San Francisco Hustles for Business

The American Thinker ^ | February 15, 2004 | Thomas Lifson

[longtermmemmory]

No way no how would I want to locate/headquarter an office or business in San Francisco. Their social mandates are too unpredictable and not worth the effort.

[PeteFromMontana]

Goodluck. I say, WHATEVER. You built your little liberal haven, live with it.

[goldstategop]

With the taxes, the high cost of living, and the Stalinist liberal bureaucracy, you couldn't pay me enough to set up shop in America's liberal mecca.

[Drango]

I'm puzzled why this is excerpted...I don't believe it's part of the LA/Wash Post group...why not post the full article?

[Viking2002]

There would be no way in hell that they could offer me enough incentives to locate my business there. That nest of leftist filth will get the magnitude 9+ quake that it so richly deserves, any year now.

[Archie Bunker on steroids]

A couple of tax breaks may encouurage Vaseline, KY Inc, NGA National Gerbil Breeders, and Depends Inc. to move in those empty office buildings.

[Schattie]

That will be our country if those people ever get ahold of it.

[goldstategop]

Assuming liberals will ever wrap their tiny minds around tax breaks and capitalism.

[Slings and Arrows]

Bed. Made. Lie in it.

[Kozak]

They are going for the Gay/Lesbian marriage market. That's the ticket...

[hotpotato]

San Francisco, “the city which knows how” (to sneer at lesser burgs, unblessed with scenery, climate, sex and pot clubs, and far left politics), is pulling out all the stops to lure new business — make that one new business — to the city.

They'll have to start with replacing their current mayor.

[hotpotato]

rest of article....

The seven execs from Virgin were feted at a swanky party at California legislator Jackie Speier's house early in the week. They were greeted at their hotel, at their limousines, on the street corners, everywhere they went, with a steady procession of characters -- from Santa Claus to surfers to drag queens -- wearing the company's trademark red.

At a luncheon the following day at SFO's international terminal, cheerleaders in red met the execs at the door. Mayor Gavin Newsom was there in a red tie, handing the Virgin CEO a half-case of his PlumpJack wine. There was a Judy Garland impersonator in a plaid suit, red, of course, singing "San Francisco,'' and the Stanford chorus, and a custom CD in a goodie bag featuring every song ever written about our fair city.

It was like watching the pope show a little leg.

Wow! Drag queens in the corporate colors. Judy Garland impersonators in the corporate colors. The mayor in the corporate colors. That’s what San Francisco thinks a good business climate amounts to?

Ryan’s list of obstacles San Francisco must overcome, those factors which make the business climate uninviting, is even more revealing:

The two-day marketing blitz, as creative and smart as it was, pointed up San Francisco's growing realization that its singular charm is not enough anymore to counterbalance the high cost of workers' compensation in California, the ragged men and women slumped outside department stores and cafes, the $500,000 fixer-upper homes, the uneven public schools, the 1.5 percent payroll tax.

Each and every one of these negatives is politically-manufactured, by the foolish leftist politics embraced by both the city and state. Workers Compensation lawyers, like Senator Barbara Boxer’s husband, feast off of huge court settlements, while workers with legitimate injuries receive less than in other states, because the system has been designed to enrich them, forcing a far higher percentage of cases into court than in any other state. That way, you see, the lawyers can claim a third or more of the benefit for themselves. The homeless who decorate the streets are drawn to San Francisco from all across America by a menu of benefits, including no-questions-asked monthly checks, convertible into drugs. Public schools are bad because of politics and waste, not because of any lack of funds. And taxes are high because hundreds of municipal employees make six figure incomes, because of a willingness to spend $50,000 on sex-change operations for “domestic partners” of city employees, and countless other boondoggles dreamed-up by imaginative utopians of a distinctly bent nature. As for real estate prices, strict limits on the development of land and the countless obstacles facing anyone trying to add to the local housing stock, insure that demand, even in a prolonged economic slump, always exceeds supply. If San Francisco could somehow transplant the governmental policies of, say, Houston Texas, all of these self-inflicted problems would disappear. But then, of course, we wouldn’t need color-themed drag queens to lure outsiders dangling jobs and tax revenues. How boring!

[Jackson Brown]

Given the extreme anti-business policies that affect California in general -- AND -- the high rents and local taxes, Plus the $14.50 an hour "living" wage that is expected to pass ($10-$11 minimum wage already in place for some public sectors) in San Francisco, this does NOT surprise me.

The city also has a huge debt that has to be paid off, maybe the worst in the country...and taxes/fees is where they have to go.

California, especially San Francisco, has seen a rampant business exodus for quite a while and there are little things in place to try and reverse this...ask Arnold what he faces!

[Salvey]

No way no how would I want to locate/headquarter an office or business in San Francisco. Their social mandates are too unpredictable and not worth the effort.

Nor would I attend a convention or trade show (the very few that have been booking there in recent years). Yep, SF, the city which my daughter still describes as, "Daddy, isn't that the place where people sleep in doorways and do their business on the sidewalk?"

[river rat]

Look upon a beauiful city -- which had everything going for it...

Put liberal/marxist/racist/homofocused morons in charge for the last 20 years - and you end up with a huge urinal..where the only thriving businesses rely upon unsuspecting tourists or sexual perverts...

There are streets in San Francisco that stink more than the worse towns in Mexico... Some streets and parks have become open sewers and bedrooms.

Semper Fi

[longtermmemmory]

I would never invest in a Real Estate Investment Trust which has significant holdings in SF.

I see a need for a significant "cleaning" through depreciating real estate values in order for the place to be viable. It very well be that homosexuals continuing to centrally locate to san francisco is good for the nation. Droping prices will be attractive to those who actually like the leftist sanfancisco idiology.

The only question is how low will real estate prices go? or will it just be like detroit with owners just walking away.

[Bommer]

I used to love that city in the late 80's and early 90's. Now its a perverbial $hit-hole. Boycott it. Let the America's Sodom go bankrupt so it can fit it moral values as well!

[Enterprise]

Not to mention the parking hassles up there and the excruciating effort just getting in and out of that toilet on a daily basis.

[Imal]

My last visit to San Francisco was my last visit to San Francisco.