Extract or Die – San Francisco Techxodus

One of the basic principles of taxes if you want the populous to keep paying them rather than move out of state is to help the people feel that they actually get something for their taxes. Clean, safe public areas, people who commit crimes are either rehabilitated or incarcerated, road maintenance, encourage housing policies or rules that are beneficial to lots of people not just people who own land already -- these are things individuals have little power over because its a governmental type job to do these things.

If you tax a bunch of people and use the taxes to essentially just pay for things that are not visible to the people that pay the taxes then you will be unhappy. So while you might say, is it important to subsidize poor people's rent's (which often is totally invisible to most people), or find a place for homeless people to go and keep the streets safe and clean and prosecute people who do smash and grabs on 20 cars in an afternoon, the answer is you have to do both, but you have to keep the people who pay the taxes informed of the benefits you are providing.

> The truth is, had tech workers actually assumed a significant measure of political influence, and led in local politics, San Francisco would today be one of the greatest cities in the world. But not only was such political influence not achieved, it was never attempted.

Is that right? I thought Ron Conway was decently involved in SF politics (https://www.sfexaminer.com/news-columnists/hes-back-ron-conw...) and Ed Lee was backed by tech (https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/13/16771912/mayor-ed-lee-sa...).

The realization about the landlord class rapaciously capturing almost all wealth and then getting whiny when their victims say enough is something.