So Much for 2012 Pastry, Gelato and Salami Workers in San Francisco

The People's Republic of San Francisco has boosted the minimum wage in the city to $10.00 per hour.

This is on top of a 1.5% city payroll tax and the requirement that employers provide nine paid sick days and provide health care. This brings the total cost to over $12.00 per hour.

The confused San Francisco Living Wage Coalition is hailing the new higher minimum wage as though it will help minimum wage workers, when it will in fact result in some minimum wage workers being laid off.

Wages, like all prices, are set by supply and demand. When you raise the price of a product above the market clearing price, the quantity demanded declines. Raising the minimum wage will, if it is above the market wage (and it appears it is in SF), will result in some workers being laid off at the margin.

Indeed, that appears to be exactly what will occur in SF.

SFC reports:

"I hate it," Daniel Scherotter said of the city's highest-in-the-country minimum wage.

He's the chef and owner of Palio D'Asti, an Italian restaurant in the Financial District, and a previous president of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association...

He said he recently cut his kitchen staff by eight workers and no longer makes pastries, gelato or salami in-house, thereby directing his money outside the city for those products.

And it won't boost the standard of living for others in the city, either. Scherotter explains:

"If you want to know why so many chefs are getting into the food truck, taqueria, quick-service game, that's why," he said. "Of course we all love tacos, but the fact is if you're operating on the 19th century model with full-service, that's got problems."...

"Who the hell would hire a teenager for $12 an hour?" he asked.

And there you have it, a perfect example of do-gooder laws hurting everyone. The higher minimum wage will hurt those just attempting to enter the wage force, making many unemployable. Leaving them to do nothing but roam the streets. The business owner isn't happy because he has to waste time finding ways around the onerous wage laws. And the consumer sees his standard of living drop, since fewer will attempt to enter the labor intensive restaurant business.

In other words, a trifecta of trouble, because of  basic economic ignorance in the land of heavy fog.

Christmas and Crime in San Francisco

Steve Jobs, if nothing else, is a marketing genius.

I stopped by the Apple Store in San Francisco, today. The store was packed like it was the Christmas shopping season. I mean packed. There were dozens of iPhone 4's on display, along with iPads, iPods and laptops. There were lines for a test ride for all of them. And, also, lines at the cashier desks.

It was great to see the magnificent enjoyment that every was having thanks to that great entrepreneur, Jobs.


But, of course, this being San Francisco, no visit is complete without a crime story, and so I have one. This time it happened right at the Apple story, a big burly guy tried to nab something from the store. How he did it I'm not sure, because everything seemed pretty well locked down.

Two Apple security guards grabbed him as soon as he left the store. He put up quite a fight. The security cards eventually took care of business, called the police and he ended up being arrested and sent to the hospital in an ambulance.

I Told You It's a Crazy Crime Zone: The Mayor of Sacramento Robbed in San Francisco

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson said he was robbed on the streets of San Francisco over the weekend as he was helping "an elderly gentleman I met on the BART train."

Johnson wrote on his blog:

I didn't expect to be a crime victim on the streets of San Francisco. ... But it happened, on a beautiful evening this past weekend near Union Square. As crimes go, it could have been much worse. I was helping an elderly man when somebody sneaked up behind me and stole my garment bag. I lost a nice suit, a nice pair of shoes and overnight toiletries. Not the end of the world, but frustrating.

The real crime was the vulnerability of it all, the idea that I could leave my bag on a crowded street, turn my back for 30 seconds and have my stuff stolen.

He wouldn't have been surprised if he read EPJ and my take on San Francisco, They Have Lost Their Minds in San Francisco. BTW, the Starbucks, I refer to in my commentary is only about four or five blocks from where Mayor Johnson had his bag stolen. Tourists be aware, downtown San Francisco is a crime zone, all of it.

They Have Lost Their Minds in San Francisco

In many ways, San Francisco is one of the most overrated cities in the country. There are homeless everywhere. Just a couple of blocks from the San Francisco Hilton and the Parc 55 Hotel is the Tenderloin District. It looks like a bombed out third world country. The dysfunctional are everywhere, many walking around, half naked, stoned out of their minds.

This morning I am in a Starbucks near the Palace Hotel, sipping some green tea. One of the Starbucks' employees comes up to me and says, "Be very careful with your laptop, don't even leave it unguarded for a second." I look up, on my right are two women sitting on a couch, the employee goes over and tells the women the same thing with regard to their purses. Then I notice that in the next chair over is a guy sitting without any Starbucks coffee, or anything else Starbucks, and he looks like a mugger, if I have ever seen one.

Then there are a man and a woman in the next two chairs who appear to be tourists. The next chair from there? Another guy who looks like a mugger. This guy is hardened. He has a very tough face. The kind of face you get only by spending serious time in the slammer. I wonder if he is one of the 20,000 inmates being released from California prisons because of mismanagement of the budget by Arnold "If My Bodyguards Let Me" Schwarzenegger. Released early or not, this is not the type of guy I would want to meet late at night on a dark street, or apparently mid-morning in a Starbucks.

What's amazing is that these two mugger types aren' t even hiding the fact of what they appear to be in the Starbucks for. They are both just keeping their eyes on the purses.

The Strabucks' employee next went to the tourist couple and started to give the same warning when she notices a homeless looking guy stealing one of the pre-packaged sandwiches. He bolts out the door with the sandwich. She gives chase after him, but he is too fast for her. He's down the street, long gone with his lunch.

This is surreal. You have not lived until you have experienced this in person. The obvious question is, "Why don't they just kick out these two purse snatcher types?" They aren't buying anything. Obama's mantra of, "It's not the neighborly thing to do," comes to mind. But when your neighbor is an interloper ready to pounce on your purse or laptop, I think it is okay to boot these guys out on their butt--with a shotgun in your hand.

I really fear that this delusional city is becoming a potential model for the rest of the country, under Obamarule.

And, I really think they should change the song about losing a heart in San Francisco. There are plenty of bleeding hearts all over the damn place, what they have lost is their minds.