressive norms", such as "LGBTQ rights" or "multiculturalism", which are often bunched up together with being "liberal" in the US. However, being "socially liberal" is very different from being "economically liberal", and I am not sure there is any tight correlation between the two, let alone causative influence. In Europe, for example, there is a tight anti-correlation between the two.

So, what do you mean by "liberal ideology is a significant enabler of inequality"? Do you mean that "less liberal economic policies", or in other words "socialist economic policies" might benefit the region? Or do you mean that "socially liberal ideals" (which are essentially about caring for others, because you lack the belief that people are born where they are meant to be) have allowed for inequality?

Another term for "economically liberal" is neoliberal. Of course, "economic liberals" run crying to "nanny state" when going gets tough, such as when housing bubble got burst. I am sure we wouldn't have these cost of housing problems now if bailouts never happened. Amazing how "laissez faire" works only in one direction for "economically liberal".

I don't think this a left/right or liberal/conservative issue. People with high incomes of every political leaning think they deserve their high incomes and like to pay the rest as little as possible. For example there is no reason why rich tech companies can't pay their cleaning staff decent money other than not caring.

Over the last few years I have had several people with multi million dollar homes ask me to help with tech issues and they were the stingiest people I have ever met. Thank God I can tell them to f... off but a lot other people don't have the luxury of choice.

starting to believe that homeless camps are our a logical outcome of the legal/governance system. If cities build housing for the homeless they become responsible (assume civil liability) for their health, well-being, property, safety and civil rights to a much greater degree. In addition to the actual service costs they have to deal with nitpicky lawsuits. Suddenly every 1000 homeless you house is 100m/year budget item. No voters/donors want the city budget slashed or to build a lot of poverty-level housing. So whats the rational thing for local politicians to do ... given nobody dies from exposure in California, easier and cheaper to let the homeless fester on some side streets or little-visited skid row neighborhoods, provide some token services without taking responsibility. sad truth.

>No taxes above the age of 55.

Lol, is this a joke?

It's in the gathering-signatures stage.

There's a quiet a lot of, ehm, "interesting" ballot initiatives here.

Legalized psilocybin anyone?

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/initiative-a...

As they saying goes, democracy is perfect but it has one fatal flaw... the people.

Regrettably not. Note also that ti's a constitutional amendment, meaning it won't be able to be overturned by the legislature in the (admittedly unlikely) event that it passes. This is a simple money grab by established interests, although it will be sold as protection for the most vulnerable - with the unspoken provise that those who don't own property or have significant taxable income don't matter. A previous initiative which limited growth in property taxes, prop. 13, did a lot to shape the development of housing in the state and arguably has contributed to the housing crisis, since it creates significant disincentives to sell if a property has gained significantly in value. I'm not a big fan of property taxes to start with, but prop 13 means that people living in otherwise identical properties on the same block can be paying wildly different rates of tax depending on when they purchased their home, which is rather inequitable. I'd be somewhat worse off if it were abolished but I don't think it's been good for California.

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