San Francisco looks to ban free lunch at tech companies

[RVonse]

San Francisco looks to ban free lunch at tech companies

Lavish free lunches are the stuff of Silicon Valley legend, and a treasured perk in the roster of on-campus benefits that tech companies use to lure workers. But two San Francisco legislators are looking to do away with the practice, saying it hurts local businesses who can't compete, reports CBS San Francisco.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/san-francisco-looks-to-ban-free-lunch-at-tech-companies/

One of the first rules of economics is: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch (TANSTAAFL). But it turns out sometimes there is, and it's super bad!

Fortunately, we can use government force to stamp out this practice and ensure employees pay more for lunches.

Next perhaps government can go after free coffee, snacks and/or drinks in the employee kitchen. This appears to be a far more common blight.

It's easy to paint this as an overbearing government trying to tell business what to do, when it's actually a particular segment of business getting government to favor its business model over that of another business.

Does anyone really believe a City Supervisor thought this up on their own?

But the conservative stance is that no one can sway a small government. If the the local government is small and generally without power, lobbyists have no means to use them.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I wonder if those 2 idiots (legislators?) get free lunches provide for them?
Can't help thinking they are jealous and want to make sure that others cannot have what they do not have.

They bring a bag lunch.

Let's hope not. Bag lunches have got to be more of a scourge on the economy than free cafeterias. They should obviously be banned too.

Hey dismal,

Please give me your thoughts on my question about Hoover. I've always considered FDR the father of modern liberalism, Mr. anti Laissez-faire himself.

Please, please, please give me your thoughts on Hoover. This was a classic confrontation between Rugged Individualism and Big Government and FDR won big, big, big. And that's interesting because Hoover was quite the progressive if you look at his past. So was he bending to corporate interests, idealistic to a fault? Just tired of all the big hairy bullshit? What?

Please expand.

And your response is certainly relative to this discussion. It is not a separate thread.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Might be time to up the meds.

What ever improves your use of free work resources.

Zing, wow, you got me on the whole drinking free work coffee thing. Twice. Such a powerful line of personal attack because it's true.

Thankfully I didn't mention the free work diet cokes and open myself up for your withering criticism on that front.

It's not a personal attack. We are both drinking free coffee while at work posting in the forum. My point is that you are complaining about removing free stuff while you are taking advantage of it. It may actually benefit companies to remove it if it's a distraction. You missed the whole irony because you are only thinking of being defensive rather than a logical discussion. Though it is totally ironic as well.

 

[J842P]

Let's hope not. Bag lunches have got to be more of a scourge on the economy than free cafeterias. They should obviously be banned too.

Hey dismal,

Please give me your thoughts on my question about Hoover. I've always considered FDR the father of modern liberalism, Mr. anti Laissez-faire himself.

Please, please, please give me your thoughts on Hoover. This was a classic confrontation between Rugged Individualism and Big Government and FDR won big, big, big. And that's interesting because Hoover was quite the progressive if you look at his past. So was he bending to corporate interests, idealistic to a fault? Just tired of all the big hairy bullshit? What?

Please expand.

And your response is certainly relative to this discussion. It is not a separate thread.

Because classical liberalism refers to the thought of people like John Lock and and David Ricardo, people who were influenced by classical economics. It is a quirk of the American lexicon that "liberal" means left wing, where pretty much everywhere else in the world the "liberal party" is the right wing party.

 

[whollygoats]

Y'all do know that there is no such thing as a 'free lunch'?

 

[RVonse]

Let's hope not. Bag lunches have got to be more of a scourge on the economy than free cafeterias. They should obviously be banned too.

Hey dismal,

Please give me your thoughts on my question about Hoover. I've always considered FDR the father of modern liberalism, Mr. anti Laissez-faire himself.

Please, please, please give me your thoughts on Hoover. This was a classic confrontation between Rugged Individualism and Big Government and FDR won big, big, big. And that's interesting because Hoover was quite the progressive if you look at his past. So was he bending to corporate interests, idealistic to a fault? Just tired of all the big hairy bullshit? What?

Please expand.

And your response is certainly relative to this discussion. It is not a separate thread.

Because classical liberalism refers to the thought of people like John Lock and and David Ricardo, people who were influenced by classical economics. It is a quirk of the American lexicon that "liberal" means left wing, where pretty much everywhere else in the world the "liberal party" is the right wing party.

Apparently Dismal is so clever. He has figured out that liberal means something opposite in the rest of the world as it means in the US. Big deal.

So Dismal distracts us all with his "classic liberal" red hearing to make sure we forget he has no way to explain why San Francisco is such a successful city dispite also being the same city that implements programs which he feels are toally wrong with his worldview.

Pretty clever he is; Ill give him that much. Playing all of us here with his game.

 

[dismal]

Let's hope not. Bag lunches have got to be more of a scourge on the economy than free cafeterias. They should obviously be banned too.

Hey dismal,

Please give me your thoughts on my question about Hoover.

Pass.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Let's hope not. Bag lunches have got to be more of a scourge on the economy than free cafeterias. They should obviously be banned too.

Hey dismal,

Please give me your thoughts on my question about Hoover. I've always considered FDR the father of modern liberalism, Mr. anti Laissez-faire himself.

Please, please, please give me your thoughts on Hoover. This was a classic confrontation between Rugged Individualism and Big Government and FDR won big, big, big. And that's interesting because Hoover was quite the progressive if you look at his past. So was he bending to corporate interests, idealistic to a fault? Just tired of all the big hairy bullshit? What?

Please expand.

And your response is certainly relative to this discussion. It is not a separate thread.

Hoover actually started the New Deal programs. FDR simply took those programs, added a few more, and gave the lot of them a big sounding name.

If you adjust deficits in terms of inflation, you will find a very interesting result. Hoover had bigger 4-year deficits than any president before him, and smaller 4-year deficits than any president after him. True, Eisenhower did have surpluses during his term, the only post-Hoover president to do so, but he had deficits that overwhelmed the surpluses.

You might remember a big public works project Hoover started, Hoover Dam.

FDR ran on a classic liberal platform against Hoover's big government programs. Too bad he kept exactly zero of those campaign promises from his 1932 campaign. A lot of people are quite unaware of FDR's 1932 platform.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

My thought is that the only thing that needs to be done is that the value of the lunches be included on the employees W-2 forms for tax purposes since it is a form of compensation.

I would be willing to bet Google is arguing that the meals are for "the convenience of the employer" and that, since they are provided on the employer's premises, they are not taxable. See https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5137.pdf page 44.

I'm sure they are and they probably get an advantage that makes it quite worthwhile--they have their people eating with fellow employees which makes it more likely talk will be job-related. It also means they need less time to eat lunch.

 

[whollygoats]

Let's hope not. Bag lunches have got to be more of a scourge on the economy than free cafeterias. They should obviously be banned too.

Hey dismal,

Please give me your thoughts on my question about Hoover. I've always considered FDR the father of modern liberalism, Mr. anti Laissez-faire himself.

Please, please, please give me your thoughts on Hoover. This was a classic confrontation between Rugged Individualism and Big Government and FDR won big, big, big. And that's interesting because Hoover was quite the progressive if you look at his past. So was he bending to corporate interests, idealistic to a fault? Just tired of all the big hairy bullshit? What?

Please expand.

And your response is certainly relative to this discussion. It is not a separate thread.

Hoover actually started the New Deal programs. FDR simply took those programs, added a few more, and gave the lot of them a big sounding name.

If you adjust deficits in terms of inflation, you will find a very interesting result. Hoover had bigger 4-year deficits than any president before him, and smaller 4-year deficits than any president after him. True, Eisenhower did have surpluses during his term, the only post-Hoover president to do so, but he had deficits that overwhelmed the surpluses.

You might remember a big public works project Hoover started, Hoover Dam.

FDR ran on a classic liberal platform against Hoover's big government programs. Too bad he kept exactly zero of those campaign promises from his 1932 campaign. A lot of people are quite unaware of FDR's 1932 platform.

Yeah...Too bad. A class war would have really cleared the air. But, Roosevelt being a member of the elite class, and a dam site more pragmatic than the ideologically rigid Hoover, did what he could to prevent the complete breakdown of civil society. He was willing to jettison means of addressing the problems he dealt with if they didn't work. You are right that he adopted most of the existing half-fast economic programs put in place by the Hoover administration and proceeded to augment, or dispense with, much of it, adding new programs as the inadequacies of Hoover's ideologically constipated programs became obvious.

Roosevelt didn't become a Keynesian until after he became president and after he met with Keynes. Even then, he resisted it and the war intervened.

Also, Coolidge authorized Boulder Dam, which was later renamed Hoover Dam, after WWII.

 

[steve_bank]

SF is going to be swallowed up by the ocean, it says so in the bible.

 

[Derec]

It also means they need less time to eat lunch.

True. Many companies only provide half an hour lunch, which is not really enough to go out to eat. Half an hour means you get to go home half an hour earlier too.

- - - Updated - - -

SF is going to be swallowed up by the ocean, it says so in the bible.

Where?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I wonder if the idiots in the SF government would also ban something I do, brownbagging.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Let's hope not. Bag lunches have got to be more of a scourge on the economy than free cafeterias. They should obviously be banned too.

Hey dismal,

Please give me your thoughts on my question about Hoover.

Pass.

I'm disappointed. Jason's response is so lame it doesn't deserve a reply.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I wonder if the idiots in the SF government would also ban something I do, brownbagging.

They're banning kitchens, not lunch, or free lunch, or catered lunch, or sandwich vending machines.
They hope that area eateries will see an upturn in business, but they don't really require it.
If the businesses still suffer, the politicians can say, hey, we tried.

If a techie boss buys 500 lunchables a day, or promotes brownbagging, just to spite the city govt., the same politicians can say, hey, we tried, but company X is an asshole!

Either way, they don't have to invest any money in a real solution, like more/better parking, or maybe limiting the number of restaurant licences to prevent market saturation, or something else...

 

[steve_bank]

It also means they need less time to eat lunch.

True. Many companies only provide half an hour lunch, which is not really enough to go out to eat. Half an hour means you get to go home half an hour earlier too.

- - - Updated - - -

SF is going to be swallowed up by the ocean, it says so in the bible.

Where?

Protestant Christian conservatives view SF as the seat of progressive evil in the USA. While I would not frame it in a religious context this reprents progressive excess. Govt does not in this country get to outlaw free lunch in a company because it may take away from restaurants.

This suoorts the conservativer narrative of govt over reach tra,pling on individual rights.

SF does not tell me where the hell to eat. This is indeed socialism. Direct control of business to serve the view of a small group's view of morality. This extreme is the flip side of extreme conservatism, both equally harmful.

 

[dismal]

the politicians can say, hey, we tried.

Say that to who? the greedy capitalist restaurant owners lobby? Certainly not the noble employees who they fucked out of a free lunch, right?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Pass.

I'm disappointed. Jason's response is so lame it doesn't deserve a reply.

At least it was factual. Sorry if you think facts are lame.

 

[RVonse]

This suoorts the conservativer narrative of govt over reach tra,pling on individual rights.

SF does not tell me where the hell to eat. This is indeed socialism. Direct control of business to serve the view of a small group's view of morality. This extreme is the flip side of extreme conservatism, both equally harmful.

+1 Agree.

But dont tell this to Dismal. Classic liberals do NOT ever meddle.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Personally, I am not for this legislation, but I don't think it's a big deal that there are two persons who are for it. In the grand scheme of life, local governments exert tremendous control over everyone's life, way more than the federal government. Example: zoning laws. Conservatives and Libertarians (who are completely different) often say they want a small federal government and prefer governments to be more local to the people because they allege it would be closer to individuals making decisions. However, that's never been true. Looking at these two persons within the whole grand scheme of local government control and all the shenanigans that local governments pull on people, I don't think they'll get their way, but it is interesting that you don't hear conservatives and libertarians commenting on zoning laws that try to keep minorities and poor out of the suburbs. So one wonders why there is such a big deal being made out of legislation that will never pass so that the right-wing can protect BIG CORPORATIONS but the little guy, the Right just doesn't care.