Blame Wealthy Liberals? What does the liberal part have to do with it. Blame wealthy corporations. The formation of ultra large corporations who pay people in highly unequal ways is the root cause of all of the country's problems; offshoring of labor, layoffs, huge executive compensation, real wages being stagnant, corruption that led to the 2008 housing crisis, government corruption, etc..
It can't all fall on the shoulders of wealthy corporations here. Corporations operate throughout the entire country, not just SF.
The problem with some "progressives" is that they're not willing to make the necessary sacrifices to elevate the quality of life for others. The same thing is happening in Austin, TX, another liberal stronghold.
Most of the new construction going on in Austin is high-end, far out of financial reach for many. Neighborhoods are denying requests to build denser affordable housing because they want to have their cake and eat it too.
It's what happens in a society that's constantly told us that owning our home is the way to wealth generation for the middle class. People who already own homes are going to do everything they can to benefit themselves, and who can blame them? That's the system working the way it was designed to. It's just not sustainable.
On top of that, there are a lot of multi-family developers and brokers making an absolute killing it on buying and selling apartment complexes and making massive returns on their portfolio. Had a buddy who worked for a PE real estate firm in Austin that gave their employee of the year an Escalade a couple years back.
Auto companies promoting mass construction of roadways and suburbs last century are a big reason for urban sustainability issues today. Cities that grew around cars are struggling to shift toward a more economically sustainable pedestrian orientation.
Not the only reason for issues, of course. Austin could have had a slightly better code with CodeNEXT but the NIMBYs got to it and successfully sold the message that it would destroy neighborhoods, despite all the concessions they received.
>Blame wealthy corporations. The formation of ultra large corporations who pay people in highly unequal ways
A corporation can only do one thing, and that is give you money. So I'm not sure it is that simple. Personally, I really wonder how much government welfare and other government sponsored "help" has lead to part of the wage issue. In the "good ol' days", a company had to be competitive in order to retain workers. Sure there was a more abundance of jobs, but that is not the only reason. Watch any documentary about Walmart to see what I mean. During a new employee's orientation on the first day of work, they go through the normal HR routines, but they are also shown all federal and state welfare programs their low wage also qualifies them for. If their employees did not qualify for these programs, they would most certainly have to have a more competitive wage. Basically they are paying half the employee's wage and the government is paying the other half. Not saying "welfare" is the problem here, but clearly it is being gamed.
> Nope. Instead, Anthony Portantino, a Democratic state senator whose district includes the posh city of La Cañada Flintridge and who heads the appropriations committee, announced that he’d be shelving the bill until next year.
If you have a limited amount of money coming in and you allocate it in highly unequal ways (via a race to the bottom (in terms of expenses), can you be surprised when there are so many people who are suffering from not having an increased standard of living? You cannot disassociate the choices made in compensation of corporations to the standard of living of people in general. Amazon is putting small businesses out of operation because they can do it cheaper at a mass scale. Those families who are put out? They're toast. What did you expect? And Jeff Bezos is the one who reaps all the reward of all the lost wages of small mom and pop shops.
Capitalism has certain systemic features, one of them is concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small few. Look at how wealth is concentrated in the U.S., especially over the last 40 years. Unions have eroded, markets have been deregulated, our social safety net has been dismantled, etc. and as a result, the power of capitalists has expanded. Capitalism is by its nature struggle between workers and capital. Capital is winning.
