In a tight labor market minimum wage isn’t relevant.
If you understood that all along, why have you spent like 4 posts droning on about minimum wages being too high in response to a discussion about a tight labor market at some Midwestern doofus’s Carl’s Jr making good help so hard for him to find? Holy shit this is my WHOLE POINT and you literally cannot stop jumping back and forth between these two unrelated topics to parrot Objectivist dogma over and over.
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You brought up a tight labor market. I responded.
I think the issue in SF is not the labor market, other than the distortion of illegal immigrants. The problem in SF is social engineering by government.
If you want to talk about a tight labor market consider mine. The least expensive person I hire makes about $25/hr. Most of the inexperienced techs make $40/hr and the good ones that don’t need supervision make $75/hr. I pay for training with a work commitment. Please don’t tell me about tight labor markets. Note that government process makes hiring employees more than I can manage so my guys are contractors. I help them–and pay for counseling–with health care. I help them find work with other companies working the same way I do.
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- Mod hat on *
Let’s stick to the arguments about restaurant comp in SF and leave the feelings about the person making the arguments out of the discussion. Thanks.
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My point was actually about the retail surrounding the restaurants we go to.
For all our hand-wringing about restaurants opening and closing, restaurant wages and regulation, san jose has a thriving restaurant scene, and abandoned storefront after abandoned storefront between the restaurants.
I realize that doesn’t lead to much possibility for conversation here, because few of us know about the ins and outs of the small “mom and pop” retail business… this isn’t a retail website 
I will not be baited into a discussion about how we shouldn’t have any laws or regulations and should live in some libertarian impossibility.
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The question is are there concrete and useful steps that SF can take to help small restaurants and other small businesses be successful? Lessen the number of permits, tax brakes to struggling small businesses etc? It’s doable but is the will there? Or is SF living in some far-left impossibility that prevents empathy for such businesses?
Why should they? I’m confused.
So more restaurants succeed and the city does not turn into a city of Olive Gardens
I respectfully suggest a different question: Are there specific actions and regulation that SF burdens small businesses with that should be lifted?
Is that something the city should and would control?
Isn’t one person’s $$ as good as another’s?
Do these 20+ permits happen for everyone who wants to open a business, or just hip restaurants?
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Lolololol at the idea that an op-ed in Rupert Murdoch’s second-favorite propaganda vehicle by a guy running an industry PR outfit posing as a think tank has even the tiniest shred of credibility
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Does the fact that its in the WSJ mean its not true? At the end of day if you are on Hungry Onion you like good food. We all do. Regardless of your politics (disclaimer: I am flaming moderate centrist Libertarian leaning skeptic of left and right extremism, if that makes any sense LOL), we are all here because we love food and restaurants. The questions are: 1) are well meaning SF policies hampering the success of restaurants? 2) are all those frigin permits really needed??? 3) what can the city do to help small business restaurateurs be profitable and successful so the city does not turn into a monopoly of corporate run restaurants? I don’t have the answers. I have a friend who had a highly regarded small restaurant and saw how his business was smothered and eventually snuffed out by the weight of all the SF regulatory and other burdens. IT IS A PROBLEM.
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