San Francisco is largely owned and controlled by about a half dozen extremely wealthy families, who don't just control SF...they're also "kingmakers" for the governor's office, and have been using their influence for personal gain for decades: https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-gavin-newsom-san-...

Not a dime of public money should go to bailing out the Guggenhimes, Buells, Swigs, Marcuses, Fishers, Gettys, and Pritzkers.

As Biden said: oh boo hoo, capitalism working as intended.

well go take a look at TARP and ask yourself if America has an aversion to bailing out the elite and wealthy

HN readers decry it all while desperately trying to join the club

SVB was like three weeks ago, no reason to go back that far

So you are of the opinion that we should continue the long tradition of bailouts to the wealthy?

And the 1970s financial woes aside, NYC also had a lot of petty and not so petty street crime mostly into the 80s. A lot of the area around Times Square was pretty bad, for example.

I imagine a lot of the direct comparisons break down in various ways. But, at a high level, you see similarities.

Not just “into the 80s”. A friend of mine was murdered there in 94.

Wow. They were almost the last person murdered in NYC! Stats say murder in NYC ended later that year.

I can’t even imagine what it feels like to get downvoted for telling people about your friend’s murder. Mgarfias, I have given you my upvote as a counter. To Hacker news, you need to sort yourself the fuck out and get some empathy.

I didn't downvote (I try to never do that). But responding to a statistical observation about crime levels in NYC that were particularly bad in the 70s and 80s with a single personal ancedote about their friend's murder in 1994 just seems ... totally not relevant. People were murdered in NYC in every decade since it was founded, and will continue to be so, as they will in every other significantly sized city. Noting that a friend was killed after some specific period is content-free with respect to crime rates, even if we can all understand that it must have personally traumatic and horrifying.

Right well imagine you’ve just walked into a bar in real life and everyone is having a conversation about crime in the city and a stranger sat in the corner says that their friend was murdered in the 90s. Would you really respond with:

> Wow. They were almost the last person murdered in NYC! Stats say murder in NYC ended later that year.

Probably not unless you wanted everyone in the bar to look at you with disgust. In fact, the entire tone and topic of the conversation would probably change to accommodate this new information. If you wanted to say something, you’d probably say something along the lines of:

“Jesus, I’m sorry to hear that. Do you want to talk about it? What happened?”

If someone is sharing something sensitive like this and you don’t think it’s relevant, just don’t say anything. Add something constructive on another comment. What have you gained from that comment other than potentially upsetting another person? I don’t think anyone is thinking “oh I’m really glad he stepped in there otherwise that one thread on the online debate would have got really off track”. And I don’t think mgarfias is going away from this thinking, “well he really opened my eyes to the fact that my anecdotal experience is not the totality of existence, my entire stance on New York City is changed now.”

Honestly dude, there are unlimited threads on every post. Every thread does not have to be a direct argument or counter argument of whatever is stated in the original content. We can just all talk and be humans going through life together.

Except you’re not walking into a bar where you’re a highly visible patron among maybe 10-15 others.

You’re reading a comment thread where no one even knows you exist and/or are reading the particular comment thread.

This is the equivalent of writing a letter to a newspaper’s editor in the old days (with less friction).

If we speak to each other on the internet the same way we speak to each other face to face, it will become a more pleasant place.

Detroit's decline seems like a closer analogy to me.

New York of the 70s was one of the most culturally fertile moments in history. Imagine artists being able to afford rent.

Weird part is that the state has big surpluses...

https://www.google.com/search?q=california+budget+surplus+20...

I wonder if it'll end like NYC where the state takes permanent control of various municipal services, e.g. NYC subway it's controlled by the state.

Probably the more important story:

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/02/budget-deficit-may...